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Torii gate

torii gate

It’s a bit of a cliché that every Japanese-themed table seems to have at least one torii gate, but after all they are a very easy and quick way to add some character. You can pick up a cheap laser cut MDF kit for under €10 online, but I thought it would be more fun to see if I could scratch build one that looked just as good. I used corrugated cardboard instead of MDF, but the actual construction of gluing multiple layers together is very similar to one of those MDF kits.

I started out by drawing a simple template in Adobe Illustrator, which I then used to copy the design on a sheet of cardboard. I cut out and glued together 5 layers of cardboard, removing the lower beam on the outer layers to give it some depth.

The cardboard gate before applying wall filler.

I forgot to take pictures of the following steps, but these are pretty self-explanatory. After the glue had dried, I applied a layer of wall-filler which I smoothed out with my fingers as well as I could. After the filler had dried for a few hours I used a paper nail file to sand down most of the texture of the filler. I then cut out a base from a sheet of polystyrene and hot glued the gate to it.

While googling for images of torii gates I found that sometimes these are decorated with ornamental ropes. I decided to replicate this using a bit of sisal twine which I stiffened up with a few drops of super glue. I then gave the whole thing a coat of white wood primer before the usual painting and flocking. Most people tend to go for the classic red and black look, but I thought more natural colours would fit better with the rest of my terrain.

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