Day 95- Framing the back wall

Perhaps not as exciting as finishing the elevator platform but very important nevertheless. The 'back wall' of the map room is the wall opposite the entry door. Basically we want a fairly solid frame base on which the 'stone' and panels can be securely mounted. Last year we had a couple of walls break down and we don't want that to happen again! I used mostly 2x2's with a 2x4 in the corners and center. We will then cover this with black sheeting first to eliminate light leaks and then add the panels etc. The main detail we don't want to forget when we assemble this is we have to make sure we leave enough space for the crush wall movement in front of whatever details we add to the back frame. You can see in the second image split view showing right and left sides where we leave what should be enough space.

Day 97- Completion of elevator platform!

Well we were supposed to have this done by the end of the month and as incredible as it seems we are nearly a week ahead of schedule! We can use all the extra time we can get. As expected we had to adjust the set-up until the flex in the floor felt just about right. For those attempting this at home, you need thicker flooring than you think and fewer springs than you think. Refer to the last post for the floor base. We tried using 2 boards underneath the flooring over the springs as shown in the first image here ( a 2x4 and a 2x6). That was too stiff. We took out the 2x6 and the 3 springs underneath it and moved the 2x4 to the center. (see below)We also tested double thickness hardboard as the flooring. This was way too flimsy. Finally we arrived at our final construct: 9 springs total, 3 on either side and 3 in the center underneath a single 2x4. The floor material is 3/4 inch plywood sheets with a little patchwork in the middle since what we had lying around left a small strip in the center. We also added 2 brackets to attach the floor frame to the central frame in the garage. This added additional stability.

Day 99- "Kindly step all the way in please and make room for everyone. There's no turning back now"

Well Ghouls, I think it's about time we stayed focused and got some things done...like the entire elevator base! Yes, we really put on the ghoul cap today and cranked. Probably the countdown getting below the 3 digit mark was part of it! But seriously, I don't know if any of you have this problem: you get into the garage or wherever your haunt is going to be and it's just so totally overwhelming thinking about all the stuff you need to get done that it basically immobilizes you! You have to have a specific task list going into that day or hour or however much time you are going to spend and don't get yourself sidetracked thinking about other stuff. That's what we were able to do today! So now down to business. The elevator is not a new concept. We are modifying the design for our specific needs. As you can see you start with a support base that has 4 bolts on the corners that will go through the actual floor and will allow the floor to flex maybe a couple millimeters..not that much because you don't want it to feel like a trampoline. We might have to adjust the number of springs and other features to get it to feel just right but here is what I think should work. The first layer contains the countersunk 3/8" by 6" bolts. I used a 1/4" speed bore and went down probably about 1/4 inch, just deep enough to countersink the bolt heads, then I press fit the heads in there. The 4 bolts sit on the 2x4's on both sides of the floor. You can see the bottom 2x4's are broken up into segments. This was just because it was easier to get them to line up with the bolt holes. We then closed the gaps with scrap 2x2's once we had the full length 2x4 on top. The second layer you can see has the full length 2x4's overlying the base and the bolts go through those. The second layer also has the 2x4's running horizontally and braced to the sides. The pictures are more or less self explanatory. Finally I added the valve springs. These are 1 1/4" wide and close to 1.5 inch high. They come in boxes of 12 so I decided to use them all fairly regularly spaced out as you can see. Again using a 1.25 speed bore and drilling down 1/4". They actually sit in there very securely!
The final result is shown and now we are ready to build the floor which will overlay the structure shown here!

Day 101- Crush wall details

Progress has been a little slow with the heat wave in full force. The fan is just blowing hot air. Anyway I did get the crypt panels installed onto the crush wall which you can see here. It looks awesome!

This time they will be quite visible and there will be a total of 9, 5-6 of which will be placed in the Map Room! You can also see the corpse prop in front of the wall and yes I did add some old chains we had lying around from our dog's old backyard runner. I aged them a little with some black spray paint. Lot's more to do here. We've got the rest of the Map Room walls, 2 doors, the projector set-up and ceiling. We are also going to start work on the elevator platform this weekend!

Day 107- Map Room gets corpsified!

We added the corpse prop as planned. It's a great prop. I've been using it for years, but I think this year it will really stand out. In the past no one could really see it because either it was too dark or they passed it too quickly. This is a classic corpsified skeleton. You take a skeleton and modify it's appearance to look more like a real corpse through a series of processes which vary slightly from one haunter to the next but all yielding the same result. In my case, I did this several years ago. I started with dark stockings stretched over the skeleton, followed by cutting the stocking up and then going through a sequence of shellack and stain applications incorporating thin twine to look like pieces of flesh. I think it came out pretty well. And yes it is missing the left leg, but I think it looks even more real with a missing leg, don't you? If you google 'corpsing a bucky' you will find many how to's on this. In any event I added a third I-beam and wheel as you can see just for the corpse but learned from the recent difficulties we had with the wall blocks and made sure there was plenty of space this time between the block and the I beam. As a result the corpse easily gets pushed along as the wall moves forward!I didn't have to add a whole separate pulley mechanism for it and just have a simple pull back cord to reload it at the end. I will dress it up with some chains to hide the suspension cord soon.
So now we just need to reinforce the I beam frame and finish the wall detail to make sure the added weight on the crush wall is still OK. We are also going to be starting the elevator platform! Coming up fast on day 100!

Day 110- Crush wall success!

