Sunday, October 14, 2012

PVC Spider of the Century!

So yesterday morning I woke up with an idea in my head and got online to see if I could fine some cheap BIG spiders at any local store.  It's to late to order any online but I wanted to see if anyone had one nearby.  Well after a couple disappointments I clicked on images and looked at the coolest spiders including ones people had made.  So, I changed my search to DIY spiders and found the idea for a PVC pipe spider.  I loved the idea and thought I could make it simpler because I am not that handy with cutting pipes.  To me duct tape makes the world go round.  So with a huge spider in mind I went about my day - 9am football game for Ben, clean up the garden, shower, noon football game for David and then take everyone to McDonald's for doing such a good job with the garden.  Well, right after Davids game JoEllen called from my house so we ran home and dropped the kids off to play and then ran and got McD's and sat and talked to JoEllen while she cut and peeled apples from my Dad's apple tree so we could make apple pies.  About a 1/2 an hour later Brad came over!  Aaron Potters mission farewell is today so they were in town.  So while we were chatting I casually mentioned my spider idea and sat back to see what would happened.  It was awesome!  He grabbed a piece of paper and asked for a tape measure and instantly started to sketch up a design.  Ten minutes later he had a list of how many of each angle and elbow joints and how many feet of PVC pipe we would need and JoEllen said, "Let's go to Home Depot!".  It was amazing.  The 3 of us went over to the pipe isle, mapped out the design on the ground and it already looked so cool.  I got excited.  JoEllen and I grabbed the cheapest black spray paint we could find and we checked out.  A little over an hour later this is what resulted.  
Drum roll please........
1st - Cut your PVC in 24 sections 20" long.  Those are your pieces for your legs.  Next get some 90 degree angel and 135 degree angles to make your joints.  Make sure you have an incredible sister 
to spray paint them black for you!  Thanks JoElly!  You ROCK!
Next - Take your big blue exercise ball that you never use and shove it into a black garbage bag.  Tada!   Instant spider body!  Finally a good use.  
Do the same thing with one of your kids kickballs that are never put away.  Instant spider head.

Step number the next one- Recruit your brother from California who works as a professional Scenic Designer for Disneyland and who designed the wonderful spider for you to help you cut all the littler pieces of PVC to make a square body to hold the legs together. 
 Thanks Evan for helping Brad out.  Thanks Brad for being so AMAZING!

Quatro - Get more help to push legs in.   
 
Touch up all the spray paint and set the body in place!
 
 
Look at all the helpers. Everyone did such a great job!  It is definitely a family spider.

Last but not least - Place it in a scary place.  Thanks to Josh and Brad it was on the roof so the neighbors wouldn't touch it.  To keep it in place Brad tied white yard from the back of it to different places on the roof.  It looks like the beginning of a huge web...We bought 6 more bags of webbing last night! hehehe.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!





6 comments:

Intro to Investments said...

Great, now I have to build one. It is cool though.

Unknown said...

What's the measurements of the smaller square that's holding the ball/ body?

Unknown said...

What's the measurements of the smaller square that's holding the ball/ body?

Unknown said...

Can you take it apart for storage?

Unknown said...

That's funny. I've been thinking of this all day. It's only been 2 weeks after and my mind is at it. I want to go even bigger. I just looked on Amazon and they have a 6ft beach ball for.fhe body, a smaller one for the head. PVC for the legs. It will sit on top of the roof and have the legs "crawling" over the house and they'll be resting in the lower roofs' gutter. It will look.like a huge Black Widow.

Anonymous said...

Can you show how it is attached to the roof?