Thread: Help Needed! Pirates of the Caribbean Prop

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Hi all. Each year I do a Pirates of the Caribbean theme, and I usually add a new prop each year. This year I'd like to borrow from the "treasure room" on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. You can see a picture here. I'm looking to build the mound of coins/jewelry and stick a pirate skeleton on top. It should be about 5 feet tall. I need it to be light (for storage) but strong enough to hold the skeleton on top. I'm going to use pokers chips (spray painted gold) as the coins, and glue various chalices, necklaces, etc. to it. The problem is I cannot figure out how to make the underlying shape. Ideally, I'd use a huge piece of coned-shaped styrofoam, but I don't know where I'd get that. I was thinking of using a wood frame with chicken wire, and then spraying great stuff foam on it, but I'm not sure how I would get it to stick. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

The wood frame/chicken wire idea seems like the best so far...The styrofoam would cost you too much moolah. It sounds daunting but you could paper mache the entire mound, it would take about a full day and it would remain light. The weight would come from the wood, but you'll need it to support the mound and the skeleton.
OR! If you go to wallmart/ local foam store (they do exist) You can get a few large sheets of foam as in bed foam for mattresses. Glue them together, then once you have the desired height take an electric turkey knife to the stack and cut out your mound. This will be light and may even have enough support for your skeleton.
The majority is covered in coins right? Get some carpenters glue (the big jug) and just glue each coin down. For the ride I'm convinced they used a mesh frame then sprayed cement over it, then glued down the coins. That's all I can think of right now...

Great suggestions...thank you!

Originally Posted by peterose

The wood frame/chicken wire idea seems like the best so far...The styrofoam would cost you too much moolah. It sounds daunting but you could paper mache the entire mound, it would take about a full day and it would remain light. The weight would come from the wood, but you'll need it to support the mound and the skeleton.
OR! If you go to wallmart/ local foam store (they do exist) You can get a few large sheets of foam as in bed foam for mattresses. Glue them together, then once you have the desired height take an electric turkey knife to the stack and cut out your mound. This will be light and may even have enough support for your skeleton.
The majority is covered in coins right? Get some carpenters glue (the big jug) and just glue each coin down. For the ride I'm convinced they used a mesh frame then sprayed cement over it, then glued down the coins. That's all I can think of right now...

Yeah, the chicken wire form sounds like a winner...if I were doing that, I'd probably do chicken wire with paper mache over the top, and then cut it in half vertically for easier storage (probably cut the chicken wire pre-paper mache). Maybe sprinkle gold glitter on the mache before gluing the coins and trinkets on to fill in the gaps with shininess.

I believe the actual prop is a bunch of vacuformed gold painted plates so if you don't want to do some vacuforming then chicken wire and paper mache are the way to go.

Instead of paper mache, I'd use fiberglass, it should be faster to do, and you can make it strong enough not to need the wooden support structure, making it lighter. I'm just curious, how are you going to store the monster?

No need for overkill. Just run a single board on some sort of stand straight up to support the weight of the skeleton. Then the rest only needs minimal support. Chicken wire alone should do it. Rather then stacks of foam to basically make up the whole thing, bend individual sheets of it around the board supporting the skeleton. Auto upholstery shops are good places to look for cheap foam.

All good ideas. Good luck with your project. I've always wanted to do something like that

Somebody on here had a pretty good treasure room - not quite to the scale in your picture but they had a very nice sized pile - I'm pretty sure it was made with chicken wire. I'll try to find it.

Here it is. Chicken wire and expanding foam.

http://oldgregg.net/bob/halloween2009/themound.jpg