# Great use of a Walmart Skeleton



## ryanlamprecht (Nov 2, 2013)

Here's a short video of a prop I made using a Walmart skelton, as well as a couple of others.


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## ryanlamprecht (Nov 2, 2013)

Here's last year's haunt when we lived in Illinois, and our Walgreens skelly cauldron creep was still in tact.


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## Giovanni LiCalsi (Nov 6, 2013)

Very nice!


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

I see you were inspired by steveshauntedyard's leering skeleton, Dave the Dead's tombstone peeper, and Devil's Chariot's cauldron creep I always enjoy seeing people's versions of these classic animated props.


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## Hairazor (Mar 13, 2012)

Nice use of skellies (and creep soup?)


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## ryanlamprecht (Nov 2, 2013)

*The Inspirations*

You are correct about steveshauntedyard's leering skeleton, I saw his video on youtube, thought it was just the coolest thing, and had to make one. I wanted to make a much more compact version that didn't require the huge tombstone base to house the mechanics, so I used an oscillating fan motor, but then suddenly discovered/learned a couple of things. To rotate a prop like this from side to side, you don't need the really long throw used in his version. In other words, I found that the arm that spins 360 doesn't need to be more than an inch or two long, nor does the connecting arm. I also realized through shortening everything up in the mechanics, the motor doesn't require near as much torque. For example, if you attach a long arm to a vent motor, it's easy to grab the far end of the arm and stall the motor, but attached a very short piece of stock, and it becomes much more difficult to hold the motor from spinning. Simple mechanics of leverage that I'd never realized until then. The other thing I realized is if you're going to use a 120v AC fan motor, you'd better have good ventilation and probably some sort of small fan blade still attached to move air across the motor. Mine lasted about an hour in the yard. Once I realized all of the above, I swapped out the fan motor for a vent motor, which runs much cooler and doesn't require any ventilation, but still has plenty of torque.

I hadn't seen the video of Dave's tombstone reaper until you just mentioned it, so I just now looked it up. I had seen Terra's version a few years ago, which is what inspired me to build my first animated prop. That was a great first prop to build because it's simple, but the mechanical lessons learned through building it translates to so many other potential props.

As for the cauldron creep, I'd have to say no matter whose version I see of it, it's always still my favorite prop. All of them are so impressive and give a lot of bang for the effort. The main thing I did different was to use a Walgreens skeleton, but use no PVC. I wanted to eliminate the PVC on the outside of the skeleton for a much cleaner look. I learned that's much easier said than done. In fact it turned into a huge pain in the tailbone. I made mine two years ago, and since there wasn't the really ridged structure that most others have, it's been one repair after another just getting it to remain standing. Well, I lost that battle. She didn't survive our move from Illinois to Arizona in the back of the moving truck, and so she didn't make the show this year. I had her working just long enough for everyone in the neighborhood to see her in action, then for everyone that stopped by on Halloween to ask me where it went, and vent their disappointment that she wasn't still out there. I'm going to pull a Steve Austin on her and make her, better, stronger, f... well maybe not faster, but I am going to stick with the skeleton concept, and still eliminate the external PVC. Still working that out in my head.

I'm brand new to this forum, and very much appreciate the comments.



RoxyBlue said:


> I see you were inspired by steveshauntedyard's leering skeleton, Dave the Dead's tombstone peeper, and Devil's Chariot's cauldron creep I always enjoy seeing people's versions of these classic animated props.


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## ryanlamprecht (Nov 2, 2013)

One other tidbit some of you might find interesting or even pretty cool: The second video shows our home in Illinois, which was converted to a house just eight years ago. Prior to being a single family home it was the town's only funeral parlor. It makes a great house because the rooms are all massive, as you can imagine. In fact, the part of the video that shows the cauldron creep indoors, the room where I actually built that prop, was our huge laundry room. For 40 years that room served as the town's morgue. I imagine everyone in town that drove by our yard around Halloween took one look and thought, well that just figures. We were pretty much the only people in town that had no idea it was a funeral home and morgue until the week we moved in and found the original plans for when they built it. The plans had each room labeled for what they would be: Viewing Room A, Viewing Room B, Casket Showroom, Chapel, Morgue, etc... Fun, right?


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