This is my version of the hangman prop, and here is my how to. Interesting how after I first published it, the next season about 6 other hangman props should up out there with how to’s.
OK I made this last year and it needed to be upgraded.
A new body, heavier weights, looser joints, a wigform head, more body padding and different clothing. In other words, last years version was weak.
The premise is this, if you take an armature and add a heavy weight to the end, you get a way off kilter jerking motion. This is how bumbleballs work. So I built a motor case with a weighted armature inside of it. In this case, approx. 1.5 lbs. of cast lead.
The overall figure assembled as a bare frame
Starting to flesh the frame out with hard pick styro sheeting
Basic hands made from armature wire, latex gloves and great stuff.
NOTE: The wire poking out the end for attachment.
The hands will be modified after they cure, by using surform rasps to give them more realistic dimensions. I made a wire substrate for the hands so they can be flexed to chosen position afterwards.
NOTE: The the finished hands.
The figure was padded out with bubblewrap in the arms and legs before adding the clothes.
Additionally the mass of the figure will reduce the jerking motion of the weight as well, so at some point you will have a negative return of armature weight to motor rotation ratio. To help counteract this, particularly once he is clothed, I have added a spring to the head hook assembly. This spring will provide extra recoil, when he is fully clothed and affixed with noose.
Now the noose would limit the jerking right ????
Ah…. there is a solution to that as well. By affixing the spring with a cable thimble to the rope, you can leave slack. Enough slack to be imperceptible, yet yield sufficient motion to seem realistic.
This guy had a gagging and choking loop tape hidden from view, and a strobe mounted from above, Activated with a remote PIR unit that is x10 controlled.
The whole gag has about a 15 second détente so folks will approach him.
The strobe starts a few seconds prior to the jerking, followed by the gagging and choking, then stops about 45 seconds later.
Scared one guy so bad he peed himself, while knocking over his friends trying to get away.
For ’02 I intend to again revamp the jerk. I went through 4 motors in 1 day, due to the offset weight connected directly to the motor shaft. To deal with this, I will instead use a cam on the shaft, hooked to a transfer bar, which will in turn spin a offset weighted flywheel or direct cable connections to the legs and chin. It is possible I will replace the 120V motor with a 12V wiper type motor, but who knows.
I am considering using some goldenrod attached to armatures to add more motion to the legs and arms as well. I will add more on that as the year progresses.