# Air horn scare prop? Anyone use them?



## charlie (Jul 9, 2007)

I've been playing with the idea of buying a 12v air horn (the kind they sell for trucks/cars). From what I can tell they come with a mini compressor that activates immediately to produce the noise. I'd like to combine this with a battery/trigger setup from a cordless power tool like a drill to create a handheld, cordless airhorn to use in my haunt. Just curious if anyone has done this and what the results were.

Cheers
Charlie


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## Pedagog (Oct 23, 2016)

Personally I wouldn't but mainly because I can't stand air horns


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## Spoonhead (Jan 14, 2014)

Charlie, there's a tutorial on YouTube for building a clown blaster type horn similar to some that are available for purchase. Both the commercial one I'm speaking of and the homemade type appear to use the same harbor freight ooga horn available for about $10. The commercial one also has an led driving light for additional effect which you could add if you like. I meant to build a couple of these for this years haunt but ran out of time. All the other items needed are easily sourced on amazon or elsewhere.


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

I'm sure that this would make you "really popular" with your friends and neighbors.
I'd also worry about damaging your hearing or that of your guests or ghouls.


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## Pedagog (Oct 23, 2016)

fontgeek said:


> I'm sure that this would make you "really popular" with your friends and neighbors.
> I'd also worry about damaging your hearing or that of your guests or ghouls.


The hearing of little ones would be one of my concerns


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## charlie (Jul 9, 2007)

Spoonhead said:


> Charlie, there's a tutorial on YouTube for building a clown blaster type horn similar to some that are available for purchase. Both the commercial one I'm speaking of and the homemade type appear to use the same harbor freight ooga horn available for about $10. The commercial one also has an led driving light for additional effect which you could add if you like. I meant to build a couple of these for this years haunt but ran out of time. All the other items needed are easily sourced on amazon or elsewhere.


Cool - thanks. I just checked out the video and its similar to what I had in mind. I just bought the set of horns from HF that are 135db (the ooga one isn't as loud) and did a quick test using an 18v drill battery. Its very loud and should be perfect. I think I'm going to buy a cheap cordless drill to use as a base/grip/trigger. That way I can swap batteries in and out.

Charlie


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## charlie (Jul 9, 2007)

Quick update - I built one of these the day before Halloween and it turned out to be perfect! We had ear plugs available for our haunters but most decided they weren't necessary. All together the prop cost about $35 plus another $12 for a spare battery. The battery was absolutely necessary as I found myself having to swap them back and forth quite a bit throughout the night. If I decide to build another, I'd opt to go with a lithium ion drill and battery combo to hopefully get more battery life out of it.

I am going to make a YouTube tutorial video but for now the basics are: remove the chuck and motor from the drill, then wire the leads from the speed controller to the air compressor for the horn. I left the LED light in place and that turned out to be a great idea - with a light trigger pull the LED comes on but not the horn. It came in handy because it doubles as a flashlight for the crew. On my next revision I'll probably try to find a super bright LED to dazzle the victims as well.

I wish I could upload some pictures but this forum doesn't seem to be very image friendly


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

charlie said:


> I wish I could upload some pictures but this forum doesn't seem to be very image friendly


You can't upload pictures directly into a post, so your options are to (a) upload them to a folder you create on your profile page, then copy and past the IMG code into a post; or (b) use a photo hosting service such as Photobucket, which also makes use of an IMG code for copying and pasting. If you use Photobucket, refer to this thread for a fix you need to follow:

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=36928

Using your profile page for storing photos does have limits, because I believe you can store a maximum of 200 photos there. If you tend to post a lot of pictures, it's not your best choice for the long term.

There is a discussion as to why the "upload directly to a post" function was disabled here:

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=38036


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## nimblemonkey (Aug 21, 2011)

I've found that those really loud air horns are more annoying than frightening, but that's me... This year I did an evil clowns at the carnevil theme and the last scare of the walk through was a young haunter (he was 9) dressed in a black morph suit with a clown wig and he had a kids bike horn that I picked up at wallyworld. He was behind a curtain and just as the patrons passed his station, he jumped out behind them and honked that little bike horn and it really got them good. That was the extent of my horn blaster scare and it worked surprisingly well- and didn't split anyone's eardrums.


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