What's all this, then?

Each Halloween season, when the Greenwood Reaper inhabits my yard, people ask me “How did you make it?” and “What is it made from?”.

Since I’m making a bigger and better reaper I figured I’d make this blog to answer those questions. This is also a way for interested parties to ask questions and see the progress of the project.

The only regular time I spend building is on the week-ends, so it’s likely posts will appear early in the week.

The posts appear with the newest on top, so if you're new to the sight scroll to the bottom to read the beginning.



Enjoy.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Reaper 3.0


Well, after 2 years of struggling with the second version of the Reaper I decided to re-redesign the basic structure. The big problem was the raising of the torso. It was just too heavy and cumbersome. My solution was to simply weld the top structure to the bottom and leave it up all year. The base structure could potentially be used for other holiday decorations (either with or without the skull).

Since it will be up all year I decided to re-make the top section and make it look less torso-like. After a bit of research I borrowed design elements from the Eiffel Tower and The Space Needle .
After a week-end of welding and painting I got it done. With help from my buddy Eli we got the new base standing in under 30 minutes.

The arms are now being held in place by rectangular piece that gets slid in vertically through the top leg hole things.

After the head and arms (the same ones from Reaper 2.0) were in place, it was just a matter of re-using the same robe as last year.


2 comments:

Nate said...

Freakin AMAZING!!! lots of great ideas! thank you for sharing the building process, it was quite interesting to see how it all came together.

As far as having the base up for other holidays, i would still leave the skull, you could always stich up Santa hat for it, or for thanksgiving turn him into a scare crow, and slap some rabbit ears on him for easter! and instead of the scythe it could be an American Flag for the 4th of July, plenty of options!

Kim said...

I just drove by the reaper for the first time yesterday. It's the coolest Halloween decoration I've ever seen. Does it come to life at night?