Jurassic Park Gate

Ever since I first went to Disneyland (Paris in my case) I wanted to live in a Themepark. So when my iPhone decided to play the 'Jurassic Park' theme on my bus ride home, I wanted to build the Jurassic Park Gate – because why not?

My garden is devided in a front and a back part sice the beginning, but I never had a great idea for seperating the two parts. Now I do.

Materials used:

• scrap Plywood
• screws
• wood glue
• paint leftovers (mostly acrylic)

Tools used:

• Electric Jigsaw
• Cordless drill/screwdriver

English isn't my native language and I did my best writing it all down. If a native speaker is willing to do some proofreading for me, I would be very happy. Please feel free to contact me.

Step 1: Planning & First Mockup

I didn't do much planning other that looking at some reference pictures.

I wasn't even sure if I had enough plywood, but lukyly, I did. The availiable amout of plywood was the deciding factor of how big the gate could becom.

In my stash I had 3 large sheets of plywood. I cut them so one becam the two middle sections and the other two became a bottom and a top section each. then i screwed them to the already existing fence, stacked behind each other. Then I cut a rough test for the arch.

As you might see, the proportions where a bit off, to I marked each part, so they all where equal in height.

The cat 'Babu' didn't do anything helpful.

Step 2: Le Arch

I used Illustrator to trace the contours of the original gate from a high res screenshot (thanks Blu-Ray™) and imported that into the Silhouette Studio software to cut it from vinyl on my Silhouette Portrait.

Since I had only smaller pieces of plywood left, I had to connect two of them to be wide enough for the arch.

First I cut out the contour of the arch itself and marked the position of the letters with some spraypaint.

After test-fitting I cut out the letters. My wife sanded them down a little and attached them with some dabs of wood glue. I also put in some screws.

Step 3: Painting

In the first round I painted the whole thing with a terracotta paint which I had standing around. This is just a primer and to seal it all up a little. A little green gloss spraypaint was used to further seal some of the edges.

I know that this will only slow things down and the whole gate will rot sooner or later, but you can always build another one, right?

The we reassembled it and put on some more paint. A grey base this time. Things started to look really cool now.

Step 4: It's in the Details

I mixed up a much darker grey for the next step. Using the grey, black, burnt umber, some greens and reds, I weatherd the gate and drew on some cracks and stuff.

The faces of the letters were painted yellow and the red text was stenciled on. I was starting to get cold so the vinyl started to get brittle, but it all worked out fine.

Everything was weatherd a final time.

Add some dramatic lighting and enjoy. All in all this took 3 days, most of it due to paint drying.

Now I need to find me some Dino DNA...