Thread: Need help on 2 Prop Projects

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One is on a Replica Animatronic Talking Skeleton Doll that my Cousin found in AZ. that I want to Rig.
I want to make its Arms and Hands Move, to make its fingers point in different directions to make him be able to draw a Pistol from a Hoslter and to make it be able to stand up and sit down.
I also want to make this Animatronic Talking Replica Skeleton Doll be able to rock back and forth in my Rocking Chair.
The 3rd thing I want to do with it, is to be able to make it speak in a male voice, done by either my Husband or my Cousin.
The other, is a Free (from Craigslist), Upright Old West Style Piano, that I want to make play on its own, for atmosphere.
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
We are doing one heck of an Old West Style Haunted Hacienda.

wow, thats a tall order for the animatronic skeleton. the rocking chair and standing up part would be easy enough using some small cylinders, maybe even some pvc home made types. You would probably be best using one hand for pointing, again using a piston:closed points one way, open points the hand in a second way...and have the other harm be dedicated to gun drawing...are you handy with pneumatics?

Sorry, I don't personally know Anything about Pneumatics.
This would be my first time doing something like this.
I just simply wanted to make an Animatronic Talking Figure move, so that I could very easily and simply scare the pants off some people.
Any chance I could make both hands/arms move? Also make it draw, point and Stand/sit?
Hubby says fishing line attached by Sewing to the clothes of the Doll (this I could do).
Is he right, or is there more involved with this than we thought?
And what of the Piano? Anything we could do with that on a small budget?

If you don't know technical/pneumatics or electronics (motors), then what you're wanting to do is probably too difficult for you to manage this year.

Heck, I started building props two years ago, and this is way over my head!

I would think your skeleton that stands and moves it's arms and draws a pistol is probably right out - I would think that is a pretty advanced level of animatronics, and the budget and expertise that would take is extensive.

I'd probably work on simple animation for the rocking skeleton - check out Halloween Prop Building Supplies For The Home Haunter - Monster Guts for motors that are "all in ones" that you don't have to wire yourself - just plug in and fix up to your prop to get movement. I got one of those to make my witch stir her cauldron.
Rocking a Chair with a Wiper Motor

For the piano, I'd just work out a creepy piano sound file, and maybe get a simple motion trigger to activate it or even having a looping sound file on a portable cd player with speakers hidden inside - making the keys move is possible, but would require gutting the interior, installing a motor that moves certain keys from the underside and syncing it all with the sound track.

You could probably adapt this project idea for key movement: Chris's Crypt, The Haunted Books

HauntProject.com - Your visual source for Haunting How-To's is a good site for projects. There are plenty of how-tos that you could adapt to your theme.

Yep. We figured that out tonight.
However, there is always next year and the rest of the year to figure out how to do this.
There are some people I wanted to scare stupid with this Animation Trickery.
Oh well, I guess simple Puppeteering will have to do in lieu of all of that fancy Animatronics stuff.

that sounds really cool but it also sound like it would take alot of time and money. post pics of whatever you decide to do

actually, moving some of the piano keys from inside with a few servos would be fairly easy, it seems like

Do a search for "piano" in the forum search box. There are several tutorials and videos on the subject. On a side note though, you should NEVER use pvc or door closers for pneumatic cylinders, they are not designed to be used that way and can be very dangerous. You can find pneumatic cylinders on e-bay and through vendors and merchants that advertise on this site. Good luck .

Hi, instead of the animatronics and electrics, use a black outfit and dark area. Have a person dressed in a black outfit and the skeleton attached to their body. When the person moves their arms, the skeleton moves in sync also. Just a thought. I personaly haven't tried.
For the piano, a recorded sound bite would work for the ambiance effect.
Hope this helps. Good luck scarying the pants off them. We have a good time also.

Seems like you could do a piano with some sort of camshaft setup. Just speculation, though.