Stone Walls from
more ScaryGuys!

We always want to hear how you have improved or changed our projects. Here's some great ideas and variations for the Stone Walls. Thanks, ScaryGuys!

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Here's a great tip from Ben Dickinson:
I build these walls to look exactly like brick and stone for photograhpy studios (and myself) and one of the quickest but definately messy ways to get that "perfect"look is the following:
Prep the board the way you normally would (remove the plastic etc) but instead of using sand paper first, use a brass or steel polishing wheel brush on a drill. You can, with experience, manipulate this with much deeper gouges and makes mortar lining a snap. I usually draw the morter lines in first then use the drill. You can get an 8x4 done in about 15 min!! Then if you want some realistic cracks, use a soldering iron and form them in. Unfortunately, I have found no quick way to paint this, as I'm sure you know that stuff absorbs paint a lot.

Ben's website is at: http://www.geocities.com/deadlycreations/home.html

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Some thoughts & tips from Bob Sprong:
I was wondering as I jumped from one cool prop the the next cool prop, I thought that one could use the stone template mold to mark a sheet of insulation foam board. I would mount the stone mold template to a small sheet of plywood, position the template on the foam board, and stand on it, creating an indentation in the foam board, then use a utility knife and cut out the stones. form the edges and stack identical pieces in groups. Then use a caulking gun with liquid nails, and adhere the stones in place. Paint as desired, but I would add the grout lines last.
I use my bender to create arches, simply apply a slight bend to the pipe, slip it into the bender a little, bend it slightly again, slip it ahead a little again, apply another slight bend, and keep repeating the proccess. Once you reach the center, pull out the pipe, and start again from the other end. with a little practice, you can create great arcs in conduit. By applying a slightly more of a bend, or closer bends, you can create a tighter radius, use one large radius, and a smaller radius to create a double arc, then use flexible copper tubing to create spirals and swirls to fill in between the arcs. rill bolt the pieces together. And you have one @$$ kickin' arch for a gate or an entrance. Another cheap way to create swirls is to use garden hose, and slide a much smaller flexible copper tubing into it. If you clip off the ends, you have some thicker swirels. It all gets painted black. The nice thing is that will collapse, (you can take it all apart,) and stow it in the attic for next year. You can also use the screw type couplings to attatch conduit together. (DON'T use the compression style couplings, they will come LOOSE!) With a coupling, you can create larger arches, I would not exceed anything more than tweny feet of conduit. Anchor the conduit into 4x4s by drilling holes into the ends with a paddle bit or wood boring drill bit large enough to accept the 1/2" thinwall conduit. by (temporarily,) setting a ten foot post 2' into the ground, you can set yourself up with a real nice arch and gate. and it will pull out easy after the haunting is over.