Thread: Giant Dragon Skeleton

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Watching The Amazing Race this season, one of the challenges was putting together giant wooden dinosaur skeleton puzzles in China. And of course I thought "hmmm, that would be really awesome for Halloween."

So I've ordered a couple of wooden dragon models like this one:



and will take them to a copy place to blow the pattern up. Tentative plan is to trace the pattern onto plywood, cut the pieces out and assemble. How hard can it be?

I thought about using something lightweight, but I have to figure that at some point a child will try to climb on the damn thing. Not planning to make it into playground equipment, just want to be sturdy enough to hold together when the inevitable happens.

Anyone else tried something like this? Any tips to make it easier to build? stronger? easier to store?

Someone did what was dubbed "woodies" in skeletons a few years back. One member enlarged 2 to flank his front door to his house. They were up to the roof!

Copy place? How about tacking them to a secured stick, shine a good bright light behind them, and trace the shadow on the plywood?

Can also go much bigger that way too.

good luck. going to be a lot of work. Can't wait to see the final project!

Originally Posted by Yubney

Copy place? How about tacking them to a secured stick, shine a good bright light behind them, and trace the shadow on the plywood?

Can also go much bigger that way too.

I've done something similar to this renting a overhead projector and making small scale models and blowing them up larger to trace. Worked Great!

Just remember that the slots on the model are made for the thickness of the model, you will need to adjust the slot size for the thickness of the plywood.

Originally Posted by Deadna

Someone did what was dubbed "woodies" in skeletons a few years back. One member enlarged 2 to flank his front door to his house. They were up to the roof!

That was me......

The Dragon looks cool. Didn't see that puzzle before. Bought several dinosaur puzzles in case I ever thought about doing one of them.

As Caretaker said, the slots will vary. My suggestion is that you trace the slot location, but don't cut it out. Then use a scrap piece of plywood on edge to trace out the exact width of the slot.

You will also have to consider weight and structure reinforcement!!!! I ended up doubling the backbone (two pieces of plywood) with a routed groove in the middle and then bent rebar to fit in the groove. As for the legs, I trippled the plywood, cut a groove down the center and inserted 1/2" black pipe for support. (There are pictures of these on my profile in the album "The plywood skeleton project".)

I LOVE the skeletons. Can't wait to see the dragon when you have it finished!! What a great concept.

For some reason those skeletons creeped me out on the first look. Probably has to do with the size.

Great tips about the thickness of the slots. I thought about using a projector to blow it up - haven't done that since high school theater days - long looong ago - and wasn't sure whether I'd get the perspective screwed up. Hmmm, wonder if anyone would notice if I borrow one from the office . . .
Pod - those skeletons are awesome! I put together one of the little guys a couple of years ago and thought about blowing up the pattern someday. Great idea adding the reinforcement in the spine and legs.