[Mr Grimsley]

OK so just thought this one up... any similarity to anything people have done in the past is purely coincidental!

Place a small bell on a short pole (approx 2 feet high) next to a prominent tombstone in your display. Rig up (I haven't thought this totally through yet) a small motor that will periodically tug on a string extended from the bell at the top of the pole down into the grave. Kinda spooky as people are going past. Of course the tombstone epitaph should read: "D. Ed Ringer" or "Barry Delive" or something silly along that lines.

This of course stems from the semi-urban legand that had bells rigged up from their coffins in the rare occasion that they should be prematurely buried alive! They could then ring and be "Saved by the Bell"! Ar, Ar, Ar!

Don't think I'll have this rigged up for this year but for 2009... oh yeah!

 

[Growler]

That is a great idea on an old idea. I love that people can remember these things and implement them into the Halloween theme. Pitty the guy who yanked too hard and broke the string when nobody was around to hear the bell.

 

[Push Eject]

I like it! The older and crustier the bell the better!

 

[halloweenbarb]

they have that prop at ripley's believe it or not in niagara Falls. What they have and what Id like to copy is a big coffin/tomb on the floor and the bell set up, but what they have is a tube to look down in the coffin at a head. What makes this sooo coool is, in the coffin they have it set up like a periscope ish. .done with mirrors so the head looks like its 6 feet under, but just at the end of the coffin. Ya gotta see it!

 

[hallorenescene]

cool mr. grimsley, and, i collect graveyard tomb sayings. i have a similar barry one. mine is Barry D. Alive. but that D. Ed Ringer is good. it's a new one. last year i had people wandering around my cemetary reading my tombs. i think the bell add would be sweet.
halloweenbarb, that would be sooo cool.

 

[indianaholmes]

That's also where the term saved by the bell came from. Seems to me that a time delay relay would work. You would need a repeat, single shot or interval timer though. You could also find a cheap do it yourself board or maybe something incorporating a 555 timer. This could be set up with a PIR or mat switch. Ebay has lots of time delay relays. You might check them out.

 

[darkpenguincowboy]

i totally just made a "Barry De'Live" tombstone, this would be perfect!

i went last year to the ripley's believe it or not in Niagra falls too! it was awesome, and they ahd a whole room full of tombstones with actual epitaphs on them! very cool, and i had been toying around with this idea, but i probably will have to put a hold on it for now, i have a few other projects already started

 

[Otaku]

Depending on how many "rings" you want at each cycle, a 555 astable circuit with a small pull solenoid would do the trick. A small motor with the bell string attached to a crank pin would work for multiple "rings". It's not essential that the motor start and stop from the same position each time. If that is a concern, use this motor:

MINI RIGHT ANGLE GEARHEAD MOTOR W/CONTROL CIRCUIT | AllElectronics.com

I have a couple of these - they're powerful for their size and have a control circuit that allows a single rotation when triggered. It could be used without a timing circuit, just a mat switch or PIR trigger (with a relay).

 

[hallorenescene]

that's good indiana, makes good sense. maybe in a lower corner of the tombstone i should incorporate the words-saved by the bell
dark, i didn't know they had a ripleys at niagara, or that it would be that cool. we went to the falls a few years ago. so far it has been my most favorite place to visit.

 

[Mr Grimsley]

LOL... I love this... I love how many of us think alike but will ultimately put our own spin on each idea. Can't wait to see all the different versions!

BTW... I had a wacky idea for how to make the bell ring a little more randomly. I have a set of Gemmy Talking Skulls, the ones that are teathered together and talk in turn. I never liked the factory sound effects/dialogue that came with them so...

I have seperated the twins! One will be a guest greeter/ghost host skull attached to a cemetery sign. Kinda like a Haunted Mansion version of the Disney POTC talking skull above the bayou at the beginning of the ride...

The other I will disconnect the speaker and eye LEDS so that the now seemingly "random" movement of the jaw motor remains. This I will attach to the other end of the bell string and hide it behind a tombstone. It will be perfect. Last year each lightning strike on my lightning machine set off the two skulls. This year it will "startle" old D. Ed Ringer and make him ring the bell several times kinda randomly. Then he'll calm down for a bit until the next lightning strike!

 

[hallorenescene]

oohhh, grimsley, very creative indeed. you are going to have to post pictures. i love your idea.

 

[Mr Grimsley]

Totally Trivial - the sayings "Dead Ringer" and "Saved by the Bell" supposedly did not come from the "Safety Coffins" of the late 1800's. (at least according to Wikipedia) Both were supposedly only known to come out later on but were associated to the coffin bells out of coincidence!

