Johnnys Ghosts: Cloaked Leer Ghost

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Cloaked Leer Ghost

Continuing the trend of cloaked ghosts, the latest is a cloaked leer ghost.

The difference in this version is that there are no strings, pulleys or eye-bolts. Instead, I used direct linkages for all the movements, which should prove much more reliable. The pictures below show the internals, followed by some videos with the linkages in action.

The reason the neck (the dowel sticking out to the right in the picture above) is not directly attached to the crank arm like the arms is to provide some counter weight. When the weight of the head is pulling the neck down, this will be helping push the arms up. Like wise, the weight of the arms when they are raised will help raise the head.

Before next Halloween, I am going to add bushings to the pivot points, as they tend to start squeaking after a while. Also, I realize the positioning of the arms was very unnatural when I was trying to mimic it. Now I realize why this leer ghost, and the prior one had such an insect/praying mantis feel to it.

Below is the video of the final Leer Ghost, followed by a series of videos that show how it was built.