| I built my first flying crank ghost in 1999 using a ceiling
fan, a bicycle wheel, and some ridiculously complicated looking wood
construction. 
It ran for 2 Halloweens in a row before I decided that
it was just too big and temperamental to work with anymore. I got the
original idea from a link on the Halloween-L
archives. I have made some fairly minor modifications and I think the
instructions on the other website cover everything very well.
I found the
original website - Phantasmechanics.
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The ghost for Halloween 2002... 
click here to see video (38K)
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| In 2002 I built the switch, power, motor, and arm assembly into
one small unit that I could take apart and put away in a standard size storage
box. The head, body and arms of the ghost already folded away nicely and
didn't take up much room, so there was no need for me to change them.
The crank assembly is basically a 12V DC gear motor that
turns at something like 5-7 RPM, a crank arm attached to the output
shaft, 3 support arms with pulleys, a lighted power switch, and a crank
arm link to keep things from getting all tangled up.
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Crank assembly front view
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| I will not go into the details (measurements, etc.) since
you can find that on the website link I provided above. |
Crank assembly back view
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| You can get a pretty good idea how I constructed the crank
assembly by comparing all of the photos I've posted here.
The black thing sitting on top of the support arms is a 15W black
light. My ghost is fairly large - basically human size, so I use 2
black lights. One small one above and a 30W black light below.
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Crank assembly side (switch) view
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| The link is a flat washer with 3 holes drilled in
it. I put 3 "S" hooks through the washer to connect the
strings to. The whole thing is put together so that the washer
spins freely as the crank goes around. That way the strings do not
get tangled or wrapped around the link shaft. |
Crank arm link view
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| Here's a shot of the ghost in the light. I've found that rolling the
mesh material and tying it to the wire arms makes the arms
look more like bones and keeps the material moving with the wire arm
assembly. The mesh material is so light that it doesn't really
hang well enough to just drape over the wires. |
Ghost testing
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| Here's a shot of the ghost from the right side of the
garage entrance.
I've hooked up an oscillating fan off in the corner (aiming at the
ghost from the front) which gives the thin mesh material a more flowing
and eerie look.
I also built up the center of the body with a slightly less
transparent white sheer fabric to give the ghost a little more three dimensional
look. |
Ghost testing with the lights out
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| Here's a shot of the ghost with my back against the garage
door. |
Ghost front view
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