For my purpose though... as most people should get the play on words, I will be using both! My epitaph for this prop will read:

D. Ed Ringer
1834 - 1898
Not quite 'Saved by the bell'

I may even add something about being "Struck by Lightning". Everytime the lightning flashes about the yard, the bell should go off illustrating to guests just how jumpy 'ol D. Ed is around lightning! LOL Still not certain about this part though...

 

[DaveintheGrave]

How do you come up with all these great ideas, Mr. Grimsley? This one sounds great and fairly easy to accomplish. Very original, too!
I think you deserve the No-Bell prize!! LOL

 

[Mr Grimsley]

LOL... I like that! And thanks.

Actually... I'm really not sure where that one came from. I'm always on the hunt (or haunt, hehe) for ideas that are clever, inexpensive and fairly easy to pull off. I've always been about the spooky atmosphere as apposed to the big scare thing. We have lots of very little kids in our complex so there really can't be much of a gore factor involved.

I would love to figure out a way to have glowing footprints appear to walk around the cemetery? Like in WDW's Haunted Mansion, there is a new staircase scene. Checkout the first part of the video and watch for the footprints.

YouTube - Haunted Mansion grand staircase

 

[yardhauntjunkie]

The House of Restless Spirits in Santa Monica California has the lighted foot steps. You wait in line out in front of the house and you are looking up at this house. Around the yard there are fireflys in the bushes and a floating candelabra in the window. Every one in a while there is a thump of the front door, then the lighted footsteps walk down the front walkway and the when they get to the front gate the gate starts rattling like the foot steps are trying to get out. House of Restless Spirits | Hollywood Gothique

 

[Mr Grimsley]

yardhauntjunkie... that's awsome!!! That's right up my alley (or rather graveyard pathway)! WOW! So cool! The actual site didn't come up for me but I read the article By Steve Biodrowski • November 3, 2008 on Hollywod Gothique! Oh... so many ideas came out of just rading that article! Muahahahaha!

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! So many possibilies, so little time, money and time! lol Hmmmm... not sure which I have less of... time or money! LOL

yardhauntjunkie, thank you for posting that! :O)

 

[yardhauntjunkie]

yardhauntjunkie... that's awsome!!! That's right up my alley (or rather graveyard pathway)! WOW! So cool! The actual site didn't come up for me but I read the article By Steve Biodrowski • November 3, 2008 on Hollywod Gothique! Oh... so many ideas came out of just rading that article! Muahahahaha!

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! So many possibilies, so little time, money and time! lol Hmmmm... not sure which I have less of... time or money! LOL

yardhauntjunkie, thank you for posting that! :O)

The House of Restless Spirits is hands down the coolest yard haunt I have been to or seen on the net for that matter. They had some of the most amazing effects. At other home haunts people come out and they are talking about what just scared them. At this one when people come out there is a quiet awe. I got to go to 6 or 7 different yard haunts that year and this one was just so memorable. I don't live in L.A. anymore but if I did I might not do my own yard haunt so I could go back to The House of Restless Spirits.

My favorite effect was a holographic girl in a bed room. You are standing outside looking in through the window into a bedroom. Nothing seems to be going on, then a girl appears and slowly she moves backward and fades away until she disappears and then reapers in a picture frame as a portrait. My other favorite was the garage. At the end of the driveways you kind of walk to go to the side of the garage. But, as you pass you hear hammering in the garage. When you open up the door you hear a faint hammering. You look closely into the garage but see nothing. Slowly a holographic effect of an old man appears at the work bench hammering at a project. It gives me goose bumps just thinking back on how cool it all was.

The Hollywood Gothique guy is so cool. He went around and visited a bunch of the L.A. area haunts and chronicled his experiences. I got a lot of great inspiration from his website. Plus I got to see a lot of the haunts in person because my girlfriend(LisaLisa) his website. Had we not come across his website we wouldn't have seen any of those yard haunts in person. It is definitely great to come across things like this to get inspiration.

 

[hallorenescene]

grimsly and junkie, those are awesome posts.

 

[yardhauntjunkie]

grimsly and junkie, those are awesome posts.

I am so amazed at how ideas get shared now. It used to be that things like this would take years for people to find out, now a few clicks of the mouse and you can learn so much. I have been thinking of ideas to make a bell ring all day today as I worked on my projects. I can't start another project right now, but I definitely have some ideas I want to try. I want a ringing bell now too.

 

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thinking about the lighted foot steps cut some Plexiglas in the shape of feet cover the sides from below place leds in each foot step then set the leds off one at a time to look like steps.so I'm intrigued about the hologram ghosts how would one do something like that?