OK Ghouls, I think we got it finally! To stabilize the base of the wall so it doesn't swing back and forth when pulling it forward, we added 2 2x4 runners, each with a caster wheel on the bottom. We decided to use a pulley mechanism to advance the wall rather than some type of push mechanism from the rear. This resulted in a pretty smooth motion! Finally 2 pulleys were added behind the wall to pull it back for 'reload'! So go ahead and check the video out and be the judge! The first video shows some of the details I have been talking about in previous posts. The second video shows the wall motion which admittedly is pretty slow in this clip but can easily be adjusted by pulling more forcefully on the bar.
Next task will be to build the rail for the corpse, then actually finish the wall detail to be certain the added weight does not adversely affect the wall motion.

In the first video be sure to pause the Hypster audio player at the bottom of this page so you can hear it.
In the second video you will see me moving the wall very slowly, but smoothly forward by pulling down on the bar in the control room. Then I will use the other pulleys to reload (pull back) the wall. This motion is not nearly as smooth but doesn't matter because the guests will have left the map room before the wall gets repositioned.

Day 113- Crush wall progress

Welcome back Ghouls! Looks like we're actually going to pull this off! It turns out the main problem was in fact the unbalanced nature of the whole block/ wall connection. In other words, we had the bracket to the wall placed BEHIND the bracket to the wheel on the I beam (see image from 'Day 117' post). This caused the front of the 2x4 block (labelled 'B' in today's images) to want to tilt upward against the I beam and jam up the sliding motion. I suppose we could have designed that a little better, but there is always a solution to every problem! So what we did was to use a few of the scrap 2x2's we have lying around from cutting down the longer pieces and screwed those into the front of the block and anchored them into the wall frame to pull the front of the block down. This opened up the space between the block 'B' and the I beam shown by the arrow and basically solved the problem! The wall is now quite easy to move! However to get it move uniformly is the next task. Now the other important improvement from the additional 2x2 brackets was that the wall no longer swings through the metal wall bracket labelled 'M'. This would have certainly produced metal fatigue failure right there and would have led to disaster, even though the weight of the wall is not too bad. You can see the basic 2x2 wall frame in the other image to which we will attach the vacuform panels. Now those dollar and change 2x2's are not all straight, so when I first tried a basic box type frame with a longer horizontal piece first on the bottom it totally distorted the frame and screwed up the sliding block alignment. That's why you see the shorter segments in between the long vertical ones. By first aligning adjacent vertical ones with the shorter horizontal ones, I was able to straighten the wall out first before putting the longer 2x2 on the bottom.

Day 116- Map Room framing cont: crush wall trying to take shape

Well Ghouls, it's not totally awful yet. I think it has potential and I don't think we have to start over! That's the good news. The bad news, while not difficult at all to move the wall, is that the motion is totally not smooth. OK maybe it's smooth for the first foot and a half but after that you run into problems. Right off the bat it was apparent that the single bolt in the 2x4 block supporting the wall frame was not going to work as it constantly was rotating up into the I beam and jamming. I added a second bolt which did help (see image arrow). We also stabilized the blocks with a spanning 2x2 ('Back support strut' in the second image). Both of these adjustments

made it easier to move the wall but it appears that finding a proper center of gravity that will allow the wall to move uniformly forward will be a challenge, and figuring out how to move it reproducibly. The other problem appears to be that the wall frame has a tendency to swing back and forth as it is moved.
So overall I think this design could be made to work properly but it does need some help.
Next step I think will be to finish the basic 2x2 wall framing so we can see what the additional weight does to the tracking...and go from there

Day 117- Map Room framing cont. : the crush wall

This is definitely one project we're kind of flying by the seat of our pants on as it were. If you think about it a lot of the build can be like that. Some things have been done before and we kind of modify that. This particular feature I haven't seen yet in a haunt. Doesn't mean it hasn't been tried. Maybe someone knows about one. Anyway here it goes: you can see the 2x4 blocks bolted onto the brackets and in the one image, a second bracket is bolted in turn onto the block to convert the construct to the horizontal so we can actually attach a wall made of 2x2's to it!The top of the wall is drawn in there with 2 black lines so you can see how it will lay out. Now I bolted the 2x4 block in such a way as to leave a space below the I-beam so it can slide. I added a couple extra washers in between the block and the bracket to decrease the friction between the bracket and the I-beam. It does slide pretty easily so far. We will have to see what the weight of the wall does to this. It's possible it could tilt the block against the underside of the beam in such a way as to make the sliding difficult. It doesn't have to be smooth- even a jerky motion would be fine- might actually be better! Just as long as I can push it along from behind.
Btw I'm sure by now you've noticed the background soundtrack to Raiders of the Lost Ark. We are going to play a portion of this as people are entering the Map Room. It will be quite a show!

Day 120- Map Room framing

Welcome back Ghouls! We started framing out the Map Room! Right now the key is getting the moving wall to work. You can see in the images the idea of the suspension mechanism which is this year's major upgrade for moving doors and in this case walls. I took apart an old caster wheel saving the wheel and the bolt. Then taking 2 8" brackets (Home depot, 93cents each) the wheel was rebolted to the brackets as shown. The wheel will then sit on top of the 2x4 and will roll ON TOP as the wall moves. Now the trick will be to safely bolt a construct together that will convert to the horizontal wall frame. You can also see the floor of the room has been framed out. The Map Room will measure about 7 feet deep by 6 feet wide by 7.5 high. The I beams for the wall have to be widely separated to allow for a central projection set-up from the ceiling.