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There are a few things that need to
be done to give this guy a head.
First, you need to find a suitable
skull. One that will take the
punishment of being shot into the
air over and over again, yet be
light so not to overstress the
entire system. I chose a skull made
entirely of Styrofoam
like a wig head for mine. It came
with flashing red eyes, it was very
cheap ($4 at Big Lots) and the
entire center of the skull was
hollow. At first blush it seems
that the hollow core would be a
downside, but in order to fasten my
skull to the bicycle pump rod
I needed a solid connection. More on that in a moment. Another thing we will
need to do is accommodate the need to keep his head looking straight ahead. If
you look closely you will see a 1" PVC pipe directly behind the bicycle
pump. This is a guide housing for a 3/4" PVC pipe that is inside and
attached to the skull. When the head is triggered, the 3/4" pipe attached
to the head remains inside the 1" pipe, keeping the head facing the same
direction. Also it is easy to see that on the top of the 4-way fitting we used
for a neck on our skeleton, is a 1 1/2" PVC cap. I drilled a hole in center
of this and then attached it to the 4-way with 2 small mending plates so it
would act like a bearing surface for my piston shaft to
slide against when resetting. It
made the head reset even when the
head was fully extended up and
outward a few inches, in order to
cause the head to "loom" above your
head if you were directly in front
of him when triggered. Without the
bearing cap the piston would not
reset each time unless it were vertical.
The hollow core of the skull I chose allowed for me to fabricate and install
a mount made out of flat aluminum stock that was 1/8" thick, 5/8" wide
and about 14" long. I bent one end about a 100 degree bend about 4"
from the end. This would be for attaching to the guide and the air ram. The left
over 10" I then bent into a curve that would fully fit inside the hollow.
Once I had the mount taped into place inside the skull I filled the hollow with
Great Stuff expanding foam. (Be sure to remember to turn the switch ON to the
flashing eyes before this, as there is no way to keep the expanding foam from
 totally invading the switch area and filling it with foam also. Plan on putting
batteries in the head for each use or remove the entire battery / switch
compartment before filling the head with foam and then re-installing it. I just
flipped the switch ON. In about a day the foam had hardened and it was as solid
as a rock. Also attached to the bottom of the skull show here is a modified
mounting flange for a dryer duct. Just remove the little flappers in the middle
and grind the corners off the back of the flange. I attached the back of the
flange to the mount with one machine screw and nut with lock washer and the
front corners directly to the foam head itself with 3" drywall screws. This
proved to be very solid indeed. Be sure the placement of the flange will allow
for the 4" flex hose to slide unencumbered around both the air cylinder piston
and the guide. This will be the "neck" of your monster. You can choose
to paint this completely or just the outside edges, leaving the bulk of it white
like I did by spraying it with black paint while the head was in the down
position. It offers a distinct impact being stark white once triggered, as you
don't expect any part of this monster to be white with all the black and gray
that makes him up.
Since the skull I used was not the
same size as a human head complete
with skin, I needed to bulk him out
so the latex mask I would use would
be supported naturally. For this I
used foam rubber pieces hot glued
to the cranium and chin areas. This
worked well and kept the mask from
excessively moving around when
triggered. Here is a out-of-focus
picture of what your head mounted
should look like with the air duct
attached. I put a few screws
through the bottom of the duct into
the 4- way
fitting of the skeleton and also
reinforced the clamp around the
base of the skull with zip ties, as
the pull on the expanding duct can
be a bit too strong for the flimsy
clamps that they supply with kit. I
painted the skull black so the
colors wouldn't be seen inside the
latex mask eye holes, as well as
painting the outside of the air
duct so if it did show it wouldn't
be seen. The mask did cover this up
entirely though.
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