Thread: New prop effect idea - Dead Ringer!

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OK so just thought this one up... any similarity to anything people have done in the past is purely coincidental!

Place a small bell on a short pole (approx 2 feet high) next to a prominent tombstone in your display. Rig up (I haven't thought this totally through yet) a small motor that will periodically tug on a string extended from the bell at the top of the pole down into the grave. Kinda spooky as people are going past. Of course the tombstone epitaph should read: "D. Ed Ringer" or "Barry Delive" or something silly along that lines.

This of course stems from the semi-urban legand that had bells rigged up from their coffins in the rare occasion that they should be prematurely buried alive! They could then ring and be "Saved by the Bell"! Ar, Ar, Ar!

Don't think I'll have this rigged up for this year but for 2009... oh yeah!

That is a great idea on an old idea. I love that people can remember these things and implement them into the Halloween theme. Pitty the guy who yanked too hard and broke the string when nobody was around to hear the bell.

I like it! The older and crustier the bell the better!

they have that prop at ripley's believe it or not in niagara Falls. What they have and what Id like to copy is a big coffin/tomb on the floor and the bell set up, but what they have is a tube to look down in the coffin at a head. What makes this sooo coool is, in the coffin they have it set up like a periscope ish. .done with mirrors so the head looks like its 6 feet under, but just at the end of the coffin. Ya gotta see it!

cool mr. grimsley, and, i collect graveyard tomb sayings. i have a similar barry one. mine is Barry D. Alive. but that D. Ed Ringer is good. it's a new one. last year i had people wandering around my cemetary reading my tombs. i think the bell add would be sweet.
halloweenbarb, that would be sooo cool.

That's also where the term saved by the bell came from. Seems to me that a time delay relay would work. You would need a repeat, single shot or interval timer though. You could also find a cheap do it yourself board or maybe something incorporating a 555 timer. This could be set up with a PIR or mat switch. Ebay has lots of time delay relays. You might check them out.

i totally just made a "Barry De'Live" tombstone, this would be perfect!

i went last year to the ripley's believe it or not in Niagra falls too! it was awesome, and they ahd a whole room full of tombstones with actual epitaphs on them! very cool, and i had been toying around with this idea, but i probably will have to put a hold on it for now, i have a few other projects already started

Depending on how many "rings" you want at each cycle, a 555 astable circuit with a small pull solenoid would do the trick. A small motor with the bell string attached to a crank pin would work for multiple "rings". It's not essential that the motor start and stop from the same position each time. If that is a concern, use this motor:

MINI RIGHT ANGLE GEARHEAD MOTOR W/CONTROL CIRCUIT | AllElectronics.com

I have a couple of these - they're powerful for their size and have a control circuit that allows a single rotation when triggered. It could be used without a timing circuit, just a mat switch or PIR trigger (with a relay).

that's good indiana, makes good sense. maybe in a lower corner of the tombstone i should incorporate the words-saved by the bell
dark, i didn't know they had a ripleys at niagara, or that it would be that cool. we went to the falls a few years ago. so far it has been my most favorite place to visit.

LOL... I love this... I love how many of us think alike but will ultimately put our own spin on each idea. Can't wait to see all the different versions!

BTW... I had a wacky idea for how to make the bell ring a little more randomly. I have a set of Gemmy Talking Skulls, the ones that are teathered together and talk in turn. I never liked the factory sound effects/dialogue that came with them so...

I have seperated the twins! One will be a guest greeter/ghost host skull attached to a cemetery sign. Kinda like a Haunted Mansion version of the Disney POTC talking skull above the bayou at the beginning of the ride...

The other I will disconnect the speaker and eye LEDS so that the now seemingly "random" movement of the jaw motor remains. This I will attach to the other end of the bell string and hide it behind a tombstone. It will be perfect. Last year each lightning strike on my lightning machine set off the two skulls. This year it will "startle" old D. Ed Ringer and make him ring the bell several times kinda randomly. Then he'll calm down for a bit until the next lightning strike!