2012- Day 3- The Show Will Go On!

I think it looks OK for us. The brunt of the storm is looking like it will hit fairly well south. Basically just rain forecast for Wednesday. I had a couple of the actors over last night to review their scripts. One is stationed behind the drop panel, one is the 'Count' who will greet the guests in front of the elevator and will manage the sliding wall in front of the crypt door, and the third is the video operator who will work the snake projection image. Today I am having the elevator operator over. He has one of the more difficult jobs, namely pulling the elevator panel up and holding it there for several seconds until the guests leave the elevator. I did have to hire someone to do that! Once your haunt reaches the level where you need to start paying people to do jobs, maybe it's time to scale back? A bunch of weatherproofing steps also need to be taken today for the vortex ahead of whatever we get from the storm. Lots of testing over the next couple of days. I hope to have a bunch of pics and maybe some video.

2012- Day 11- Air cannon reloaded

Almost the final countdown yet again! We finished putting the fabric up in the vortex. It's holding up fairly well but a couple of the sheets have shrunken a tad, maybe 3/4", so we taped the ends with masking tape and this enabled us to safely stretch it over to staple onto the end hoops. The chandelier was finally hung! Hopefully a video soon. And today's item, the air cannon, was re-installed as shown. I had a similar video last year. I am a complete pneumatics newbie, not counting last year since we never actually got a chance to use the darn thing! A garage haunt is not an optimal venue for serious pneumatic props, but this is different! It is actually fairly easy to operate and very compact. This is the one we're using. Apparently the price has gone up since I bought mine, but again, if you are not an expert in the area of pneumatics I would not try to build one from scratch! Major safety issues here Ghouls. The other component of this set up is of course the air compressor which you will need as well. I'm using an 8 pound Husky brand. If you have never used an air compressor before there are some key issues to be aware of. The big one is the power drain. As I mentioned last year I tried plugging into almost every outdoor outlet we have and was blowing fuses right and left. You are going to have to use an indoor outlet and find one that works by trial and error! We will have to keep the tank inside the garage, but this year I have designed a large work area so there will be plenty of room. Make sure you keep that in mind! Also these things make a ton of noise while the tank fills. Thankfully the cannon does not require a ton of pressure and it looks like one fill should last at least an hour or more. We could refill the tank during the short intermission if we have to. Finally make sure you close the drain valve on the bottom of the tank if you have previously opened it! Last year I opened it before storing the tank, forgot to close it, and tonight I was trying to fill the tank for about an hour and nothing was happening! There was nothing in the troubleshooting directions about it. Somehow I figured it out!

2012-Day 14- Vortex reloaded!

The vortex frame was powered up today.No problems. The rotation rate is about the same. 6-7 rpm. This seems to be a good rate. Not too fast and not too slow. The last items will be the fabric, lighting and this year hopefully a real set of stairs entering and leaving. We'll see what happens. Only 2 weeks to go! I know it's the same every year now for 3 years but it's always a great feeling when we get to this point and know it's going to work again. Let's face it ghouls, the vortex is what everyone is waiting for!

2012-Day 16- Rolling update

Vortex bridge reassembled!

Chandelier nearly complete. One arm needs to be reattached.

The vortex bridge assembly was completed yesterday. I had a friend come over to help and we finished it in just over an hour! No significant degradation yet of the wood components now in the 3rd year of use. Next we will test the motor and put the fabric up. So actually the vortex is right now a little ahead of schedule. The rest of the haunt is getting there but I think we're a couple days behind. The chandelier is about 90% done but we had a glitch with one of the arms coming off after the glue failed (see image above). The problem is the inner pvc is also glued and when you screw the arm into it, it might actually increase the stresses on the glue. So far 5 out of 6 arms look fine. We do have a 'plan B' which is to use wooden dowels instead of pvc which can be screwed into the base rather than glued.

2012- Day 23- The Vortex returns!

Vortex under construction. This will be its third year in operation!

Roof of the canopy assembled. Notice the black duct tape reinforcing the connections. This is a must if you are going to use a structure like this!

