# All new entry and fencing for Mt Ogden Manor 2015



## slcjeeper (Mar 17, 2011)

For 2015 I finally built a new entry and fencing for our haunt. We call it Mt Ogden Manor and so far it has been a walk around. I've posted some pictures of the elements to this build in the prop section, but decided to put it all together in a picture tutorial. The build includes a complete new 11 1/2' tall entry with arch, 6' side fence panels, and 13 8' fence panels with fence posts. There are several details that didn't get recorded, so if anyone has any questions, ask away. I'm happy to share. https://flic.kr/s/aHskpYVRRM


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## jdubbya (Oct 4, 2003)

That has to be the most impressive entrance display i've ever seen! What an awesome pic with the moon above and the gorgeous lighting. nothing short of a Hollywood movie set. Are those gargoyles the ones that are flat back with detatchable wings? Those are on my list for next year. Just perfect my friend!


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## slcjeeper (Mar 17, 2011)

jdubbya said:


> That has to be the most impressive entrance display i've ever seen! What an awesome pic with the moon above and the gorgeous lighting. nothing short of a Hollywood movie set. Are those gargoyles the ones that are flat back with detatchable wings? Those are on my list for next year. Just perfect my friend!


Thank you very much! Yes, those are the gargoyles. The plan for next year is to have verticle foggers in each pillar and blast fog out of the gargoyles mouths.


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## stick (Apr 2, 2009)

That is just outstanding. I stand up and bow to you. The time you put into that shows in all the detail. Thanks for posting pictures along the way in the building of it.


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## Rigormortor (Sep 7, 2009)

Wow now thats the king of all gates! Awesome!!


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## Trex (Nov 6, 2010)

OMG....wow I just went through your Flickr album, that is incredibly well done! I love it!!


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## SpookyMuFu (Sep 14, 2009)

I downloaded the full picture set and I'm saving it for later, lots of good ideas in there, I already made some pillars but I see some add on/upgrades I can do using some of your ideas....


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## slcjeeper (Mar 17, 2011)

SpookyMuFu said:


> I downloaded the full picture set and I'm saving it for later, lots of good ideas in there, I already made some pillars but I see some add on/upgrades I can do using some of your ideas....


 Glad you found it helpful. If need any details, let me know.


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## Rigormortor (Sep 7, 2009)

slcjeeper said:


> Glad you found it helpful. If need any details, let me know.


Now after Halloween did you take it all down and store it away? Or leave it up? It looks so good I might leave that
up for a while, but the weather could mess it up I suppose.....


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## slcjeeper (Mar 17, 2011)

Rigormortor said:


> Now after Halloween did you take it all down and store it away? Or leave it up? It looks so good I might leave that
> up for a while, but the weather could mess it up I suppose.....


Sadly it all came down. We usually do The Nightmare Before Christmas for Christmas, but not this year. I have to rebuild some of my bigger props and some NBC overlays for the entry. Next year the fence will stay up till New Years and I'll be sure to post pics of it.


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## Saruman of Many Colours (Sep 8, 2010)

Very nicely done! Most impressive.


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## Shadow Panther (Apr 4, 2013)

Dang it now I need to get mine built. Those are AMAZING!!!!!!!!!


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## bobzilla (Nov 15, 2008)

Beautiful!
Really stunning work!!!


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## The Halloween Lady (Jul 17, 2010)

Absolutely beautiful! Seriously beautiful!!!!!!


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## Saki.Girl (Aug 22, 2012)

WOW omg this is amazing I love it all and I do NBC also for Christmas what a great way to have the fencing up for both holidays I plan on doing a grave yard next year and this has totally motivated me 
amazing


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## Saki.Girl (Aug 22, 2012)

Thank you for sharing


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## spiney99 (Nov 1, 2010)

Wow..a maz ing..had to split into 3 words since 1 wasn't enough


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## slcjeeper (Mar 17, 2011)

Thank you everyone! 



Saki.Girl said:


> WOW omg this is amazing I love it all and I do NBC also for Christmas what a great way to have the fencing up for both holidays I plan on doing a grave yard next year and this has totally motivated me
> amazing


Saki Girl, do you have any pic of your NBC?


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## kculbert (Nov 10, 2015)

That is absolutely fantastic! You are a true artist.


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## Cloe (Mar 18, 2013)

Wow. I can't even come up with words to describe how awestruck I am. Absolutely fantastic job.


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## Ghost of Spookie (Sep 28, 2008)

What an impressive gateway to your haunt! I bookmarked your album and I loved everything you did. So glad to have checked out your thread and took the time to looked through your flicker photos too. Nice inclusion of your sketches. I have lots of comments and questions!

Great brickwork, love your Mt Ogden Manor signage. How did you achieve the top of it with the medusa head and snakes. Very nice pantina look of the "brass" plaque btw. Those snake handles on the gate look really cool. Were they bought or created out of something like clay? 

