Halloween Machinations: Animated Electric Chair prop
October 29, 2010
Is Halloween really this weekend? Can I please have another week to finish all my stuff?
Here’s my latest build: a full-sized, animatronic electric chair. Everything is built from the ground up, chair included. This is probably the most complex prop I’ve ever built, and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. I might even add smoke and sound for next year’s edition. But until then, check out a video of it in operation here:
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Amazing decorations and attention to detail (like always)! I’m sorry I missed it this year.
This is really cool how did you make it?
Dummy is a bunch of newspapers stuffed into some disposable painter’s coveralls, with wire coat-hangers forming a basic skeleton for support. The head is a flashing skull prop I found at Value Village — essentially a strobe light inside of a plastic skull.
The chair is built from scratch out of a bunch of 2x4s and wood screws. Underneath, I removed the blade from an old jigsaw, mounted it, attached the bit to a hinged wooden dowel running up the back of the chair, and along the dummy’s spine. If you set it up right and adjust tension points in all the right spots, it shakes it just so, giving the real-deal electrocution effect.
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