# Prop protection from the elements



## Cat_Bones (Jun 1, 2012)

So I'm in the process of buying a house and of course my first thoughts are about setting up my Halloween display.

I had a question for those of you that live in the not so nice weather areas.

I'm in Chicago/Northwest Indiana where the weather around this time can vary in extremes, from warm to cold, dry to very rainy/windy, and sometimes (it is chicago after all) even snow!

What would be the best way to protect my props from the weather? I've got a few large animatronics that I'm sure if exposed to the elements probably would not survive very well. All I can think of is some kind of jail or marquee for my large characters made out of plywood to protect them and keep them out of the weather. Similar to Spirit's displays but not made out of cardboard obviously









I was thinking I might need some kind of "shield" for the front of a display like this (maybe acrylic?) to protect them a little further as well as keep them safe from vandals / thieves etc. I don't know how well this would work especially considering they all have sound effects that might be muffled and hard to hear if I enclose them too much

ANY input/advice would be appreciated :jol:


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## Dead Things (Apr 4, 2009)

I live in Saskatchewan, one of the harshest climates in Canada. I have multiple animatronic and pneumatic props. I've been rained on, wind beaten and had two feet of snow dumped on us five days before Halloween. My stand up props have pvc attached to the legs, and are slid over rebar pounded into the ground. My tombstones have the same treatment. All electical connections are wrapped in plastic bags and taped closed. All electronics and pneumatic cylinders are placed in tupperware style containers with holes poked in them for wires, air hoses, etc. 
As far as thieves and vandals go, motion detector lights and security cameras are deterents. I saw a thread on here about using the personal alarms in a prop, just putting a wire on the pull pin and staking the wire to the ground. Claymore mines are the most effective deterent.:devil:


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## Cat_Bones (Jun 1, 2012)

Do you have any particular way you protect your animatronic props? Mine are not home made they're just store bought (from Spirit Halloween) and I'm thinking not that weather resistant


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## Cat_Bones (Jun 1, 2012)

thought i would bump this and see if anyone had anymore input


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## Hippofeet (Nov 26, 2012)

Depends. Can you open them up? Get at the electronics? If so, you can coat things with liquid electrical tape, although its a bit of a pain to cut off later, it seals better than electrical tape. You can use a weather gaurd rain repellant, like for shoes or backpacks, a spray, to protect the clothing from rain, and make things a tad more resistant.

A peice of plexi as big as the front of the enclosure in the pic would be really expensive. Like, really. I would look more to protect the bodys and innards of the animatronics, and maybe try to set things up so they would be easy to take down if anything bad came around. 

If you do put a shield in front of the figures, it shouldnt be too hard to wire up some external speakers, run off the speaker inputs in the figures, too keep it from being muffled.

my .01 cent worth


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