9/28/2005

September 28, 2005

Well, I was supposed to go to work today... and to my welding class... but, you know how it goes sometimes. The nice thing about both my job and my welding class is that they are both self paced. I can change my schedule around as needed as long as I get enough time in each week to keep up. With the weather supposed to be getting rainy starting in a couple of days, I thought it best to get the painting done on my new barrel pop-up prop.

I wasn't sure exactly how to tackle the job, so I kind of made it up as I went along. It's not every day that you create a toxic waste barrel...

First things first, I went to work on the computer. I had some trouble finding a suitable image that I could use off of the internet, so I just took some cues from the various images I found while browsing around and created my own from scratch on a design program. I printed out the design as large as I could on my printer so that I it would be easier to see in the image and so that the lines would be easy to follow when I cut out a mask.
I decided that the stock printer paper I have would make a pretty lousy mask template, so I taped a piece of transparency paper to the sheet. Using an exacto knife I cut out the sections of the deign that I wanted the paint to go through.
The image to the right shows what the final mask template looked like when it was finished. The circles on the outside of the mask were originally going to be a black boarder around the symbol, but I decided after I reached this point that I didn't like the way it looked.
I colored in one of my printouts and taped it to the barrel so I could get some idea of what it would look like. That's when I decided that a warning triangle would look really good around the symbol. I basically freehanded the triangle using some wide painter's tape. I eyeballed the triangle until I found a rough shape that I liked. I went ahead and rounded the corners a bit because I thought that it would look nicer.
I did a lot of masking around the outside of the triangle to keep the overspray off the barrel. I used neon yellow paint that I bought from the hardware store. I am hoping that the neon yellow will glow somewhat under black light. That would make the prop a lot more interesting.
After I pulled off the masking tape I realized that the warning triangle needed a black boarder to make it look right on the white background of the barrel. I did some testing with electrical tape and liked the look, so I used the tape as a guide and masked off around the triangle again. It wasn't easy to mask off both the inside and outside of the triangle so that I could get a border and the symbol in the middle in one shot, but I managed to find a way.
Once everything was masked off, I sprayed it all with semi-gloss black paint. This is where I had some doubts about my masking job...
After all the masking was peeled off I got my first look at how it all turned out. Really nice and clean. A bit too clean almost... It looks so bright and nice that I am a bit worried that it will look out of place on Halloween night.
The finishing touch was a bit of neon green all around the top of the barrel to dirty things up a bit. I decided to put the paint on so thick that it would drip down the sides. The image to the right shows how it turned out. Nice <grin>... I really hope that the yellow and green glow under black light. I have to find a dark place in the house to try it out...
...OH YEAH!!! The image to the right shows the barrel both in normal light and in black light. The black light REALLY makes the paint stand out! The only room in the house that I could find that was dark enough to test the black light was the downstairs bathroom. It took a minute to figure out how to fit myself, the light, the barrel and the camera tripod all in the bathroom (with the door closed).

I can't wait to test the barrel out with the fog machine. I'm hoping that the fog will pick up some of the green glow and make the effect even better...

The next step is to get to work on the actuator arm that will pop up the toxic victim in the barrel. I kind of feel sorry for the kids this year <evil grin>.

Update

There's only one thing better than getting a skeleton in the mail... and that's getting 2 skeletons in the mail.

It's kind of weird to see a couple of skeletons in a box wrapped up in bubble wrap, but then again, things like that happen so often around here that even the kids were excited to help me unpack and assemble the skeletons.
Emily struts her stuff. She knows exactly which leg goes on which side. She has a bit of trouble with one of the bolts, but manages to get the legs attached.
Ahh, making themselves comfortable after a long journey... The girls and I had some fun posing the skeletons. There's a lot of arguing over names for the skeletons now that there are several of them in the house.

Now I have a lot more work to do to get everything ready for Halloween. There's no shortage of skeletons now and there's lots of gorifying that needs to take place. I now have the option to use one of the skeletons for the toxic barrel prop - well, at least part of one.

The skeletons are pretty heavy weighing in at around 20 pounds (9.07 Kg) each. I'm not sure if my pneumatic pistons will have enough lifting power to do some of the things I want to with them...

That just got me thinking... I really would like to use a torso from one of the skeletons for the barrel prop, but the weight is a serious issue with my home made pistons. I just realized that if I fill the barrel with water, I can take almost all of the weight away by adding some floatation to the skeleton... Add to that the bonus of bubbling water from the leaky pneumatics under the prop and the possibility of spraying mist from the discharge. Not to mention that I won't have to worry about someone knocking the prop over - it would weigh in at over 300 lbs.

I have to try some experiments...

I removed the legs from one of the skeletons and did some test fitting to see if the barrel could handle the remaining skeleton. It's a tight fit, but I think with a little work I can make use of the skeleton and include the arms. You have to like the little boney fingers hanging on to the edge of the barrel - it's a primer for what's to come...
The height is just about perfect. With the pelvic bones resting on the bottom of the barrel, the head is a good 5-6 inches below the top edge of the barrel. The hands can be easily attached to the edge of the barrel and make the prop a bit more stable so that there will be little twisting when the piston is fired. There's not enough throw in the piston to get the height that I want, so I'll have to manufacture a lever to increase the overall height of the throw. That's going to add more effective weight, but I think I can overcome that with the water and some floatation.
I held the skeleton up at about the minimum level that I would like to have it come out of the barrel. It's going to have to come up really fast to move through the water and get the effect I want. In a perfect situation, the skeleton would pop up to a standard human height or more, but there will need to be some floatation attached that remains under water. The effective height will be less than twice the height of the skeleton with no legs... Unless of course I can lever the floatation somehow... Hmmmm, there's not much room in there...

So many things to figure out... It's getting a bit complicated. I have to decide if the result is worth the many hours of building and testing that it will take to make it work reliably. There is a point at which the scare is effective and any additional work is wasted... I have to sleep on this one.