Halloween 2004 Journal

September 4, 2004

I've been getting a lot of email lately about this website. I'm not sure what has happened to cause it, but it is getting relatively close to Halloween and I am glad that I have been hearing from so many people - it serves as a reminder for me to get off my butt.

I added some pictures from Halloween 2003 to the Past Haunts section of the web site to try to bring the content up to date. I don't have that many pictures of Halloween 2003, so there's not a lot I can add to it. Halloween 2004 will just have to make up for it I guess.

We have moved to a new area and I really don't know how people might react to the level of decorating that I like to do. We're in an apartment now, so that puts a lot of restriction on what is realistically possible. There's just not all that much space to work with and from what I understand, it's really cold here in late October. I've got somewhat of a challenge ahead if I want to have some fun this year <grinning>.

September 9, 2004

I picked up a 4 foot shop light and a couple of black light bulbs at the local hardware store. The shop light comes in gloss white so I decided to give it a paint job and change it to a satin black.

The first task was gutting the electrical from the housing so that I could paint just the outside of the light fixture without getting any paint on the inside.

I roughed up the white paint with some sandpaper and put a nice thick coat of primer on.

After the primer coat I painted the exterior with high temperature satin black paint. The paint is designed for wood stoves and can handle much more heat than the light fixture might put off.

After the paint was dry, I put the electrical components back inside the housing and screwed everything back together.

The final step was putting the new 4 foot (30 watt) black light bulbs in the fixture and testing it.

It works great and you can hardly see the black light fixture now. I may end up swapping out the white cord for a black one that is quite a bit longer, but for now I am satisfied with the results.

September 14, 2004

	I received the motor & power supply that I ordered on the internet from C&H sales about a week ago. I can finally start working on a new animated ghost
	I transferred the measurements for the motor mounts to a piece of aluminum sheeting and used a punch to help guide the drill bit. The aluminum sheeting measures 6"x22". It's pretty thin (I'm guessing around 1/16"). I picked up the aluminum sheeting at a local scrap metal yard.
	I checked the fit of the motor before moving on to drilling out a hole for the DC receptacle and mounting holes. Using the punch really helps to keep the drill bit from wandering, but I still had to widen out a couple of the holes to get them to line up perfectly.
	I bent the aluminum into a basic "U" shape with a couple of tabs for mounting the whole assembly to the ceiling. I sold all of my shop tools, so the bending process was a bit rough. I just used the edge of the counter to help keep the bend even and straight. In this picture you can see the hole for the DC power receptacle and one of the sets of mounting holes.
	After painting the housing for the assembly with some primer and semi-gloss black paint, I mounted the motor. I put some foam rubber tape between the motor and the housing to help reduce the motor noise.
	Plug wires soldered
	Arm assembly mounting & testing

September 15, 2004

Guess what came in the mail today?

I ordered a "Bucky" skeleton from the anatomical chart company a couple of weeks ago and the box was sitting on the front porch when I came back from running some errands.

For the most part I am pleased. The ribs are broken here and there and the entire chest is deformed, but that shouldn't be too hard to fix.

I still have not decided what to do with the skeleton yet. It's a lot heavier than I thought it would be. It's defiantly too heavy to lift using one of my pneumatic pistons...

Oh how exciting! A new challenge and some really great potential.

September 19, 2004

	I spent most of the day today fixing the head of the skeleton. It had been glued together badly and the eye sockets and nose were all messed up.
	It's not a great picture, but here's a shot of the skeleton parts before and after applying paint. On a tip from another web site, I used Minwax Gelcoat Mohogany #605. I put it on think and heavy with a brush and then blotted it off with a couple of terry cloth towels.
	Here's a shot of some of the parts. I painted right over all of the hardware that holds the skeleton together. They now blend right in and are much less noticable.
	A shot of the ribcage after applying stain. It took the longest to get this part done, but the results are pretty amazing. I bought a quart of stain and ended up only using about 1/3 of the can doing the entire skeleton.

September 22, 2004

	A friend of mine gave me the use of his shop to work on the animated ghost assembly while I am waiting for the stain to dry on the skeleton. I cut and shaped the armature for the animated ghost from some 3/16 x 1 inch aluminum stock.
	Here is how I ended up with the initial bends. The head support is too far back, but the way I designed the armatures, I can change their length by attaching them with a different set of holes.
	The last animated ghost I made I used pulleys to guide the strings. I have not been able to find any pulleys small enough to work, so I am going to try just using some eyebolts instead. I did some testing and it looks like the eyebolts will work just fine.

October 21st

It's been a little while since I have had time to update the website. There has been so much going on lately that I have not had the time and energy to put into the Halloween projects.

	Becky was nice enough to let me coat her entire face in mulage for one of my more creative Halloween projects. My friend Greg helped by taking pictures during the process. If you are wondering what the heck mulage is, it's a mold making product that becomes a liquid when heated up and then turns to a rubber like state once it cools. I used alginate in the past, but alginate is very expensive and once it is used, it can't be used again. Mulage can be broken into pieces and re-melted over and over again, so I thought that it would work better for testing. I added a few layers of gauze during the process to try to strengthen the mold of Becky's face.
	I built up to a thickness of about an inch and then waited for the entire thing to set. Unfortunately, in order to be able to apply the mulage to Becky's face we had to let it cool down to 100 degrees or so and we found out that at that temperature, the mulage sets up too fast and doesn't stick to itself very well. The end result was a learning experience. I can see where the mulage will come in very handy for casting but it's not really all that practical at the lower temperatures needed for life casting. Alginate seems to be the only way to go for that... No harm done. I broke the mask up into pieces and re-melted it back into the pot for later experimentation.
	I thought that I would share the latest pictures of the skeleton. It's had quite a bit of work done to it since it arrived in the mail. The entire ribcage and spine were straightened out using a heat gun and some bungee cords to hold everything in place. It took a couple of hours to get everything where I wanted it. Once I had everything in place I had to epoxy some of the ribs that broke apart during the reshaping process.
	The end result is a much better looking skeleton ready to be displayed. Take a look at the earlier photos of the skeleton and you can see how deformed the ribcage was when I started working on it. It is worth mentioning that these skeletons weigh quite a bit. I would guess that it weighs in at around 30 pounds or so completely assembled. That has made the task of animating the skeleton a real challenge. I will not be able to use my homemade piston design to make the skeleton move. I may just have to use it as a static prop this year.