- Used truck tyres x 9
- Vinyl - stone or brick style 4 x 2.5 m2
- Outdoor carpet 2 x 2 m2
- Perm-a-pole 100 mm x 3 m
- Rapid set concrete bag x 2 (or more)
- Royal looking material
- Old mop pole
- PVC pipe
- Aluminium blind track
- Strapping
- Wood tech screws
- Screws
- Scrap treated building pine timber
- Marine ply 1200 mm x 1200 mm
- Sand / land fill
- Small flat black plastic for the fake window
- Vinyl glue
- Shield
- Double sided tape (strong outdoor)
- Foundation
- Prepare a level paved area with a deep hole in the centre.
- Tyre Preparation
- Drill numerous large gauge holes in the bottom surface of the tyres to allow any water to drain. If water builds up it will create a breading ground of mosquitoes.
- Tower
- Stack the tyres on top of each other.
- Screw strapping to the sides as tyres are added to avoid them moving out of place or toppling.
- Once all the tyres have been added feed the perm-a-pole down inside the stack and into the hole in the ground.
- Pour in the bags of concrete dry then add water by pouring inside using a hose.
- Once the concrete has set, fill the inside of the tyres with sand. I filled up to the top of the forth tyre.
- Roof Base
- Mark the centre of the 1200 mm x 1200 mm marine ply.
- Use a string and pencil to swing and mark a circle 600 mm radius, and a smaller 200 mm radius circle.
- Jig saw out the circles.
- The central small hole is to allow the perm-a-pole to protrude out. The pole is likely not to be reliably central to build the roof off.
- Build a timber bridge over the perm-a-pole.
- Attach a shaft of PVC piping to the centre. This is to hold the flag pole later.
- Attach down the marine ply to the tyres and perm-a-pole using a length of aluminium rail.
- Roof Structure
- Create a structure to hold out the sides of the outdoor carpet roofing, a bit like an umbrella structure. I used more aluminium rail.
- Roof Covering
- Cut out a 1 m radius circle of outdoor carpet.
- Cut one slit from the outside of the circle to the centre.
- Fold the carpet around the roof evenly, with the flaps over lapping.
- Cut flaps of about 10 cm around the edge of the carpet to be folded under the marine ply.
- Screw the flaps underneath on one corner of the flap so that all flaps are overlapping.
- Flag
- Sew a flag with a V shape cut on the end.
- Attach the flag to a pole; I used an old mop handle.
- Feed into the PVC pipe on top of the roof.
- I spray painted gold a wider gauge PVC length of piping and fed over the plain PVC piping for effect.
- Vinyl
- Cut the vinyl to the height of the tower (2.3 m in my case), and enough to wrap around the tyres and overlap (3.5 m in my case).
- Attach the vinyl by screwing on metal strapping. I did this down one side and around the top at the back, out of view.
- Shield and fake window
- I made a fake window out of left over vinyl, a flat piece of black plastic, and vinyl glue. I used double sided tape to attach to the tower.
- The shield was purchased from a toy store and attached to the tower using double sided tape.
More Project Ideas
For a play on fort / castle project see the Cubby House ("The Castle") project.
