We fabricated the steel structure for the castle on a plywood template to ensure accuracy. We later gave the CNCcut plywood to our customer to build the concrete base. This ensured a good fit on assembly at the site.
A subframe of ¼-in. pencil rod was welded to the structural steel then galvanized lath was tied to this framework. Sculpting the fiberglass-reinforced concrete came next. It took three long days to sculpt the top section of the castle. We used a bonding agent on the cold joints to ensure a good bond between the sections. We also used a coarser sand than usual so it would look more like a sandcastle once it was painted.
Each section of the sandcastle was built on ½-in.-thick plasma cut steel. This ensured the pieces could be bolted together without worry of flexing, which would crack our concrete. Lifting points were built into every piece. On the sandcastle roofs the eye bolts would turn out and colorful powder coated flags would screw in when we were done.
The scale of the sand bucket and shovel are readily apparent as Jenessa sculpts the fine detail into the giant shovel. The height of our shop door determined the final size. This piece squeaked out with a fraction of an inch to spare—as planned of course.
The moment of truth for every project we do is when we hook the crane to our pieces and lift them off the ground. The location of the lift points is determined by an educated guess, back when we are welding the structural steel. This piece lifted perfectly in balance. Whew!
Even with a setback for inclement weather we beat our deadline by more than two weeks, which made our customer very happy! As the first guests were let in, they lined up for a selfie by the giant bucket and sandcastle. And as predicted, they posted the pics to their social media pages, advertising our client’s park in the process. Mission accomplished!
