# Haunted old style radio



## weaz (Sep 11, 2010)

I put together this tutorial for this simple project for anyone wanting to reproduce this prop. If you have any questions, I would be happy to help. I am doing a kind of haunted mansion/ghost theme in my living room this year for my Halloween party. So looking for props for it, I happened to get an old style reproduction radio off of craigslist for 10 bux and figured I would spook it up. Now, I have no use for listening to this radio in the state was in and it is a knock off, so please don't give me a hard time for gutting this thing, lol.

I started with this. A Thomas radio, model 317 ( If you'd like to search for one). I found mine pretty cheap, but they go for about 40 on ebay.








I also had this lying around. Its a sound to light project kit I bought at Radio Shack last year to learn how to solder. They don't sell them anymore, but you can find them on Ebay or use any other light organ. This one cost me 10 bux.








Now as you can see the leds are soldered directly to the board because I put this project together not knowing how I was going to use the light organ. So I desoldered the leds and added about 2 feet of wires to each so I could put the leds where I needed to and leave the board somewhere else. I suggest just adding the wires from the beginning to save desoldering. It's a pain in the butt. And give yourself extra wire for flexibility. You can tuck extra away later. ( pay no attention to my shoddy solder work. I busted a metal lead and had to improvise)








Next you'll want to open the back of the radio and "GASP" gut it. I removed everything that wasn't needed to hold the front pieces of the radio in place (knobs and dials).








Gutted!


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## weaz (Sep 11, 2010)

Next I Glued the 4 leds into place so they created a fairly even glow over the speaker holes. I played with it for a bit using tape to make sure the glow looked good but you couldn't see the leds from the front.








Now, because the piece that covers the speaker holes will sit directly over the leds, I had to add some spacers. I had some plastic one laying around that were the perfect width, but you can use anything thats slighlty wider than the leds glued to the surface.








All that's left to do is replace the board that covers the hole and tidy up the wires. I also glued the project board to the bottom to prevent it moving around. To make it work, I used my ipod and a small powered speaker I got at walmart for a few bucks. 








And here it is in all its glory. I just have it playing a witch chant to show off the light reaction, but in the future i'll have a playlist of old spooky radio shows and music. Also, the sensitivity of the speaker on the board is set high in this video to show how it works. Plus I'm filming in the light. I will lower it, which will lower the intensity of the lights for a much more sublte effect.





As you can see, super simple! Probably not even worthy of a tutorial, but I wanted to contribute to the board. Again, any questions and I'd be happy to help.


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## weaz (Sep 11, 2010)

If a mod could help with the embedding of the photos and video, I would appreciate it! I can never seem to get it to work


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

The first two posts in this thread will give you two ways to fix the Photobucket issue:

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=35117


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## weaz (Sep 11, 2010)

You're awesome as usual RoxyBLue!


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## Jack Mac (Nov 28, 2012)

Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing the info on the radio model, I've been looking for something like this. Your haunted radio turned out awesome!


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## Bobinhouston (Jul 28, 2013)

you can use this in your first room.
create a sound track....This is the __(insert your home town)_____ police chief....we are breaking into all local radio stations with urgent public safety message. several reports of strange occurrences are coming in from the (insert your neighborhood) ....we need alltrick or treaters off the streets, this is not a prank! Ghosts, werewolves, and more roaming the streets.....!"


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## dudeamis (Oct 16, 2011)

I have the exact same radio and planned on doing this same thing, thanks for the tutorial!


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## dead hawk (Jun 5, 2012)

should make it yell GET OUT OF HERE MR.FINCHLEY, like the machines from the twilight zone. Really cool radio


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## deadSusan (Jun 26, 2013)

This turned out great. And I like the fact that you are planning to use some old time radio shows. I've been given some pretty good chills by the stories from The Whistler, Suspense, X-Minus One and the like.
Thanks for the tutorial too.


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