The Courtyard

The Courtyard Posts
Gluing the posts for the courtyard fence was pretty simple and straightforward. The biggest concern was to make sure the posts were in a straight line and that they were all turned so that the silver hooks were positioned toward the inside and outside. The guidelines to be installed later would run through these hooks.

You can see in these photos where the strip of masking tape was that covered the line marking the location of the posts. This tape kept the glue and sand off of this area and made gluing the posts easier. There would probably have been a number of posts wiped out if they were already in place when the glue and sand was being applied. Even though the kids were very careful, I felt like this might be the best way to do this.

Here the kids have all the posts glued in place except for the four corners. They did a very good job. At the time, I wasn't sure which direction we should glue the corner posts in. Consideration had to be given to the position of the guidelines. Later, I glued these four posts in a diagonal position.

The Altar of Burnt Offering

We went ahead and used the altar that came in the kit, with a few changes. Legs were added to raise the altar to the level of the ramp that had been constructed. The grate inside the altar was replaced with screen wire which, in my opinion, gives it a more realistic look and the whole thing was repainted a metallic bronze color. Later on, I cut the four horns off the top of the altar and replaced them with larger ones.

In this photo, the guidelines for the inside of the posts are installed. This was done, of course, after the glue under the posts was completely dry. We used embroidery string in an off white color. We simply ran the string through the hooks in the posts all the way around on the inside, then pulled some extra string for slack. Each section of string between the posts was then pulled down and under it's corresponding peg. You can also see here that sand has been added to the space around the posts.

The Courtyard Part 2

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