One of the the experiments I tried over the years that worked extremely well was a
giant spider hanging in a web on the side of the house. This turned out to be such an
attention-getter that I wanted to do another this year, but to make it really cool looking
and to make it sturdy so I don't have to make a new one each year. The old one was made
out of a black plastic garbage bag with crumpled newspapers inside it to give it some
depth. The legs were made from black pipe insulation tubes.
I knew I wanted it to be BIG, somewhere around 4 or 5 feet long with 6 foot legs. I also knew it had to be pretty light as it had to hang from the web, not just sit on a roof or the ground. I liked the idea of the black foam pipe insulation tubes for legs, they are long, black and very light. For the body I decided I would use the expanding insulation foam (Great Stuff is one brand) which would make a rigid but lightweight shell for cheap. The decision also meant that the body would not be smooth but would be all bumpy and gnarly...which is what I wanted. For a smooth one, you could use paper mache instead of the foam.
I decided to use PVC pipe for the "skeleton", its cheap and pretty light and a lot of stuff can be done with it. The last thing I needed was some kind of frame that the foam could be sprayed onto. Originally I thought of using a balloon (the concept came from Steve Hickman on his excellent Alien project page) but 4 foot balloons are pretty expensive and I really wanted the back side to be flat so it would hang from the web correctly. Instead I opted for a half sphere made of tubing with cheap plastic stretched over it. Incredibly light and won't rust/rot/decay...in fact the whole completed spider body (without the legs) weighs only 11 pounds.
Originally I was going to go with a classic tarantula...however in checking out some spider toys to use as models, I found the tarantula has a 3 segment body..making my work that much harder. Instead I opted for a Black Widow spider, which has a 2 segment body, the small front piece with the legs coming out of it and the large rounded back segment.
The real thing
Materials Needed:
Part 1 - Building the skeleton
Getting the skeleton right is the key to making the spider look decent and be strong enough to work. Basically the concept is to cut the pipe in various length sections and glue the fittings to them in a shape that will allow the legs to stick out correctly and the big bulby back end to be secured.
Cut the pipe into the following lengths. Note, I use a simple hacksaw to cut the plastic pipe..
Assemble the pipes and fittings per the following diagram, Note: don't glue them right ..always dry-fit (i.e. just pushed together) first to make sure everything fits ok, then glue.
Note that the length of the blue (3 foot long) pipes is not to scale - the picture would
be too big if I did it that way.
Note how this will work.. on the left is the "pincers", which don't really exist on a Black Widow but are just too cool to pass up.. The small body will go from the first 6" crossbar to the second (about 17 inches long) and the great big bulby section will go from the 2nd crossbar to the far right crossbar (about 3 feet).
The 45 degree connectors on the legs are to keep all 4 legs on each side from looking
exactly the same (i.e. sticking straight out). Also, I tipped the connectors up on most of
the pieces so that I could put in legs with joints in them.
Glue the fittings and pipes together as shown in the diagram. As you can see from the picture, I tipped up a couple of the "leg" connectors so when the legs are attached they will stick out, don't tip them up too far. I took two of the 3 foot pieces, put an extra 45 degree connector between them and stuck it to the "T", that way you know exactly how far to tip the "T" up from horizontal.
Now for the hangers...Drill holes in the tube on both ends (about where the dot is on the diagram) and connect in the hanger. It is designed for sheetrock so it has a long bolt and a connector for the back, slide the bolt through the tube and connect the back connector and tighten down. The picture is a bit fuzzy but you can see the "hook" on the left of the tube, the bolt sticking through and the long silvery thingie on the right of the bolt holding the hook to the tube.
Onward to Page 2 - Building The Body
This page is part of my main site, a place full of original material, not just a bunch of ads or links to somewhere else. If your interested in Conan, Doc Savage, My Halloween Haunted Garage, Books, Comics, Computer Games, My Christmas Lawn Decorations, Original Fiction, Game programming, hidden Javascript secret pages and much much more...or just want to see all my original 3-D generated clip art, why not check it out!.