The Abbey is up!

We spent all day Sunday in the rain setting up the Abbey.  We got the scissor lift at 9am and had a minor problem while we waited for them to go get it.  We started on the Abbey about 10am and we finished the last panel about 7pm.   We took a few breaks because of rain showers and stopped to eat lunch.   Probably could have got it done a bit sooner without the rain.   We had more than enough help and the extra hands chipped in to do other things that needed to get done.  We even whipped out a little panel and column on the fly to hide a support beam.

It rained all weekend

We didn't take a single picture all weekend.  But it was the weekend of trim trim and more trim.  We painted it all black and faux painted it during the week.  Our plan was to glue it all on during the weekend and make any more that we needed.  We did glue some of it but only to panels we could stack in the garage.

Our plan is to get it all glued on during this week and finish any last minute details on Saturday before we get the scissor lift on Sunday and put it all up.

Productive Weekend

We got a lot of stuff done but didn't take a lot of pictures.   We built the lattice work for the big back windows of the Abbey.  Finished hanging all the panels on the lower back side.   Built all the trim needed.   Made a few new panels for the front to block off the back area.   We finished painting our 2nd TOT.

Labor Day Weekend

We worked hard all 3 days to get the Abbey ready.  Got the wood structure up and some of the panels on.  We painted all the panels.   We even made all the trim for all the seams.  We painted the Donation box and we finished the new Mud-o-Vision.

Work Weekend

We spent all weekend working on Abbey panels.  On Saturday we finished texturing all the panels and on Sunday we painted them black front and back.

 

We also tore apart the donation box and rebuilt it to be sturdier and came up with a different concept than the mud guys holding it.  We placed it on an evil tree stump.

Mud-o-Vision upgrade

We are going to put a LCD panel into our old Mud-o-Vision prop so we can display color and to upgrade the electronics.   We pulled the old BW TV out of his head and began the process of building a new housing for the LCD panel.

This is Mud-o-Vision with his head blown apart.

New Idea

When we make foam panels stone walls we use a little rubber cement and the debris from texturing to cover the plastic washers we use to hold the foam to the frame.  We normally have to glue these a couple of times to get it to blend in.

This time we tried using a circle of foam cut from 1" foam and then cut in half so it was 1/2" and glued it with gorilla glue to the plastic washer.  We first sink the washer a little deeper so the foam disc can sink in.  Then we texture it and heat gun it and it blends right in and much better looking than the rubber cement and debris technique.

That could have gone better

We were going to dismantle the structure for the Abbey today.  We planned on taking it down piece by piece and labeling it all so it could be painted next weekend.  We started at one end and took out a couple of screws and backed off the end.  Once we did that the structure started to lean and then it fell in on itself crashing to the ground as we watched in shock.  No one was hurt and it only broke a rose bush branch and tore part of a canopy.   The pictures say it all.  At least it was down but not how we planned it.