A Grim Reaper out of Spare Parts
Being
a little short on cash this year in preparation for other things that will be
heading down the pipe, I decided this year to bring a Grim Reaper back to the
haunt. This reaper wouldn't be the first. In 2003 I built a very
crude one only to have it fall victim to Halloween vandals (click the thumbnail
on the right to see). This year, I decided to build a fully articulated
Grim Reaper to welcome people to the front door. But how? I have no
monies!!!
The solution, of course, is to use spare parts. As it was, there was some left over PVC pipe and some old and broken Halloween decor I was going to throw away anyway. Could I make a Grim Reaper out of this?
The first step was to fashion the PVC. This was easy and, thankfully, I had the pipe to spare and the couplings I needed to make a basic human form. I had no rebar to keep it in place, but I solved that problem by cutting the bottom pipe at a 45 degree angle and hammering it directly into the ground.!
Remember Calista the house skeleton? Unfortunately, her age was catching up to her and the storm that destroyed the haunt last year didn't help either. When I took her out of storage this year, she was in pieces and was destined for the recycling bin. However, Halloween is the time of the dead returning to life and I thought that since Calista was part of the haunt for so long, why not just repurpose her?
I began by taking Clalista's chest and cutting the spine out with a battery operated saw. It was easy to clamp it around the PVC, but I applied a healthy coating of Good Stuff sealant we had left over from some home repairs. It dries very hard and expands to fill in unsightly crevaces so it worked very nice.
You'll notice I took off the arms. I found that it was much easier to work on the project without them.
Rather than fashioning new hands for the reaper, I stuffed Calista's old arms into the PVC joints. I found that not only did this save PVC (and some money, if you have to buy them), but it also hid the fact that I used PVC at all as all you can see are the skeletal hands later on.
Time to get dressed. You can see here that the PVC was going to pose a problem before I decided to just use Calista's old arms. The black cloak is a leftover Halloween costume from many years ago (and the old cloak that the first Grim Reaper wore).
Attaching the head to the body was going to be a problem as I didn't have a four way PVC intersection, but I found that a bungee cord and a hole in the bottom of Calista's head did the trick.
Here she is! The sickle is an old accessory that I actually never used. For Calista to hold it, I simply wrapped the flimsy plastic hand around the handle, held it in place with a bungee cord, and used Great Stuff to hold it in place. After a few hours, it dried and looked great.
With a little spooky fabric I bought last year, the finishing touches were complete. I know he's not perfect, but keep in mind that I built this bad boy out of only spare parts and rubbish. I'll probably replace the head and make him a foot taller when I can spend the money to do so, but right now I'm proud of my miserly creation.
UPDATE!
As I promised, as soon as I managed to get some coinage, I set out to improve the spare parts grim reaper. Now, he stands at am imposing six and a half feet and sports a new, larger and somewhat more realistic head.
All I needed to purchase was a foam skull from Wal-Mart ($5) and a four way PVC coupling ($2). I also purchased some rebar for extra support ($2.50) making the new and improved spare parts reaper a steal at just over ten bucks! The black PVC pipe you see in the neck completely disappears at night giving the skull an eerie floating effect.
Don't worry about Calista... she's still part of the haunt, now a victim of the man-eating bush!!!
