I’ve wanted to create a bottomless pit for >5 years, yet wanted to make it my own. (with a scare) There have been discussion of using pneumatics in combination with a bottomless pit, but since it is an illusion… might as well use the light/dark illusion to give the scare.
Most bottomless pits use 1 half silvered mirror for the top and a real mirror on the bottom. I’ve used 2 half silvered mirrors in this pit and made a 7″ deep secret compartment beneath the bottom mirror to store my skull and strobe light to be triggered 3 sec after a TOT leans over to look into the pit.
When the secret compartment is dark, the bottom mirror just reflects. When light is turned on in the bottom compartment, you start to see the skull in it.
The box uses 2″ square beams with notches groved in to support the plexiglass mirrors (22″ by 24″)
Ripped aged pallet wood was used to make the tunnel look very old
3/4″ edging is used to support the 2nd inner layer of pallet wood. 1.5″ finishing nails were used to assemble the center box.
A 7 inch secret bottom compartment can be seen in the right part of the photo.
Most pits use a bright light inside the tunnel as show in this photo for illustration. The brighter the light in the tunnel, it makes shinning the light in the secret comparment more difficult to hightlight the skull.
Bright light from behind the slats of the tunnel allows to highlight the secret surprise skull.
Even fainter illumination, gets a more clear skull, when the strobe light turns on in the bottom compartment.
Skull is cut in half to allow positioning in this tight space
Strobe light is mounted on one side of the box and shines on the skull
PIR motion sensor from Home Depot removed from its casing and hooked to a 4 sec time delay relay
Added powered speakers with mp3 player that is turned on at the same time as the strobe should add to the startle effect.