The cemetary gate, part 3

The last post in this series! Last time, I talked about monster mud and painting. The gate pillars were finished, and all that was needed now was the arch that spans the gate!

The arch
Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the building of the arch, but everything more or less speaks for itself. I used a few sections of 40 mm PVC tube and some elbows. The tubes are painted black with acrylic paint. My girlfriend pointed out that the paint might not adhere to the plastic very well, so I sanded everything before painting.
The elbows are glued to the tubes on only one side, the other side is inserted without any glue. This makes it possible to put the arch together and take it apart again. After we had put it together, we hung some rags on it to make it look a bit, well, creepier.

I think it looks pretty nice! The visitors were also quite impressed, we had lots of good comments.

Possible improvements
The entire package is now stored in my basement, awaiting next year. I will make some improvements by then, though. One problem is that they were hard to transport. The entire outside is styrofoam coated with monster mud, wich is very fragile. The pillars did suffer some damage during transport, nothing that can't be repaired luckily. I'm gonna reinforce the base with wood, and replace the styrofoam top with plywood. That way, I can put them on a trailer and secure them in place with ropes without crushing them.
Another possible improvement: replace the arch with thicker tubes. They just look too thin. I'm also gonna build a fence, and perhaps some text plaques on the pillars. But that's for next Halloween season!