Curious why you chose to create and glue on individual bricks as opposed to carving out a large sheet with grout lines. I've seen it done both ways.

To achieve the ornate arch and lettering was that done with a scroll saw? No hands on experience yet with carpentry tools so a guess on my part. Nice job on both.

Gotta ask, is that one of the 99 Cent or Dollar Tree door knockers on your center signage and is the background for it one of the little medieval shields from the kids area? Both look familiar and your finished arch turned out amazing. Looks like hammered ironwork.

Gargoyle Column curved tops -- holy crap. Can't get over all the individual pieces that made it. 

You really did precision work through out on this. Hats off. And if I didn't know it was foam with wood backing already, I would have thought it was done with masonry, concrete and iron. It looks SO good in the daylight.

So your photos have me curious about the other cemetery structures you have in the yard that I only see a glimpse of. Do you have photos of those as well? Thanks so much for sharing your work with us. Really inspiring.

Two more questions, the columns appear taller than your roof line...so where do you store them? Any rollers on the bottom of them?


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## slcjeeper (Mar 17, 2011)

Ghost of Spookie, Wow, glad to have caught your interest. First let me say thank you to everyone for their continued kind words. This was a fun build. Every step of the way I would stop and check project scale. I had rough measurements of what things needed to be, but a lot of it was built on what size an item needed to be based on appearance so that everything flowed together. I often cut something to what looked right and then measured, then duplicated. It was a little bit of a fight not to make things too perfect..

The Medusa was a find in my desperation not to have to make all the snakes twice. I got lucky and found something that fit perfectly. I got them here: http://kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=PT8466&name=Medusa+Wall+Plaque The handles are sand cast brass that I found at a shop in Australia http://silkroadyamba.com.au/shop/medium-skull-handle-door-pull-spine-solid-brass-old-vintage-bronze-style-280mm-b/ I used the medium size. I'm so glad I used brass because it really added to the realism. TOTs would pose at the gate and grab the handles and were always amazed that it felt so real.

I went back and forth on how to make the bricks for a little while. There are a several reasons I went with the method I did. To have achieved the grout depth I wanted, to have used solid foam and routing would have required using 2" foam or gluing 2 1" sheets together. That instantly would have doubled the cost of the foam. It also would have created a much bigger mess due to routing a 1" deep channel versus cutting with a table saw. In addition, by using the table saw, I was able to get more coverage out of a sheet of foam because I only lost 1/8" of material per cut and spread the bricks out. It doesn't sound like much, but it saved me from having to buy 1 more sheet of foam. I also eliminated the possibility of routing a grout line out of alignment. It's hard to see in the photos, but by gluing the bricks on, it's easy to run them in an imperfect line. It's the slight imperfections in brick spacing that made it believable. Routing wouldn't look as natural. Other reasons were that there wasn't a router bit that would create the size channel I needed. Using an off the shelf bit would have caused the finished brick dimensions to have changed. Then there was the daunting task of having to rout out all those short vertical grout lines and it left too much chance to make a mistake, and, well, I simply didn't want to take the time. Oh, I also needed the foam to be backed with something rigid so I could hang the gate and the other parts. I was afraid thicker foam would allow bolts and screws to sag.

To cut out the arch, I used an electric hand jig saw with the thinnest scrolling blade I could find. In one of the pictures you'll see a Black & Decker cheapie Jig saw. I wouldn't recommend using one for that work. It may work on thinner material, but this was a dense 3/4" plywood. I quickly went to using a Milwaukee 18v cordless that had much better blade control. The problem became that in the turns, the blade on the cheap saw wanted to drift at an angle, or kick out to the side. It also overheated too fast.

I cut the lettering on a Dremel scroll saw something like this http://www.quality-handtool-review.com/dremel-1671.html#sthash.A40gIZnC.dpbs They're fairly common in the classifieds. I got mine for $40.

Gotta love Dollar Tree! Yes, that is where I got the parts for the shield. I don't think I showed it, but I went over all the edges on the arch with a dremel router. I wanted an old laminated iron or cast iron look. It's coated with black Rustoleum Vertical Restore and dry brushed with iron paint from http://www.sculptnouveau.com/ If you plan on working with patinas, they are a fantastic company with Awesome support! 

The toppers, yes Ha Ha! There were roughly 50 pieces per topper. I made a simple jig for a hot knife that really made quick work of it. It's shown in a couple of the pictures. They were all glued together with Glidden Gripper.

Thank you! I personally think the time spent on the grout lines really sold it to look like brick. For the grout, I used Restore 10x and applied it with refillable caulking tubes. I tried using a grout bag and found that way too much of a mess and not nearly as controllable as a caulking gun. http://www.clcboats.com/shop/products/boat-building-supplies-epoxy-fiberglass-plywood/marine-epoxy-fiberglass/west-system-810-fillable-caulking-tube.html

I don't think I have many pictures of the other pieces posted anywhere. I'll have to create a new Flickr album to show them.

