# The Skeleton Stockade



## FistJr (Nov 11, 2014)

I recently wrapped up the construction of the Skeleton Stockade. Who is the prisoner and why has he been locked up? Turn up your volume and click the video to find out!

A special thanks (again!) to the Haunt Hacker crew for their boards. The Stockade is powered by the Banshee board -- super easy to use for three-axis action.


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

LOL, that's great!:jol:


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## Hairazor (Mar 13, 2012)

Sweet!


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## uncle (Sep 26, 2007)

Do you have any photos of your neck mechanism that you would mind sharing?


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## jdubbya (Nov 6, 2005)

That made me lol! love it!


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## Longmont Haunt (Jul 26, 2016)

Oh, that's great!


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## Bone Dancer (Oct 7, 2005)

Great job


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## Pumpkin5 (Aug 8, 2010)

:jol:I love the movement and the fire and ice light looks really good on it, it adds another element that is just great.


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## FistJr (Nov 11, 2014)

uncle said:


> Do you have any photos of your neck mechanism that you would mind sharing?


Uncle, here are some pics. The skull is essentially a standard three-axis skull with a long 1/4" threaded rod. I bent the rod at a 90 degree angle, then bolted it into the stockade at a hole I drilled right below the pine of the skeleton:










The spine of the skeleton itself was just screwed straight into the stockade. From normal viewing distances and from the front, it seems to work well.










That angle also shows the back of the skull. For the three-axis skull, I used a Walgreen skull (the cheap $4 skulls with moving jaws), and a slightly modified Twisty/Monsterguts mechanism with a hand-cut plexiglass plate. I like the Walgreens skulls as they are lighter, cheaper, and don't need corpsing. (Props to Lightman btw for showing me how to do the back-of-the-skull method on the Wally). I will replace most of the back of the skull before Halloween, but frankly the hole can't be seen in normal operation anyway.

The servo wires (and 12V LED wires for the eyeballs) were fed through the spine, and out the...ahem, well, into the pelvic cavity of the skelly:










I put shrink-wrap around the servo extensions, then zip-tied it to the legs of the skelly and fed it into the control box. I'll paint it white/bone color to blend into the skelly better.

Here's the inside of the control box, showing a multistrip that the power supplies and the Fire and Ice LED plug into, and the (amazing) Banshee control board on the left. Also the speakers:










The wall of the control box is 2x10 lumber, so to hear the sound I routed it thinner and drilled some holes to let the sound out. This was done for each speaker:










As with all of my projects, I heartily encourage suggestions for improvements. Like most of you, I'm typically working under a bunch of constraints -- not enough time, not the right parts, or not enough brain power to know how to do it better. We all learn with suggestions for improvements.

The "Rick Rolling" sound track will make it into the final prop, but will only be one of many different routines -- the Banshee controller makes it a breeze to add new routines by simply recording new audio.

- Fist


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## The-Hog-Flu (Oct 21, 2013)

Great job


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## Dead Things (Apr 4, 2009)

Very creative use of a three axis skull. Bravo!


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## deadSusan (Jun 26, 2013)

Fantastic. Love it.


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## CDAhaunter (Sep 22, 2016)

I like!


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## uncle (Sep 26, 2007)

Thank you for the mechanism info!! Not that I could do it, but it helps explain how you got such a fantastic prop to work!


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## Daphne (Oct 18, 2006)

I was so proud of how my new tombstones are going, then I come on the forum...

Wow, that looks incredible! Very cool!


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