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| Boy did I ever get a hairbrained idea with this one! For this prop I wanted ANIMATED ghosts that moved in a circle around a tombstone. Soooo,, I decided on a ceiling fan for the motor. ( no lights on it) The whole idea was to make it work hanging from a tree in the front yard. I THOUGHT I could just attach it to a branch, but that didn't work out so well. The fan was too heavy for where I wanted to put it, the branch was only about 2". What I ended up doing was attaching it to a 2 X 4 and extending it from the main tree, across the branch I was going to attach it to. I only have a couple of pictures. If I would have known I was going to put this on a website I would have taken more. This prop will work great if you have a larger branch, you would just have to do the 2X4 a bit differently. |
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| I started off by picking up an old ceiling fan ( no lights) at a local auction for a couple of $. I then cut down the blades to about 15" and drilled small holes in the ends. The fan was attached to a 2x4 by removing the extension and putting it thru a hole in the end. You will have to wire a cut extension cord to the wires from the fan, leave the plug on one end to plug into the power. I made a trip to Kmart and picked up 4 ghosts, (very cheap about $5 each), and added some extra flowing fabric. Those I attached to the fan blades with fishing line and let them hang down around the tombstones. The fan speed was just a bit too fast, even on the slowest setting, so I added a plug-in dimmer switch.This worked great, slowed the little ghosties right down. |
| This is the final prop.. The ghosts turn and go around the tombstone. Underneath I placed strobe lights with green lens covers and set them to flash medium to slow. It was a great effect! For 2006, I'm thinking of a different kind of motor to use, one that isn't quite so heavy and can be attached directly to a tree branch. I'll post when I think of something.:o) |
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| Here is what the fan should look like attached to the 2 X4. You can see I used a heavy duty extension cord to wire it. |
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| A closer view, everything on the underside was painted black so it would blend in. |
| The picture above is a diagram I did showing the parts and how they should look, the upper right is the trial run, we hung the 2x4 out off the garage roof, and I set the speed that I wanted. clicking the diagram will take you to a larger view, and another diagram. |
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