For the 3rd year now we start the vortex build right around Columbus Day! So here we go. We always start with the canopy. Actually I should say "I" always start with the canopy. I have by now perfected the one man assembly process, although I did get some help getting some of the materials out, particularly the wheel carriages! One thing that really helped was duct taping the connections on the canopy segments. They are pretty light weight but have proven very durable for this weather.After all it did survive the ' nightmare before Christmas' last halloween! Remember the 'feet' of the canopy were extended with additional pvc pipe to increase the height a couple of feet. Please refer to the 'spinning tunnel' page on the right for all of the vortex details.  The first year I had to spend a lot of time reconnecting a couple of the roof segments that kept sliding apart. The tape has solved that problem. Today I put together almost 2 of the hoops. It's supposed to be dry most of this week here so it should be done by week's end.

2012- Day 38- Pepper's ghost test

Moving peppers ghost test showing actor on the cart being pushed from behind

Finally we finished the lighting and lightproofing and did a rudimentary test. I have a diagram of the set-up below. When people come out of the elevator they will see the amber lit vacuform panel backdrop at which point a spooky blue light turns on to reveal the 'ghost'. This actor will stand on a cart that is pushed by someone behind it. This will create the moving ghost effect. I first tested it with a prop fixed to the top of the cart to see if the projection is right.I then tested it with the help of my 2 sons. Unfortunately they are too tall for the job! However I did see enough to determine that the effect does work. The lighting is appropriate and the view from the elevator will be the correct vantage point. There are the other logistical challenges which include the moving panel that goes right into the ghost chamber. This is intended to be used to change the set when people go into and then come out of the elevator. It will take much practice to get it to work smoothly!

Diagram of the peppers ghost moving set-up

Static peppers ghost illusion showing the amber lit vacuform panel and superimposed on that is the image of the ghoul head prop created by the illusion as illustrated above

2012- Day 60

School's back in session. Halloween decorations are already out. It's beginning to look a lot like our favorite season again Ghouls! Lots to do this month. We will start on the chandelier this weekend. Pepper's ghost effect will be finally tested, sound installed and the front entrance hall will be renovated. Probably we'll get the web gun out, re-install the air cannon and set up the work zone for the ghouls who will be behind the scenes as it were. What I am hoping is by October, the only things left will be the vortex, exit hall and entrance door. This will give us plenty of time for testing which this set really will need. There are just too many things happening to have it run smoothly without many run throughs!

2012-Day 80- Crypt before and after

We finished the crypt upgrades which were basically a ceiling repaint with gray and then gray speckled paint, followed by placement of vines onto, and hanging from, the ceiling. I was able to screw a couple of large roots into the ceiling frame and then secure the lighter stuff with twine. I think it came out pretty well. We will place webbing from the gun in there as well. Looks like we will need that foyer actor to also make sure people go in there, because I don't think they will want to now! It looks a lot more dense than it is. There is still plenty of room for at least 6 guests. I had to be sure not to obstruct the ceiling in the path of the moving wall.

Crypt ceiling before additions

Crypt after repainting and adding 'details'

Day 12- Elevator lights

These are the moments all haunters wait for! After literally months of sweat and blood we finally get to see a finished product, or close to it. The elevator foyer lighting features an eerie amber down light and a small interior spot to show the doors. We also have an indirect black light which will enhance the actor standing in the corner. Unfortunately it's difficult to reproduce exactly what you are seeing for real but at least you get some idea of the scene we are creating. This is what the visitors will see as they wait for the doors to open! I think this could be our greatest creation in the short haunting career of  'xtremegaragehaunting' thus far! What do you think?

Day 22- Elevator facade

Things are moving along. We installed light and sound for the map room as well as the 2-way mirror. We'll have pics of that at some point but I wanted to post these elevator facade pics which are really great I think. We painted the front black for the doors and added some foam brick again on either side with a few skull props as well. The center prop was sawed in half and placed on each door as knobs! We are also going to put foam at the top of the elevator face with some uplighting. It's very hard to demonstrate the full effect with the actual light that will be seen but will try. Tomorrow is vortex day Ghouls, so stay tuned! We plan to get the canopy and hoops up and running. If we have time for the bridge we will do that to.

Day 45- Elevator back wall

Two images of the completed back wall of the elevator. One is taken through the partially open doors of the elevator and the other is the view from the map room, which will not be possible to take a week from now as everything will be fully enclosed (we hope!) The elevator walls will be part hardboard and part foam. We're using a lot of this foam this year as it is light weight and easy to cut but durable. I also didn't want to add a lot of extra weight to the platform but placed the hardboard on the bottom in case anyone decides to test the walls with their feet! All of the inside elevator walls will be painted black except for the brick wall seen through the window obviously.

