Thread: Need help creating ghost ship and pirates

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Here is a picture of my pirate ship. Its made of painted canvas and a steel tube frame.

I just posted the mp3 I use for my ambient sound at my Pirate's Cove harborside setup. Feel free to grab a copy for yourselves.

If you are NOT the stand out house in your neighborhood I want to know who is! Great Work!

with little than 8 days to go till halloween this type of display needs a little more time to accomplish it I would think, not to be unrealistic but to throw a display together of this proportion has to take a little more time to accomplish safely and so the wind doesnt blow the crap out of it???

Originally Posted by ihauntu

with little than 8 days to go till halloween this type of display needs a little more time to accomplish it I would think, not to be unrealistic but to throw a display together of this proportion has to take a little more time to accomplish safely and so the wind doesnt blow the crap out of it???

You are right that it would take a bit of time to set something up on the scale of some of these displays. My original ship and props took a month or more to design and build....then it took at least three days to set up...

This year I added several more props and I started building in July! It has taken me at least a week or more to get my display up and running this year. I have spent a lot of time repairing a few of my props and working out the positioning and lighting on the new props....and I am still not done yet!

My main worry is the mast and the weather....last year we had several large storms hit the north coast and I almost lost my mast.....I ended up adding about 200+ pounds of ballast to the base and I had to loosen the sails so I wouldn't have the mast come flying off the deck!

Originally Posted by ihauntu

a display together of this proportion has to take a little more time to accomplish safely and so the wind doesnt blow the crap out of it???

I built my pirate ship in my workshop and I took my time. I could have done it much faster than I did but I really enjoy the process of building something especially something large and/or complex. Now the ship is fairly straightforward but the complexity comes in designing it to make setup and takedown as easy as possible. I figured I would use it for years and wanted this chore to be as minor as possible.

Safety is a huge concern of mine. If it cannot be done completly safely then I simply do not do it. I never want to risk injuring anyone ever. Its a line I never cross. Checkout my post on how I secured the mast to my carport.

Wind is less of an issue than it may appear. I have a few advantages, the prevailing winds generally do not impact the facade, my carport is below street level by about 8' and there are many trees around me. All these help buffer the winds.

Also, I do not finalize the ship until just before Halloween. There are openings between the panels to relieve air pressure. Its also kept off the ground to allow wind and rain pass underneath. Originally I thought the weight of water on the fabric would be a concern but since I used stronger poles it holds up nicely even with the added water weight.

My display is kinda under my front porch ...and only Capt Jack Skely is out front ...it rains here in Oregon ...and sadly forecast is rain all wknd ~ Im doing alot of decor in the house ...most of my moving skeletons are inside for the party ~ I'll post more pics tomorrow. See some on my photo album.. . here's Capt Jack Skely

My husband took pallets and stacked them on top each other. We got the pallets for free all we had do buy was screws. Very inexpensive and it looks so real. We only did the front of the ship. Kicking himself in the butt for not doing the whole thing. We get so many people stopping. Were doing the Pirates of the Caribbean theme. We just got from disney and thats what we did down there. He is going to show the movie on the mass through a projector. We should have pics up tomorrow.