The mourner was a custom design I came upwith in 01, and she quickly became a neighborhood favorite. This year she was my first re-build and unfortunately to time constraints and hasty judgment, her new lifter mechanism didn’t work correctly for the ’02 haunt. But the good news is that I have a new design that works perfectly, so she now towers at right about 6' tall. Full instructions including the new lifter platform will be availiable in the second DC prop Builders handbook. So onto what’s new with the mourner.

Like I mentioned before, the mourner became a neighborhood and internet favorite almost immediately (we’ll see if anyone stole my idea at Transworld this year), but there were a couple things I wanted to change. The first change was in the distance she traveled. In ’01 I had her traveling via a 14” 1” bore cylinder, which was seriously under engineered. She teetered side to side when she spun around, and I knew she would eventually bend the cylinder rod or snap off the threads entirely.
So for ’02, I rebuilt her platform and added a push platform that housed 2 24” 1.5” bore cylinders. The 2 cylinders provided a lot more travel as well as a stable turn and return. This part worked out perfectly.

The second addition was a scissor lift platform that would raise her up an additional 24” to tower just above our fence at 6.5’ tall. The scissor lift was extremely well constructed, but with the added weight of the mourner, the mounting bolts that attached the lift cylinders (2 2” bore 8” stroke) would bend under pressure and seize any movement. So due to time constraints, we disconnected the scissor, and went onto the next project. But have no fear, the new platform is done and works great, so in ’03 she’ll be perfect. The new scissor lift is equipped with the cylinders mounted inside the frame along a ½” rod and the scissors are mounted on the outside edge, with a thin sheet of polyethylene to help smooth out the interaction of the metal to metal movement. I’ll update the site as soon as she’s been thoroughly tested.

The third addition to the mourner was a simple addition of 2 lifter mechanisms in the arms. This was to give a much fuller and natural arm movement for when she lunges forward. It was also integrated with an additional solenoid valve and sound recorder, so after the initial forward lunge, she would stand calmly and out of nowhere throw her arms up and give a second scream. No one ever expected that one and she scared even long term onlookers. For ’03 we plan on integrating her into the MIDI system, so not only will she have multiple movements, we’ll add all kinds of interesting combinations to keep everyone on their toes.

So I think that’s about it for the Mourner for now. Check back for new updates and video of her in action.