Day 58- Map room ceiling

Yikes! September already! We've fallen behind some , so I am hoping that with the holiday weekend I can 'bring it' and get back on track. This is a start right here with the map room ceiling done. This took a bit of engineering to pull off as there weren't many options to place the ceiling in a way that wouldn't interfere with the crush wall! I used a 2x2 frame with foam board screwed into it. I had to add an additional 2x2 to the crush wall frame so the ceiling struts could be placed just above the top of the crush wall. The second image is the view from above the room ceiling. I think you can see what I mean! I added some strips of sheeting to hide the pulleys and rope. On one end they attach directly to the crush wall and the other end to the opposite wall so that when the wall moves the sheet compresses like an accordion. No one can see the pulley mechanism behind that! You can see the slot in the ceiling where the corpse will move with the wall. The total distance of wall movement is about 3 -4 feet.

Day 72- Elevator panel tower installed!

OK Ghouls, we're on to the elevator again finally! To review the concept, let's go back to that particular post. You can find it here. Now I agree, there is a huge amount of infrastructure we're building this year for the haunt in general. I'm getting a little anxious about it with the time factor and all, but I think we'll be OK. This particular design I am very happy with as I simplified it A LOT. If you look at the version I referenced in the earlier post you can see that having individual panels come out of the ground on some sort of rotating spool mechanism was logistically too complex and yet another motor to drive it was not in the budget. The sliding mechanism has to be super smooth and problem free. One day a couple of months back I was thinking about this and wondering what examples I could find of moving panels. It suddenly hit me in the face literally as I was looking right at one...the garage door! At first I was thinking about curving the tracks underneath our current garage door to make additional room but the curved garage door track is way too expensive. The straight track is cheap. The hinges and wheels you can buy in bulk. This was a good compromise. We have unfinished 10 foot ceilings in the garage so I was able to build a straight tower with 2 8' 2x4's and a pair of 76" tracks. The tower sits just in front of the open garage door so it doesn't affect it. I had to calculate where the wheels had to go on the panel frame so I could get the maximum height of elevation. Now it's true that with a straight panel construct you don't have as many panels as you would if you did have some come up from underneath a floor or something and then curve away, but if we raise the window at the back of the elevator a bit and have the 'elevator operator' raise the panels slowly, you will still get the motion effect I believe. The panel frame is 71" high. I put one crypt panel at the bottom as you can see, since this is the floor that the guests will go down to! I will use foam for the upper floors and carve bricks out! Now in the images you can see the panel is at the back of the elevator and a window will be created ('X' in the image) which will show only a small portion of the top of the panels. We will have someone behind the panels pulling them up which will in turn provide the sensation of a descent! Now this 'panel tower' is wicked smooth with the tracks and 2" wheels. I used some motor grease in there to lube things up. Works like a charm. Should have some video soon! Stay tuned!

Day 87- Completion of crush wall!

I think it's definitely ready for primetime, ghouls! We finished the 'stone work' around the vacuform panels. Not that easy as we had to cut the foam pieces to fill the spaces around the panels. We used glue and also screws from the back of the frame. The foam is quite dense but very light weight. Once the wall details were complete, we tested the mechanism and everything works fine. There is very little additional weight there. In the second image it looks like the crush wall barely gets past the back wall but there is actually plenty of space there. The first image shows the wall from the side after moving it forward with the pulley mechanism about 1-2 feet. It's very smooth motion now.

Day 88- Devil in the Details

..And that's exactly it. This year, fewer events, WAY more details. Here we are seeing the Map Room or crypt room take shape with added wall detail for the crush wall and back wall. We apply some black sheeting to the wooden wall frame basically to minimize the light leaks. Behind this room is the control room. We will have 3 monitors this year! That means lots of light unfortunately that has to be addressed. We can screw the vacuform panels to the wall frame and we also have our 'stone' slabs which basically consist of foam from an old hot tub cover. A little black spray paint and away you go! With the appropriate lighting it really does look like stone! They are trickier to attach to the frame though. I used a strong epoxy as well as screws placed through the back of the frame into the foam.

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!