None of the pictures show them, but I put some nice wheels on the columns. The columns without the cap are 8' tall and so much easier to roll around. Fortunately they're light enough that I can load them in the truck by myself and drive them to the storage unit. I have a unit with 10' roll up doors that works perfectly. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-2-in-Swivel-Non-Marking-Rubber-Caster-4034245EB/203672387

I hope that covers it. As always, if you have any other questions, I'm happy to share.


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## Ghost of Spookie (Sep 28, 2008)

Really great info on products and approach slcjeeper, thanks so much for sharing. Both the Medusa plaque and Skull handles are exquisite. I thought your reasoning behind the individual bricks vs. single routed sheet was very helpful. Large foam panels aren't exactly cheap so nice way to save some money. There's so much to consider from a work/cost/time perspective when you approach a project like this. Good food for thought. 

I hope to have some facade work in our future haunts so will keep what you did with your brickwork in mind. I'm still working on accumulating the tools and such I'll need since we are basically a non-tool home with just the necessities. Regret that my dad who had a large workshop in the basement lives too far away to make use of his equipment. Neither hubby nor I are tool knowledgeable, so are learning as we go. I did recently buy our first workhorse and will pick up another soon. Figure I'll need them for the facade panel work. Did you do your texturizing/grouting/painting work on horizontal panels or while the columns were vertical? Kind of got the impression from some of the photos that you did the detailing work on a vertical surface. Also on my buy list for some time now are Hot Wire tools. I'm trying to space out the equipment cost over the year so it doesn't hurt so much at once. BTW I wanted to mention that I thought you did a nice job matching the bricks of the column to the brick on your house.

If you do add an album with photos of the other items in your yard, please post a link here. Thanks again.


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## slcjeeper (Mar 17, 2011)

Ghost of Spookie,

I put the columns on their sides to coat them with foam coat and to grout them. All other painting was with the columns upright. The black dots you see was a mistake. My spray gun spit and then I had to figure out what to do with spatter on one column. My fix was to get the gun to continue to spit and spray everything else the same way. I then used some Rosco van **** brown in a spray bottle to wash everything with a dirty coat. I got the hot knife for edging the bricks from Harbor freight. Just get the warranty if you do. I did and went through 4 of them.


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## DaveintheGrave (Feb 12, 2004)

Your entrance looks amazing! Hard to believe t's not real.


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## HillStreetHaunt (Nov 12, 2015)

Where can I purchase those gargoyles?


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## slcjeeper (Mar 17, 2011)

I got mine from Halloween mart. http://www.halloweenmart.com/gargoyle-wall-mount.html They're made by Rubie's Costumes


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## punkineater (Apr 26, 2014)

EPIC entrance!!! It truly does look like a movie or Disney build~amazing work there, slcjeeper!!!

Thank you for sharing the build photos and tips too


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## ghostlland820 (Jan 11, 2014)

Amazing! I agree that it looks like something created for a Disney-esque attraction. I'd also like to see more of your other props!


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## chef (Jun 7, 2010)

Love this! Thanks for all the photos and answered questions!


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## HarvardHollow (Mar 13, 2016)

Awesome work! Thanks for the write up as well. 
I'm amazed by the creativity that halloween brings out in folks.


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## ooojen (Sep 4, 2014)

Thanks for sharing-- you photos, and so much information. I need to look at the album yet.
I don't have gates, nor a good spot for any in the future, but I still found the build information fascinating. You did a wonderful job!


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## Shadow Panther (Apr 4, 2013)

Where did you get your bat finals? They make the fence o so much better


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## slcjeeper (Mar 17, 2011)

Shadow Panther said:


> Where did you get your bat finals? They make the fence o so much better


Thank you! The fence bats were made by Roger Hays of Hays Haunt in GA. He made the molds and used resin. The gate toppers are Disneyland Haunted Mansion wine stoppers.


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## theundeadofnight (Aug 14, 2011)

Fantastic prop construction . Great skills . Looks amazing .


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## CUZICAN (Apr 28, 2016)

This is just amazing, just wish I had the room to store something like this.


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## MasterofFright (Apr 18, 2017)

I am lucky enough to have actually seen this amazing display in person. The pictures do not do it justice at all. We came by your house about ten times last year. My kids couldn't get enough of your yard.


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## slcjeeper (Mar 17, 2011)

MasterofFright said:


> I am lucky enough to have actually seen this amazing display in person. The pictures do not do it justice at all. We came by your house about ten times last year. My kids couldn't get enough of your yard.


MasterofFright, We're so glad you enjoyed it! It's the whole reason we keep doing it. We're busy working on new props, so let your kids know we should have at least a few new things this year. Hope to see you again!


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## MasterofFright (Apr 18, 2017)

I will let them know. They will be excited. You're going to need a bigger yard if you keep expanding.


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## Diabolical (Sep 16, 2017)

awww, that is really impressive. I don't have snow here, you can store it here ;p


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