Thread: Need help making flying bat

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I need to pick y'all's creative brains, since y'all always have great ideas.
What I want to do is put several bats (possibly light-weight, 10"- 12" long, store bought ones) in my trees. But I want them to look like they are flying when the wind blows. I'm thinking maybe attach the body with fishing line. Then attach the wings, also with fishing line, but maybe with a loose spring on the top so the wings will flop up and down when the wind blows.
What do y'all think? Any ideas are appreciated. And thanks in advance.

Your idea sounds like it should work great.

Here's something I've had in my bookmarks for a while now. This lady attached all the bats (with a couple of motorized ones) together with fishing wire: http://www.ehow.com/how_4527480_deco...-ceilings.html

thanx terra. Will try that. I'm thinking I'll have to stablize the body somehow to keep it from flopping too. lol

Cathy I was thinking of a simular prop as well this year. I like the spring idea but what if you put a single spring tied to the body's fishing line and then fishing line only on the wings? That way the weight of the body would have more motion for spring movement and the wings would stay in place but I think it would still give a great illusion of a flying bat. Or you could add weight to the wings making them heavier then the body and place springs on them as you said. The weighted wings would have more motion to them that way

cathy i did something like that last year, i had 5 bats ( the wing span on each was around 5 feet or so from wing tip to wing tip ) i placed them at different levels around my portico. as the kids walked up to the porch if they looked up it appeared the bats were flying over head. it was pretty cool, and the kids loved it.. we had terrible weather last oct.. and mine kept getting tangled. i used poles i found at the garden center that had kind of a spring on one end.. so maybe check out your garden centers now and see what you can find..

Originally Posted by Mr. Gris

...put a single spring tied to the body's fishing line and then fishing line only on the wings? ...

The only problem with that is you don't see bat wings when they are flapping almost like a humming bird. (unless it's a huge bat) They are either coasting, or flapping, and they flap fast... I think in this case, sound is your best option. Get bats, use a wire, or Popsicle stick, or whatever on the top to keep their wings up, screw in a small eyelet and string 'em up. Allow them to move about a bit, and get lots of 'em. Now add some sounds including squeaks and flutters that a thousand bats would make, and stick it near your effect.

Instead of mechanically trying to reproduce them, let the visitors imagination take over, while saving yourself a whole bunch of work and adding realism.

A complementing thought, is to string very light weight fishing line from the ceiling, tree branches, awning, etc.. to give 'em that good old uncomfortable feeling, and cause them to look up.

If you really want those bats to look like they're flying, you can try what I did with some weighted balloons a few years ago.

You attach fishing line from a tree to another high object in your yard (a flag pole, the roof, a second story window, an awning, etc.) as tight as you can. Then, you hang your bats off the line by tying around the bat and knotting it to the fishing line. There is no way you will ever get the fishing line to knot tight enough against the taught fishing line to keep the bat in one place. When the wind blows, the bats will slide back and forth across the line.

If you do go this route, be aware of a two big things. One, the fishing line will stretch with weight and use. I wound up mostly using windows so I could adjust the tension when necessary throughout the night from the inside. Two, if there are multiple objects on a line, they will clump together. I noticed this while installing my display and wound up adding as many extra lines as I could and retying everything.

Even if you only do one or two like this, the motion of the one will convince ToTs that the others are moving more than they are.

I have some of the batt powered ones and love them.I hung them from my ceiling and they flew all night.

And speaking of bats there was one in my dogs cage.The funny thing was I didn't know what it was.I yelled at hubby to come look at this weird looking carcus.He quickly informed me it was a bat so of course I ran.It was the brown furry kind and to me the way it was postioned looked like a spider.
Then I worried about my lil dog getting rabies but he is alright .Thank goodness he didn't want nothing to do with it.He is very picky with his food.

The only thing that comes to mind is those wooden ducks you see in people's yards (usually in the country). The wings kind of look like propellers and spin around when the wind blows.
I'm not saying make the bat wings like propellers, but maybe something similar would work.
Maybe both wings offset-- like one up/ one down-and spin around on the same shaft as the wind blows.
That's all I can think of right now.