Monday, October 13th, 2008 in How-To

It’s unoriginal to call it a sign, so a directory it is.

Mostly because I don’t want to point to things in an absolute manner that aren’t absolute.

The graveyard might not be to the left next year… you dig? It’s like a mall directory in that respect. If I wanna move The Gap to the other end of the mall, I can do that now. And there won’t be any confused preppy kids ending up not finding The Gap or any gothy/emo Hot Topic bound clutches accidentally entering The Gap.

Anyway, Guy gets the joy of assembling, and he was swell enough to cut the wood for me, and I’m sure I’ll be posting an actual write up in the how-to’s eventually, but just enjoy some pictures in the meantime.

Wood for the Halloween haunt directory @ boo!

Photoshop and scissors. Hardcore.

The Boneyard sign.

A Haunted Carnival? Why not!

Hey, gotta get the name out there somehow.

Guess which way it points.

3 Ghoulish Gasps

Tags: signage

Saturday, October 11th, 2008 in Lighting

NOTE: You will want to check out my awesome LED vs. Incandescent writeup. I know nothing about lights so I put it all out there for anyone to understand, with lots of pictures! Thanks!

Guy and I were turned on to LED light bulbs last Halloween, but didn’t have the time or money to scoop any.

On any Halloween night, we use at least 15 incandescent lights, a few being the power sucking floods and most being those painted, 25 watt party lights.

Every year, we seem to lose a party light.  It’s really the one thing we can depend on year after year.  A colored light bulb is going to burn out. These lights are tested and used for 2 hours a year. Those that do seem to last have cracked and faded color.

Anyway, I shopped around and we ended up purchasing about $60 worth of LED light bulbs from http://www.dealextreme.com/.  For that much, we got:

01474 DX Multicolor 18-LED Light Bulb 110V x 6
01476 DX White 36-LED Light Bulb 110V x 3
05116 18-LED E27 Light Bulb 110V Green x 3
05136 18-LED E27 Light Bulb 110V Red x 3

So 15 bulbs for $60 actually comes out to a pretty good deal when you consider what a party light will cost.  (If you want all kinds of comparisons, including cost and color performance, please see my entry here:  LED or Incandescent? A Hands-On Comparison).  The E27 base is a typical base found in the US and fits in our outdoor plastic light stake fixtures just fine.

With this being my first year with these and all, we’ll see how they perform and hold up to the cold, and sometimes wet Euclid, Ohio halloweens.  We are super pleased with the color, especially the green.  Considering these are LED spotlights, not floodlights, the light throw is fantastic.

And the color changers are just so cool.  We’re going to use 1 or 2 on our aluminum christmas tree to make up for lack of a color wheel.  Pretty neat, huh?

Here’s a video of these bulbs in action uploaded by npdcrazypyro on youtube:

I also want to note that we ordered these on September 10th and received them October 6th.  Deal Extreme was very forthcoming with information and informed us early on that shipping would be delayed due to quality control checks.  They were actually shipped from Hong Kong on September 26th and tracking information was made available.  One light had cracks in the plastic but all 15 functioned just fine out of their boxes.

2 Ghoulish Gasps

Tags: incandescent, LED, light bulb, Lighting

Thursday, October 9th, 2008 in How-To

So we have a very large yard to fence off.  We’re talking 50 feet in length.  Our neighbors have always been unknowingly nice enough to throw away some of that 3′ garden fence, and while we set up in the front yard, that was always plenty.

This year, the Halloween haunt is going in the backyard, and our 3′ garden fence is only long enough to wrap around the front of the cemetery.  This left the whole edge of the yard exposed.

We quick started pricing PVC, figuring we’d make a fence out of that, like so many other haunters have.  It always looks really great, but we don’t really have the time nor the cash to buy all the supplies, paint the PVC, etc.

So I thought, and thought some more, when it finally came to me:  Plastic chain!

We have a couple of pallets in the garage.  We’re gonna pull them apart and place wooden ‘poles’ in the ground every (however many) feet.  From there, we’ll either attach or run chain through them with a little swag on the links.  Think of a chain and concrete pole type deal near a lake or something.  Or just look at the picture here on the left.

The more I thought about it, the more I really liked the idea.  So I went on the hunt for plastic chain.

Well, turns out, it’s actually harder to find than you’d think.  I checked lowes and home depot and neither had much.  That’s when I stumbled across http://www.mrchain.com/.

I looked around and sure enough, they had chain.  I was a bit nervous to order from them as I’d never heard of them before.  They’ve got chains in every size and color you can think of.  We were almost prepared to buy about 50′ at $.60 a foot when I noticed a “close out” link.

I FOUND PLASTIC CHAIN, 2″, FOR $.15 A FOOT!!

Mind you I was still nervous about ordering from some place I’d never heard of, and I wasn’t sure this chain was by the foot and blah blah blah.  Oh, and it also has no photo, so the color “gold” was left to our imagination.  We joked that it could be anything from kindergarten yellow to super shiny bling.

We placed the order.  They processed and shipped it all in the same day.  It arrived via UPS super fast (from Michigan to where we are in Ohio) and the color is PERFECT!

Click to blow up the image.  It’s like an aged bronze color.  The invoice calls it “Old Gold”, and I’m tickled pink.  60′ of chain cost us $15.50 out the door, shipping and all.

This is a closeout, though, so if you want some, might wanna jump on it now.  Here’s where you can find it:  http://mrchain.com/-close-outs/2-gold-chain-discontinued.

ETA 6/14/2010: Here’s a shot of the chain in action!  Click it, gets heap big.

1 Ghouslish Gasp

Tags: cemetery fence, chain