Introduction: Spooky Halloween Cage!

About: NBCT Teacher, Maker, Grower, Gamer - School Librarian and Coordinator for "Make It...Awesome!" GMS Makerspace and Gardenspace, Seaperch Coach, Girls Who Code Mentor

Need to cage some Halloween creatures this season? Make these spooky Halloween prison bars to keep your ghouls locked away all October.

Supplies

Each section requires:

10 ft. 1/2 inch PVC

2 1x2x8 pine boards

Hot Glue and Gun

Drill with 13/16 bit

Various spray paint

When made in bulk, each section cost about $20.

Step 1: Planning a Dungeon

When you have the kind of Halloween spirit(s) at your house that we have, then you are always looking to expand your displays. Now that we have a few demons to unpack from our closets, our residence Dungeon Master asked to enhance our display with a series of creepy prison bars. We started with a frame of 1/2 inch PVC and 1x2x8 boards, cutting four 5ft. PVC sections and four 4ft. 1x2 sections.

Step 2: Marking and Drilling

To make the grid we are looking for, we marked our wood at 2 inches, 16 inches, 32 inches and 46 inches. We then drilled through two boards using a 13/16 bit and drilled half way through the other two boards using the same bit. These half drilled ones will act as our top and bottom caps.

Step 3: Sand and Assemble

We sanded our wood boards and PVC pipes, this will prep them to be painted, marking the pipes at the lengths we wanted the two middle boards to sit at, 2 ft. and 3 ft. Then it was time to assemble the frame by sliding the pipes through the two boards with holes completely cut out and capping each end with the partially drilled boards. Now we have our frame!

Step 4: Glue and Paint (and Pogo!)

With our pieces in place, we hot glued each connection to hold it in place and make a welding look to our frame. While waiting for the glue to dry, our resident ghoul needed a pogo break. With glue in place, we cleaned up the glue strings and started to paint: flat gray as a base, then metallic gray on the pipes, then dark gray and a chalky dark red to look like rust, stains and various dungeon debris. Once it looked old and grimy, we knew we were done!

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