Haunted Hula

This is a Halloween skeleton that can hula all night long. Powered by a repurposed 12 volt car wiper motor and battery charger, it has lots of motion and a rickety wobble like a skeleton should. I left him white so he would contrast in the light.

Supplies

This project used a plastic skeleton, car battery charger, pallet wood, 3/4" pvc pipe with 5 couplers, an 8mm rod 3ft long, 2 skate bearings, 12 volt windshield wiper motor, 2 bike sprockets, bike chain, One 4" lazy susan, sheetrock screws, zip ties, wires, string, wood glue, ice hoop and black paint.

As far as tools, the pallet wood was reclaimed with a saws-all, cutting through the nails rather than pulling them. I did use a table saw to construct the base and "hip wheel" but hand saw would work too. General tools like drill, drill bits, screw driver, hand saw, paint brush and regular household items were also used.

Most everything is available from Lowe's except the hoop, sprockets. Craft paint came from Walmart. I collect lots of items from trash and reuse, so it's hard to properly source everything as many times it is dumpster sourced.

Step 1: The Base

The base is 28" square and about 10" high and all reclaimed pallet wood. It's just a box screwed together with sheetrock screws. The bottom is left open and houses 2 cross members that support the motor, a fixed metal rod and the pvc pipe drive shaft. I did pilot the holes and countersink them so the screw heads don't stick out.

The wiper motor drives a bike chain that turns a sprocket glued onto the 3/4" pvc pipe coupler. The coupler was sanded out so the skate bearing fits inside and rides on the 8mm steel shaft. this assembly sits on the 2 cross pieces inside the box. I left a little space between the slats and simply decked it over leaving the power wires through the cracks.

Step 2: Hip Disc

More pallet wood was used to make the disc. It is 11" in diameter. Using my table saw sled, i just put a screw in the center and cut a series of passes and turned it a small bit after each pass. This gives a round disc with a perfect center. Too bad that we don't care about the exact center as it is not used. I measured over about 1 1/4 inches and drilled a hole tightly fitting a 3/4" pvc pipe about 2" long. So assembled, the drive turns the pvc pipe which is supported by a bike sprocket and the disc spins like a cam on top. A solid steel shaft 8mm comes up the center and supports the torso. I made a slip ring and a few posts for the top of the disc to give the torso a wobble as it turns.

Step 3: Legs

The legs are simple. The feet are screwed down to the base. I removed the pelvis and the hip ball joint is zip tied to the lazy susan on the bottom of the disc. It is screwed on off center so gives the legs some hula action.

Step 4: Torso

The spine was modified to accept a short length of wood and a pvc section was slipped over that. This just sits atop of the center rod and lets the torso wobble freely without falling over. Another pipe section is zip tied to the slip ring and transfers wobble action up from the disc. the assembly tries to spin so i simply added a string from a shoulder to a stake in the ground to prevent this.

Step 5: Power

I use an old garage sale battery charger to run 12 volts to the motor. It works well and has short circuit protection in case of some strange accident. If there is a hard short, the machine will just shut off power. So 12 volts is pretty safe, it can't shock you and I can use it to power future projects and even charge batteries.

Step 6: The Effect

It actually looks cool especially at night. I did add a lamp up lighting which was my wife's idea. I hope you enjoyed this crazy hula skeleton and that he inspired more projects. Feel free to comment below and do consider joining Instructables.