Sandcastle - Creating the Crenelations and Cut-Through Arches

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Transcripts

Mark Venit: Hi! I am Mark Venit. I am a professional sandcastle builder, here on the beach in front of the Carousel Hotel in Ocean City, Maryland. Now, we are going to put a crenellated top here, cut some arches, do a little bit of trim, and this is where its getting a little bit hairy. This is my favorite tool, any kind of good sharp knife at least on one side, doesnt have to be serrated. I am going to be cutting and pushing slightly in the direction of where I want the sand to go, so, I am actually packing at the top here.

I've got about the width of this knife on top, and I'll cut down and then through. We are going to measure by the width of the knife again, push towards the left here and then push a little towards the right, insert it, plot another brick.

Now, these objects or crenellations, if there were a path running in here, and guards, they would want a little overhang in case the bad guys wanted to send letters up, so, I cut to the left, cut to the right a little bit, put the knife in, bring some more detail, you can see the shadows are doing a job. Now, I am going to be getting ready to put some arches in here. So, I want to get a little bit of sand away from the front, and then I am going to put a probe in, fetch to build core things. Now, hopefully, I've packed this very tight, very strong, with lots of water, otherwise, I am going to lose the whole thing. So far, so good. Just taking out little more material below where I made the complete cut through, and lets try two in a row.

Now, we are going to widen the cut, carefully and slowly, and I am using my one inch, yeah about an inch, pallet knife or cutting knife. Because as I am doing this, I want to keep the walls packed, and right now, because I dont want to put any stress on that middle column. I am trying to force this sand towards the centre of the cut. Now, I would like to make these arches a little bit taller, but I saw a piece of seaweed sticking down. And I know if I were to tug it, theres a real good chance, everything else would come down, so, quit while you are ahead. We are going to do a little decoration on the top of the arches just to emphasize it, give a little more shadow.

Now, I've cut them about this wide, and I dont want to press my luck, I am going to put a little more trim on the front to give it a very Romanesque architectural touch. Once again, its the shadow that gives us the magic.

In our next clip, I am going to show you how to put some windows in, how to make a crenellated wall out of wet sand, using your bare hand to pack it, which I'll probably do around this tower, and you'll start to see the top of the castle emerge. We've got height; I'll be trimming the sides, all coming up in the next section.

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