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Now we will cut off the nipple that
sticks out that the fan and cage
attach to. You can use a hacksaw
for this or a pneumatic cut-off
tool.
 Once
you get to the fan blade shaft
itself you will have to hold the
shaft with a pair of vise grips to
cut it off with a hacksaw or a die
grinder cut-off tool as shown here.
Keep your cuts as close to the
motor housing as possible or go
back over the portions left
sticking out with a grinder to
smooth it all out so there are no
sharp things that will grab the
clothes you will be dressing your
dummy in.
I cut a couple of sections of
aluminum stock that was 1/8" x 1/2"
x about 5" long apiece to attach to
the motor housing into the threaded
hole on each side of the motor
shaft that the fan cage used to
attach to. I bent an 80 degree turn
a couple inches up on each, making
sure that I bent one to the right,
and one to the left so they would
be able to cradle the 1" PVC pipe
"neck" that I want to be centered
directly above the pivot point of
the motor. If the neck is located
further away from the front than
here, the head of our dummy will
sweep to the left and right instead
of pivot, like Linda Blair. And we
all know we want to do it like
Linda does. I used the same screws
that came out of the holes to
attach my two neck braces. Then
just tweak the braces until they
are a perfect fit to the pipe while
in a plumb vertical position. (I
meant to use the word plumb here as
in perfectly vertical to the earth
and not as in the more oft
referenced use as in "I was plumb
hammered when I told him to shove
it and he left me plumb worked all
over like this.." These are
different meaning all together.
Back to the neck, just attach a 1"
section of PVC pipe 17" long to the
braces with 2 screws in each (I
used 3/4" x #8 pan head screws) as
you can see here. We will cut off
the excess neck length after we are
completed with our project and
install the head.
 Next,
remove the steel shaft (that came
with the fan) that goes up inside
the section of plastic pipe that
the fan motor is attached to, cut
this off at 4 1/4" long. Notice in
the picture above the "cut shaft
here" is shown with the top line at
where the steel shaft begins once
inside the motor mount. I use this
photo here only to clarify what
item needs to be cut down. The
amount left sticking out of the
motor mount that we will be
inserting into our dummy's fitting
will be about 2".
Before our dummy can begin to take
shape, we will need to assemble all
12 of his joints. This will entail
preparing the pipe cap fittings
with the necessary 5/16" hole in
the center of each. Also you need
to assemble the joints and attach
them to each cap. Here you can see
how each section goes together.
At the top of the blow up of the
joint above shows two regular nuts
on each side of two flat washers
with a lock nut between each pair
of nuts. My idea was to really lock
the connection tight when attaching
to the PVC cap. However, after this
photo was taken, this proved to
fail in use (after I had fully
assembled all 12 joints and
installed them) so I recommend
following the layout shown in the
top photo for the actual pieces
used. Lock nuts are required for
all these connections so they won't
loosen up during use. When
assembling your joints you will
need to spin a lock nut on the eye
bolts threads with the plastic
locking part of the nut to be
threaded on first. Since this
plastic does not have threads in it
until it contacts the bolt, you
need to thread each one on the bolt
with the flat side first and then
thread it clear to the end of the
eye bolt to really cut in the
threads to this plastic. Back it
off and then it should spin right
on with the flat side pointing the
other way so your connection to the
pipe cap will be as tight and
strong as possible. One more point
is the spacer that fits inside the
two eye bolts needs to have the
teeth on the outside of it ground
off till each one fits inside each
eye bolt perfectly with no real
slop as well as being able to spin
inside without catching or hanging
up. This must be a good fit. If you
can find a section of pipe to act
as the spacer here that is already
a perfect fit that I couldn't find,
remember that this must be thick
enough to go almost to the
full width of both eye bolts while
together. It needs to be recessed
slightly for the cut washers to
have space to bow in slightly. The
1/2" hex nuts I found are the
perfect thickness and with the
teeth ground off are the perfect
diameter as well.
In the photo here you can get a
really good idea of how our
poseable dummy is constructed. As
covered in the materials list, the
PVC pipe you see is 1 1/2" schedule
40 and the joints are made up of a
combination of the eye bolts,
bolts, washers and lock nuts
covered in our last section. There
were portions of the dummy that
needed to be constructed more than
once to get him as stable as he
needed to be including going to the
heavy duty hardware that you see
suggested in this how-to. Once
completed however, he worked as
well as you could ask for. Just
make sure your connections to the
PVC pipe caps at each joint are as
tight as you can possibly make
them.
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