Thread: Christmas Axworthy

Tweet

I'm brand new here to this Forum, this is awesome. I didn't get my Axworthy Ghost completed in time for Halloween last year, so I set it up in the front yard for Christmas and attached some snow flakes with "invisble" braided fishing line to it and made them "float" around the yard as part of my other decorations. It was a real hit and nobody realized it was just halloween "practice." I managed to work out most of the bugs.......except for the kiddies grabbing and pulling on the snow flakes......I can't wait for my revenge on halloween......

A clever idea for another use for an Axeworthy.

I would love to see it.

I need to figure out how to attach photos here.........got any tips?.............

Ahhhhh, I think I figured it out. Please excuse the Christmas theme of this thread.....but trust me, this was just practicing for my halloween axworthy, you know, working out the pulley issues, how to drive it, what to use for the line, etc. At one point, I actually had a Christmas styrofoam plane, complete with LED lights flying around the yard between two palm trees and the light pole out front. One stretch is over 150'. BYW, it's a "Santa's Airport" theme.

I know, I know, there is a Christmas Forum associated with this site that this could be posted on......maybe after halloween is over. Spider Rider said he's going to try the snow flakes on his FCG......good idea I might try that one too.

I'm also looking at building an Axworthy this year. I'm trying to purchase multiple bike rims for the pulleys, and I think I will use a counterweight similar to a ski lift to keep the system tight, but I have a few remaining questions:
1. Any ideas on the motor/speed control mechanisms? (hp requirements)
2. For a large system (say 200ft x 200ft) what would be the best cable options?

Here's the airplane. I added a little santa hat and collar of bells after I took this photo. It was a Xmas pet set I bought for $1.00. I apologize again about the Xmas theme.....my kids told me I should do an evil Christmas theme Halloween this year........hmmmmm.

Reply to The Great Pumpkin:
I'm probably not the guy to ask any questions to. This was my first attempt at building an axworthy. There was a lot of trial and error but I had surprising (to me) success. Most of my ideas came right from this forum. Reading other peoples ideas and learning from their mistakes.
Here's what worked for me:
My "cable" was simply 50 lb braided Spider Wire fishing line. I used bungee cords to attach the pulleys around the yard to minimize the need to re-tie the line due to stretching. (I still had to re- tie 3 times in a month - the line will stretch!) $12.00 and it's reusable.
My motor was a left over hospital bed motor 120 V with a 3/8" shaft that I attached a caster wheel to the shaft. The caster rolls against a inflated tire of a childs bicycle which had another rim only (no tire) attached to it. This rim is what the Spider Wire is wrapped around and drives the whole system. I have some photos if anybody is interested, let me know and I will post them. No more Xmas stuff, I promise.

I would love to see some pictures.

Here's a photo (side view) of the motor up in the tree. It's basically a piece of plywood attached to the tree with a hole thru it to attach the bicycle wheel with the bike rim attached underneath and a motor attached on top with a slot cut in the plywood with the motor shaft and wheel (caster) thru it held against the rubber tire with tension applied with two medium wt. springs.
The motor would only run for 10 or 15 minutes until it overheated so after this pic was taken I added a cooling fan that would come on when ever the axworthy engaged via the motion sensor. That added 10 minutes to the run time which was plenty. I also added a bucket cover held in place by bungee cords to make it somewhat water resistant.