[J-Man]

Started building my Living Tombstone inspired by Paul Kreutz. Taking a bit of a different approach. Stone is 1-1/2" pink styro with 1/4" luan ply backing. I'm using a 1/4" rod end to attach the mannequin face to the stone's backing. A 10" round piece of luan will get glued to the back of mannequin face for the motor arm to ride on. There won't be any springs on it, the rod end will allow movement in all directions. Some of this is theory at this point, not 100% sure it's gonna work yet! Here's what I have so far.

 

[Plant175]

JMan your going to be done in no time !

 

[JW Halloween]

Thanks for posting the pics. Not sure if I completely understand how the movement is going to work but please share more pics/videos when it is ready to test.

 

[J-Man]

Thanks for posting the pics. Not sure if I completely understand how the movement is going to work but please share more pics/videos when it is ready to test.

Yeah, it's kinda hard to see from the pics. The rod end is bolted to a short piece of 3/4" aluminum angle. The angle is secured to the 1/4" ply on the back of the mannequin. A 1/4" bolt goes thru the rod end and is secured to the flat bar that goes across the back of the mannequin and gets fastened to the back of the tombstone (where the marks are in the first pic). This allows the mannequin to move freely in all directions. The wheel on the motor arm will ride on the donut shaped plywood that's glued to the styrofoam spacers on the back of the mannequin. I also cut a piece of luan to fit inside the oval frame (which is also 1/4" thick). The spandex is sandwiched and glued between that piece of luan and the styrofoam so no staples were needed. Hopefully this all works as planned! More to come.

 

[stick]

Looking good so far there J-Man.

 

[J-Man]

Looking good so far there J-Man.

Hey thanks! Not sure I'll be able to do as good on the face sculpting/painting as Paul though!

 

[J-Man]

2 coats of gray primer and the lettering. Was gonna put something catchy on it but decided to leave it simple for the effect. On to weathering the finish.

 

[Kdestra]

Fascinating! I subscribed to your post & very excited to see your progress. Thank you!

 

[J-Man]

Fascinating! I subscribed to your post & very excited to see your progress. Thank you!

Thanks! Here's 50 years of weathering in 30 minutes.

 

[Kdestra]

Thanks! Here's 50 years of weathering in 30 minutes.
View attachment 582421

View attachment 582423

Very clean & very professional! I love it.

 

[J-Man]

Very clean & very professional! I love it.

You're too kind! I'm a rookie at tombstone finishing, there are others here on the forum that REALLY do a great job with painting stones.

 

[Paul Kreutz]

So cool!! I can not wait to see your version of my prop!

 

[J-Man]

So cool!! I can not wait to see your version of my prop!

Well as it turns out, I was dead wrong about the synchronous motor, not enough oomph for this. Gotta go with the wiper motor!

 

[stick]

J-man sorry to hear the synchronous motor did not work but I know you will have it working with the wiper motor.
Paul has made a cool prop that lots of people will be making.

 

[J-Man]

Well I had another idea for the motor and so far in testing it seems to be working pretty good. I had a 1/4 scale high torque servo laying around waiting for good use. I disassembled it and converted it into a continuous rotation servo. Mounted the arm with the wheel to it and viola. The servo is easy to control with a microcontroller and it's much lighter and smaller than the wiper motor. I may even program it with a PIR sensor so it only runs when someone is near. Still have to do the face sculpting/painting.

 

[radu]

Absolutely haunting! How do you cut out the R.I.P. ? Very clean. Is this set in motion by a motion detector? Will you be uploading a movie short to show the motion? I'd really like to see the mechanics in motion.

 

[J-Man]

Absolutely haunting! How do you cut out the R.I.P. ? Very clean. Is this set in motion by a motion detector? Will you be uploading a movie short to show the motion? I'd really like to see the mechanics in motion.

Thanks! I printed out the lettering on my PC and taped it to the stone, used an exacto knife to carefully cut the outline of each letter and then used a small screwdriver to chip out the foam. It is a bit tedious. Yes, I'll likely have it motion activated using a PIR sensor. I will definitely post a vid when it's done.

 

[J-Man]

Haven't had much time to work on it the last few days but I did manage to get the eyes made.

 

[66539]

Well I had another idea for the motor and so far in testing it seems to be working pretty good. I had a 1/4 scale high torque servo laying around waiting for good use. I disassembled it and converted it into a continuous rotation servo. Mounted the arm with the wheel to it and viola. The servo is easy to control with a microcontroller and it's much lighter and smaller than the wiper motor. I may even program it with a PIR sensor so it only runs when someone is near. Still have to do the face sculpting/painting.

I remain in awe of folks like you J-Man. I can age a tombstone so that you can't tell it's not real, but make it wiggle and jiggle... that's something I'm still struggling with. The animation side of our haunt is one that moves VERY slowly toward what we hope to have one day. Mostly that's because we have to learn everything you've already taken years to learn. I guess it all comes down to where we spend our time. We've always had fun painting things to look real, and I've watched you help out not just me, but many others on the electrical side for years. To each their talents, I suppose, but we really enjoy it when you post all about yours.

 

[J-Man]

Thanks for the kind words chubstuff! BTW, nothing wrong with static props, when they're done right they can be very impressive!