Thread: Tombstone Peeper

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Hello there.

First post, so I guess I should have introduced myself in the correct place actually...

Never mind, I've been sent here by a user whom some of you may be aware of, Lea32r, who has asked me to make her some props. One of which is something called a Tombstone Peeper, which she showed me on Youtubes, but I've since lost the link. Sorry about that.

I do regret that this isn't going to be as awesome as the other propmakers on here, but... its an attempt.

Enough waffley.

Right then.

Got on with this a bit later than I wanted today, so only got so far with it.
Easier to let the pictures do the talking really, so here goes.

First, take a board of 3/4inch chipboard, mark out 500x700mm, and then, with a circular saw
and a blatent disregard for Health and Somethingorother, cut it out.




Next find a suitable round object for use as a template:



And sort out that curve with a jigsaw:



Smooth out the above curves with a gentle relaxing... angle grinder (with a sanding pad)




Flexible piece of hardboard obtained, strip cut at 4inch wide and.... however long. Screwed around
edge to create illusion of depth. Fix the gaps with nailgun like so:



And so far, it looks like this:



Thick foam tape around the edges, these will be built up around to create a nice ridge:




Time to slap some body filler on:



And on it goes:

The first skim:



The big chunks missing from it will obviously be part of the worn/damaged look (the lower hole
is the exit from an airgun pellet, the upper one the result of twatting it with ball-end of a ball-pein
hammer).
I didn't mix up enough filler to fill the upper hole, so I left it as is for today.



Carry on with it next weekend. Bit of fibreglass, more filler, lots of paint, and then some tasty
'lectronics to make it... do... stuff.

For some reason this made me crack up. You could have taken the fag outta your gob when you took that photo. And when did you nick that roadsign?! Criminal!

Ahem. Hello everyone, this is my friend Matt, formerly known as He Who Knows About These Things (prop-making type things of which I know absolutely zilch.)

By the way if you just type Tombstone Peeper into Youtube it'll come up with loads of videos, including ones that show the workings on the back of the tombstone.

Thank you for making this for me, if I tried to do it I'd end up decapitating myself or something. Or blowing up the street

Looking good so far. Do either of you know of an online translator so those of us here in the U.S. can figure out what you're saying?

Originally Posted by Captain-Matt

the upper one the result of twatting it with ball-end of a ball-pein hammer.

Originally Posted by Lea32R

You could have taken the fag outta your gob when you took that photo.

LOL............

Your off to a great start!

Well done guy....

LOL what are you having trouble understanding? I realised after I posted it that "fag" doesn't read well in the US. Over here it means cigarette. I know what it means in the US and it's used the same way here, but it's MUCH more commonly used to mean a cigarette. Oh and gob is mouth.

I've visited the East Coast of America twice, and both times people had trouble with certain words, like jumper, bin, and pram. I discovered that respectively they are sweater, trash can and stroller.

ETA: Oh, and nick means steal. Funnily enough it also means to be arrested. In situ: "Someone's nicked my car stereo," (stolen) "You're nicked" - if said to you by a policeman means you'll be spending the night in the cells.

I'm usually quite conscious of my language on the internets because British English has a lot of slang words that people from other countries simply have no reason to know. Just like a lot of Brits don't understand things like "That came out of left field". Also in Britain, "pissed" means drunk, whereas in America it means annoyed. I just forgot to watch what I was saying cause I was talking to someone I knew.

If anyone wants further lessons in how to talk like a Brit, do speak up. I actually have a degree in it for some reason.

I feel the need to post this photo. You don't mind, do you mate? Matt's acquaintance with my Hallowe'en obssession goes back many years, as illustrated by this photo from...um...3 years ago.

Oh, and why do you have a gazillion fridge freezers in your garage?

Matt, I've just thought of something. You've probably already thought of this because you're smart about these things. Won't you have to weight the front somehow to counteract the weight of the motor and stuff on the back? Won't it overbalance the tombstone? I bet you've already got a plan for this bit and you think I'm silly for bringing it up.

Ooh and when it's done can we do a video of it working and show everyone here? Does your phone do video? I forgot what phone you've got.

I understand what you two are saying pretty well (scary to think you might have a degree in English!). I was just giving you a hard time because of some of your terms.

You don't have to actually mount the motor mechanism to the back of the tombstone. Many attach it to a base and then attach that to the tombstone, along with whatever sort of attachment will control the movement near the top. This makes it more stable.

Those little tombstones can be useful in a project like this. Rather than craft and carve the entire large tombstone, stop with what you have done now. Then glue one of those small ones into the center. This gives you a nice finished look relatively quickly and easily. There was a thread in the How-to section last year where someone showed how they made them using that method.

Originally Posted by Screaming Demons

I understand what you two are saying pretty well (scary to think you might have a degree in English!). I was just giving you a hard time because of some of your terms.

...why is that scary?

One of the main things you learn studying English is that there is a lot of variety in English, from slang that's used nationally to local dialect features which include vocabulary variations and non-standard syntactic constructions. I use both slang and dialect features - a mixture of dialect features actually from various places I've lived. Language isn't static, it changes and evolves constantly and dialects follow rules too. In many cases a dialect makes far more sense (grammatically) than standard English because its rules evolve naturally, whereas standard English has been subject to quite a lot of arbitrary rules imposed on it over the centuries it has existed.

My point is, just because I don't USE standard English, doesn't mean I don't KNOW it. Most English people do not speak standard English. Standard English is just another dialect. As one of my lecturers once said "A language is just a dialect that has its own army."