Garage Monster Teeth - With Template

This project is always a hit with the kids and adults on Halloween. It is relatively easy to make and doesn't have to break the bank. It doesn't have to be perfect, and you don't need to know how to draw to make this. It can easily be made in a day. There is minimal waste with this project and both the top and bottom rows of teeth can be cut out at once, more on that later. It is also reusable if you can find a place to store it year-round. I store mine in the attic

2 - sheets of 3 mm 4 foot x 8 foot plywood (My hardware store carries 2.7mm which they call 3mm)

4 - 3/4 inch x 2 inch x 8 foot furring strips

5/8 inch screws

3/4 inch screws

1-1/2 inch-long screws

Wood glue

White Primer

Paint Brush or Paint Roller

Black Spray paint

White Spray Paint

Pencil

Printer

Paper

Jig Saw

Drill

3/8 inch drill bit

Utility Knife

Tape Measure

Small Brass Hooks

D-rings for picture hanging

Duct Tape

Hand Spring Clamps

Plastic Drop Cloth

Clamp Lights

Green Bulbs

I bought 2 sheets of 3mm plywood for this project, you can also use 1/4 inch plywood but that will be heavier when hanging. The 3mm works but is a tad bit more fragile.

I drew this template over a grid pattern that is 4 squares by 8 squares which represents a full sheet of plywood. The first thing you want to do is draw a grid pattern on your plywood. I used a tape measure and a straight edge to mark one-foot increments across the top, bottom, and sides of the plywood. Then I connected the lines with a straight edge to make the same 4x8 square grid pattern on the plywood.

I used the "Grid Technique" to draw the teeth/cut lines on to the plywood. I first saw this technique on a kids show where volunteers are replicating a small handheld drawing of a dinosaur on to an enormous billboard. They used the small reference drawing that had a grid over it to transfer the lines to the same larger grid on the billboard. Basically, you use the grid as points of reference for where the cut lines have to be drawn on the plywood. Do not fret over this part this does not have to be perfect the teeth can be a little off and it won't make a difference. Remember these are monster teeth so the imperfections will only add to the overall look. You can see my pencil lines are pretty thick which was me trying to get the right curves to the lines. This part only took me about 5 minutes to draw.

Next, you have to prep the two sheets of plywood for cutting. I put one sheet directly on top of the other sheet and made sure they were lined up at the corners. Then I screwed them together in the corners. This is so that the two sheets do not move around while you make the cuts. Don't worry about the screw holes as no one will notice them once its painted.

In order for the jigsaw blade to have a starting point I drilled some 3/8 inch holes at the pointed parts of the teeth. Depending on how wide your jigsaw blade is you may need a larger diameter bit. Once all the holes were drilled I began to make the cuts following my cut lines as best I could. Here again do not worry about having absolutely perfect cut lines as long as you are close to following your pencil lines the end result will look just fine.

Once you are done making the cuts you can separate the two sheets of plywood. Now you take the bottom sheet of plywood and flip those teeth over horizontally to make the matching full set of teeth. You should end up with 16 feet of top teeth and 16 feet of bottom teeth.

If you have a second set of hands it can be helpful for them to hold and or support the weight of the plywood while you cut. I was able to do this by myself but a second pair of hand would have been nice.

*I ended up removing 6 inches from the bottom of each set of teeth because I felt like they were a little too big. I wanted there to be a bigger opening once in place. I used a table saw for this, but this could also be done with a jigsaw.

Since this is 3mmm plywood you have to add some support to the back side of the teeth. I used 1/2-inch screws for this but 3/4 inch would be better. I put a liberal amount of wood glue on the furring strip and then predrilled and screwed from the front of the teeth, through the teeth and into the furring strip. The screw heads will be in the front of the teeth, but this will get painted over.

I repeated this for all the other teeth.

I did have once thinner section break but I just used the furring strip and some screws to repair that section

Next, I used primer as the white paint for the teeth. I used a roller for this, but you could also use a paint brush or you could spray paint them white.

While the paint dried, I traced out the outline of one of the teeth and used a utility knife to cut a piece of scrap cardboard into that curved shape. This will be used as a template to add a bit of shading to the teeth. The cardboard was a bit flimsy, so I added some extra pieces to stiffen it up.

I did a bit of practice shading using my cardboard template before committing to the actual teeth first. To do the shading you hold the cardboard just above the surface of the teeth and sort of mist the cardboard. Since the cardboard is curved it will leave a curved mist on the teeth giving them some dimension. I repeated this process on just one side of the teeth to make them look like individual teeth. Once I was happy with that, I used some white spray paint to tone down any spot I thought was too dark or needed to be a little whiter.

I used some small picture hangers, also called d-ring hangers, to hang the top teeth from the top of my garage opening. I already had hooks installed there from other decorations, so I just reused those. I installed two d-ring hangers to the furring strips on the back of the top teeth about 12 inches in from either side. The d-ring just hangs off the hooks.

For the bottom teeth I installed some horizontal pieces to the furring strips basically making some 'L" brackets. I used a few scrap pieces of wood and some 1-1/2-inch-long screws. The bottom teeth are just set on the bottom of the garage floor standing up straight.

When I put the bottom teeth on the floor of the garage I noticed that teeth where not lining up so I used a piece of duct tape too tape the two sides together. I had to do the same for the top teeth. It was also pretty windy, so I grabbed a scrap 4x4 and placed it over the "L" brackets to keep the teeth from falling forward. The last picture shows what it will look like for the most part.

I think this step really makes the project. I used some plastic drop cloth pieces to cover up the inside of my garage and make it look more like a mouth. I used two 9 foot x 12 foot plastic drop cloths for this part. I secure one side of the plastic to the rail of the garage door and then use more clamps to secure the top of the plastic to the garage door. I do this for both sides of the garage. Then I clamp the two sections in the middle, which essentially closes off the rest of the garage from the monster mouth. The last pic shows what it looks like from inside the garage looking out of the mouth.

Next, I setup three lights in the 'mouth' I usually use two green bulbs and one purple bulb, but the purple bulb burned out after I took this picture so ended up using 3 green bulbs in the end. I put one bulb on each side of the garage and a third bulb in the middle. As you can see from the second picture, I use the table edge and my ladder to get the bulbs off the ground. This project really comes to life at night. People love to take their picture standing in front of it on Halloween.

Thank you for taking the time to read all of this and I hope this will inspire you to make your own monster garage. Happy Halloween!!!