# The Making of the Singing Skellies



## Guest (May 25, 2007)

First I want to say that I didn't come-up with this Idea , Mike C: Did......

step 1: the stand you will have to make as many stands as you want props but for the purpose of this tutorial lets make it 4 singing skellies......

choose which way you want to make the stand: Mike C: Stand was
1st way: 4 - "L" brackets and a piece of 4'x4' scrap plywood. flat black spray paint, duct tape, screws and 4 fishing poles bought at yard sales.
take the "L" brackets and screw them down to the plywood with the back part of the "L" sticking up, then tape duct tape the fishing poles to the upper part of the "L" bracket, spray paint the plywood and the brackets and the poles. Leave the eyelets on the poles....mount poles in a straight line.


2nd way see my tutorial.....

Step 2: You will need 5 servos. 4- high tec servos  311 servos and 1 - high tec servo  425BB servo take the 311 servos and mounted in some light weight skulls this is where I bought mine at  Ebay seller Legolas 62 
after you have mounted the 311-servos inside the skulls by using the  Scary Terry Method you will be ready to mount them to the poles.

Step 3: 4- 1/2" PVC doublesided connectors and 4-1/2" end caps. and some plastic putty found in paint section of the hardware store. and a drill and bits and Hotmelt glue sticks.
Hot glue the double connectors in the base hole of the skulls. Hot Glue end cap on connector, mix plastic putty to fill the connector to take up slack in the inside of connector. Let set-up and get hard.

*** This is where you decide how tall you want your skellies to be, if you want them all the same height are if you want to shorten the fishing pole to make one or two shorter in height, if you want them shorter cut the narrow end of the fishing pole off to the height you want *** By using your dremal tools.

Step 4: you will need some copper tubing to make the shoulder and arms, drill a tiny hole in the tube at middle point slid tubing down the pole to where you want the shoulders to be.cris cross electrical zip ties to hold the copper tube, but allow the tube to rock so you will get the dancing motion. If You can rest the copper pipe on the fishing pole eyelets. If NOT use a wad of plastic putty to make a pipe rest. ( see my High tec drawing ) Here is the ling to the  Fishing pole prop so you can save it to your computer for a better picture










Step 5: Next drill through the end cap connector. a small hole into the connector that will slid down on the fishing pole. start with a tiny hole a enlarge if need be to get the skull to rest on the end of the fishing pole.

Step 6: Take the 425BB servo and mount it to the center pole turned sideways, about midway on the pole.Use the double sided horn for the servo.
you will need some fishing line for this next step,on both sides of the servo horn tie the fishing line to the horns, then tie the line to the poles.

Step 7 : The electrical part was posted inside a thread and mike wrote it him self so I am currently looking for it and will post it here when I find it. 

Step 8: Here it is Boils and Ghouls how Mike did The Electrical part:

Actually Blinky, I had a laptop computer outside, and was using a 
MiniSSCII board (well, two MiniSSCII boards for the pirates and skellies, 15 
servos all told)... so I had a ten foot telephone line going from the 
laptop to the SSC boards (they were jumpered together), so let me figure 
things...
Okay, ten feet of telephone cable (serial line) from the laptop to the 
first SSC board. Then, a 20 foot two wire line from the first SSC board 
to the second SSC board. THEN, all the servos in the pirates and 
skellies, none of which were longer than 15 feet or so, went to the two SSC 
boards (one was located in the Ghoul singer's head, and the other in the 
pirate captain's head, and they were separated by about 20 feet of two 
conductor wire, as I mentioned before)... the 7 servos for the two 
pirates were connected to the SSC board in the pirate captain's head, and 
the 8 servos for the skellies were conected to the SSC board in the 
Ghoul singer's head. Again, no length of wire was more than 15 or so feet.
So... computer to SSC board, jumper to SSC board (#2), and then all 
servos connected with extensions to those two boards.
But every program in VSA was running the full boards, as in, each file 
with audio controlled the 15 servos.
Does that help ya? 
I wish I could describe it better, it's so much easier to do than to 
describe.
At any rate, if you use a computer inside the house, just locate it as 
close to the outdoor location of your skellies, and run a line to it 
through a window, etc. It'll work, you can go a long way before noticing 
any noise or jittering, in my experience.


Mike C


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## CreepyCreations (Oct 16, 2011)

Is there a video of these?


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