I am finally getting around to planning & building my halloween haunt for 2014. Check the date. Yeah, I'm crunched for time. Story of my life.
The past couple years I've been trying to add some really cool effects like a haunted bust, a talking skull, pneumatic effects, more controlled color floods, and a cemetery arch. Each of the projects is at some less than complete stage.
The cematery arch is big. It spans a driveway and is tall enough to easily drive an SUV under. Last year, I made a special push to complete the arch and I did it just in time to set it up on Halloween day. It sank into the swamp. I set it up again. It burned down, fell over and then sank into the swamp. I learned a lot from that exerience.
The arch itself was PVC. I had used a Gorilla Glued hybred of extruded polysterene foam hard insulation and PVC pipe for the structural side supports. Big mistake. I didn't think foam by itself would be strong enough so I reinforced it with PVC. The arch was then connected to the PVC. Did I mention the arch was big? And long? And high? Oh, and it was kinda heavy. And awkward. Very awkward. I was counting on the weight of the arch to help anchor the side supports ... to unlevel ground ... on a slightly windy day. The side supports are large and not that massive. Even with a little help from Wife, the whole thing fell over during the first attempt at erection. Hey! It didn't break. Yeah!. It waited until the second attempt to break. #$%^! Oh well. learn from it.
What did I learn? Gorrila Glue does not adhere PVC and polystrene well enough for any kind of load bearing application.
This year the plan is build the entire structure from PVC and cover it with insulation.