The Gates of Hell

61 degrees - no baby bats (mosquitoes) today at all.

An example of a cemetery entry - not scary enough.

I got up this morning and drank my cup of grog, had a bowl of gruel and began work on what will be the iron work round the entrance to the cemetery.

I felt better after the first cup.

I started by building a form out of two inch thick pressure treated wood.  A shallow arch was cut over the length of the board and then I was able to rip several pieces of poplar wood down to one eighth of an inch wide and glue them back together and finally clamp them into the from.  The result was four arches that will make up the top of the entrance to the cemetery.

Top and bottom pieces make up the large arch over the entry.

I then got on the computer at around lunch time and printed out "Grey Raven Cemetery" in a font that I like and then edited the font image so that I can see only the edges as to not waste too much ink.  After gluing the paper onto some Russian Baltic birch plywood I began cutting out each piece at the bandsaw.  I had to run the large vacuum so I put on my ear protection and listened to some old jazz music (thanks Spotify).

Cutting the letters - a two hour project.

Letters as they will go between the arches.

A nice stack of almost completed letters.

Toward the end of the day I was able to get all of the letters sanded so that the paper and glue was removed and all the edges are now smooth.  I also printed an image of a raven that I like with a squarish head that will also be glued onto a piece of wood and will eventually sit on the very top of the arch entry to the cemetery.

Can sit on the top looking pretty or eat your eye out.

It is the evening now and as I sip my two buck blood (TJ's red wine) I'm thinking about all of the other things that I will need to do later in the week and over the weekend.  I still need to work on more of the faux iron work and possibly cut out some leaf shapes that will get tacked and glued onto the arch and vertical supports.  Then the tall boxes that will be painted to look like old brick and stone between the faux iron fencing.  All of this wood (letters, arch, bird, etc.) will be painted black to look like old iron work.

Devon back from volley ball and looking at the letters in place.

Back to work tomorrow but I hope that have more to write about on the weekend.