Thread: My First F.C.G. {Help and Tips Apreciated.}

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Hey; I was planning on taking my haunt to the next level for the 2012 season and I'm planning on building an F.C.G. and some axeworthy ghosts.

I was wondering if any of you could help me out and tell me where I could get some good motors for a low price. I looked at Monster guts but fifty dollars seems a little steep when you can sub a rotiserie motor.

I have heard of using rit whitener for the cheese cloth to make it glow, is this the best in your opinion?
I plan on doing a skeletal F.C.G. so I'm probably going to be using a bucky skull {or a paul skull for weight} and bucky hands. Any tips on what to use to make them glow really nicely and show up on the prop?

Any and all tips welcome for either project.

Can't help much on motor since I bought mine off ebay along with the fcg. I hear that tide really makes things glow in the dark. You can do a search on that and use a blacklight.

You can also spray the cheese cloth with blacklight hairspray. Or you can cut open a highlighter or two and put them into a tub of water and soak the cheese cloth in it and "dye" it with the ink. The rotisserie motor will work, but they are noisy. I use a rotisserie motor for my FCG but I also only paid $5 for it at a thrift store. I have been using the same one for about 11 years. I'm not familiar with the Monster Guts motor. I did look it up and it appears to be a close replacement for the Dayton gear motor which was a very reliable and quiet running motor.

As far as the motors go, MonsterGuts does have awesome ones that are pre-wired and so simple even I can do it... but I know you can get decent ones from places like this:
www.sciplus.com

If you know how to wire up the wall warts to power them, it's easy. You're mainly looking for a motor that has a bit of torque so it has enough strength to move the ghost without stalling out.

You do not want a heavy ghost unless you have a motor that can handle it. I've got one made from cheesecloth, blucky bones for the arms (added bonus that the bones were treated with glow-in-the-dark paint and the arm bones show through the cheesecloth). I've got a coat hanger for the neck/shoulder area, connected the bones with fishing line so they have enough play to move easily and carboard hands painted white. The face used to be just straight cheesecloth (an experiment using fabric stiffener while on a wig head, then peeled off so the facial features were molded into the cheesecloth), but I've since added a very light foam skull to hold the head shape and add an element of scary to the whole thing.

I bought my FCG rig complete with motor from a forum member, and never regretted it - it's not a wiper motor, but it's a small, powerful little thing with a small fan attached to keep the air circulating and it's been running quiet and well for the last 3-4 years. So I can't help as far as what type of motor it is, but there are many different ones out there that could work and probably be had for under $20 if you know basic wiring.

As far as glow? Anything that has phosphors in it will glow brightly. That means in general any clothing detergent that claims to get your whites whiter, since that's what causes the white... tide, arm&hammer, surf... they all work. Even things like fabric softener and hand-washing liquid for clothes like Woolight work. I bought a dollar store knock off of Woolight (already had it for washing delicates anyway) that I put into a fine mist spray bottle (half water/half detergent) and turn on the black light and spray down my ghost each year, and she GLOWS quite brightly. All of those are going to get you a blue/white glow. Added bonus to this method: you get a lovely "freshly washed clothes smell' and you don't end up with paint everywhere, so it's safe to do inside since the overspray isn't going to hurt anything.

Rit whitener works very well too, but I never saw the point personally in getting something specific when I already have on hand something that works really well.

If you want another color, you'll have to look into things like glow-in-the-dark or florescent paints. You'd need to dilute them with water and either soak or spray your ghost, but as you're using paint, do it outside where you can make a mess and it's easy to clean up.

Not sure about these, but they would probably work:
http://www.amazon.com/Next-Generatio.../dp/B0029NDIUU

If you are using blucky skulls and bones that don't have a glow paint already on there, you can always get some from the craft sections, or do a single layer of cheesecloth over the bone/skull and that will glow with whatever medium you end up using.

i've heared a lot of folks out there use ceiling fan motors for axeworthy's...I'm sure you could Craigslist one of those for $10.00...as for FCG's you could gear down/slow down a wiper motor from a junkyard (maybe $15.00) or get one of those from monster guts...I think there is a TUT somewhere here about using a speed controller on a wiper motor to slow it down...

The gearing thing would be a lot easier if you are more mechanically inclined vice electrically inclined. A wiper motor hooked to a small pulley turning a larger one should be able to slow down the motion enough to drive a FCG...though in truth I haven't actually tried it yet.

dK

found this one on sciplus.com (thanks Frankie'sgirl)

http://www.sciplus.com/category.cfm/...8/category/172

the top one is a 7rpm gearmotor for $15.00...not sure if 90mA motor would provide enought torque for a FCG, but hey, it's a start!

dK

I've heard from a few folks on the boards that the Axeworthy is a pretty finicky machine to get working right - managing tension and slippage and all that fun stuff - so my only advice would be build in some extra time. It sounds like a LOT of trial and error.

Thanks for the info so far everybody. Will probably get the paint for the head and hands, and will look into the motors listed.

The "Tough gear motor" on Sciplus looks good, although I am also a little worried about the torque.

I will see about trying to dig up a ceiling fan motor, that should be easy enough to find. My friend says he has a bunch of bicycle rims to use on the axeworthy.

I had an idea for the head a little while ago after looking at a latex prop for sale. Thinking of sculpting a freaky head on top of a paul skull with some light weight paper clay.

Paul skull for those wondering. http://www.skeleton-factory.com/easy...paul-skull-142

And below is a picture of the prop that the head will be based off of. Obviously he won't have the wings and things on the sculpted version.

Keep those tips coming, want this to turn out great.

Anybody know of a good place to get some skeletal hands for an FCG?

I had ordered some Bucky hands from Skeleton-Factory, the lowest price I could find and the order got canceled because they're out untill the beginning of 2012.

FrightProps.com has wiper motors for twenty-four dollars! They also have a device that you plug the wires into so you can just plug it into your wall. Here are the links with more information! I hope that helps and happy haunting!
http://www.frightprops.com/electric-...rop-motor.html
http://www.frightprops.com/5v-5amp-m...0005-5000.html