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!

Day 2- Air cannon installed!

Lot's of freshly brewed frogsbreath on hand as we finish up the last parts of the haunt and work well into the early hours with all the goblins and ghoulies from halloweens past! Yes, the cannon looks like a go after all!. I've never done anything with pneumatics in the past and decided to try this out. The misconception on these cannons on my part was that it isn't the rush of air that scares people, it's the loud noise (see video)! It sounds like an air gun that carpenters use for nails etc only louder. This one was easy to set up and does work very well. Actually 'DC props' who make these are very nice folks who respond quickly to emails and provide great customer service. They told me exactly everything I needed to get this to work safely and properly. More of a hassle is the air compressor which you have to buy separately (I didn't know that at first. Many vendors who sell these do not give even a hint that anything additional is required). The compressors use a lot of juice and I tripped several garage outlet fuses before realizing I had to use an outlet from inside the house! Keep that in mind. However, once the compressor is full it does not make noise at all until it has to refill. I had it unplugged and fired off many shots before it needed more air.

Finally we got the end hall framed out. Can't believe I am still building with 2 days to go, but it went up quickly and now the haunt structure is done! The end hall is also simple and will have some hanging props, strobe light, fogger, actors entering the hall to scare people from the left side. And then on to the vortex....let's hope it survives the snow!