Thread: How do you build an electric Chair prop?

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Hello,

Looking at building a Electric Chair prop and was looking for a few good sights showing how to build them along with what type of mechanical items are needed to make them operate. I would not like to use air but electric instead to power the prop.

Thanks

Exactly what type of chair do you want to build?

You should be able to get lots of ideas from pictures if you do a google search. That was the first thing I did when I decided to start building mine this year. But keep in mind that I started mine in mid Sept. and just finished about a week ago and that was pretty much all I was doing on my off days.

There are also some "how to" videos on You Tube that can be found by doing a basic search.

There are some pics of my chair in my Projects Album if you're interested.

Rick12667
Here is my electric chair tutorial video
YouTube - Electric Chair Shocker Tutorial
There are several others on here as well

Rick
It only took me one Saturday to build this.
Very easy!!!!

The chair part to build I think will be pretty easy to do. I want my guy to jump up and down on the chair so I guess I am looking for ideas on how others have made theirs do this.

Rick

My PVC dummy bends at the waist and his upper body is moved by a jig saw that I have mounted on the back of the chair. The jig saw has a piece of PVC pipe mounted to it that goes into T-connector in the spine of the PVC dummy.

Would you have some pics and video showing this in action and how you have it hooked up?

Then this thread should be titled "How to make a prop move up and down"

Okay here are some close ups of the jig saw mounted to the back of the chair. I turned the safey plate 90 degrees and drilled a hole in each corner and used bolts to attach it to the cross section of the chair.

The blade of the saw would normally be held on with the two black screws you see there. All I did was drill two holes in a short section of PVC pipe, slide it on and lock it down with the screws. I added a zip-tie on there for extra security. So far the screws have not come loose after several tests.... knock on wood.

The short section of PVC has a fitting on the end of it that is pipe doped on... that fitting then hooks into another short section of pipe that comes from the dummy spine. That knob you see there is the lock down bolt from an old flag pole set I had.... that way I can disconnect the dummy.

The padding on the underside of the drill is an old knee pad I bought from Lowes for $3. The saw was shaking too much when turned on and that padding stopped the movement. The other knee pad is Gorilla glued to the front of the chair acting as a head rest.

I used a variable speed saw and the trigger is held down with a clothes dryer clamp.

This pic will show how I was able to let the upper torso part of the dummy move and have the legs stay stationary.

I originally built the dummy all as one piece but then thought it might be too much of a load on the saw motor to move the whole thing and didn't think the moment would look very realistic. All I did was cut the legs off and slide a short 1/2 inch section of PVC pipe inside the 3/4 inch section of PVC pipe that make the "hips" of the dummy. I then bolted the leg sections into the 1/2 inch piece of PVC pipe that was inside and let the middle section rotate free. I don't know if I'm explaining it right but hopefully the pic will help.

The other pic is just the inside view of the dummy's spine and the fitting that comes out of the jumpsuit and connects onto the drill.