The stand is inexpensive and easy to make.

Bucky at the helm!

• How It Came About
• Project

The problem is how to pose them.

A Bucky from ACC weighs about 25 pounds, and is approximately 5'5" tall. The spine and legs are fairly stiff, but the joints won't take a pose and hold them.

We usually display Buckies seated (backs leaning against something), or lying down.

In 2007, we added a ship's wheel to our pirate theme. The immediate thought was to emulate the scene from Disney Land's Pirates of the Carribean ride, that has a skeletal pirate at the wheel of a ship in a storm.

While planning Halloween 2007, Dennis pointed out that we had to make some kind of a stand for Bucky, so that he could stand at the ship's wheel. Since we had just started using a Wire Welder, we could make some kind of support that could handle the weight of a skeleton.

David replied that the traditional way to display a skeleton is to hang it from a loop coming out of the top of the skull. Indeed, Buckies are equipped with such a loop.

The loop is often brass or chrome-plated steel. You can paint it black to hide it in the dark.

The loop attached to a rod that runs down through the spine.

Thus began one of the easiest, fastest, and most impressive projects that we have ever built!

We got all the parts at Home Depot.

• heavy rebar, 3-foot length, found pre-cut sitting in a bin
• standard rebar, 2-foot length
• rigid metal electrical conduit
• 1/2-inch cut washer
• black paint
• black tie-wraps

• We assembled the Bucky and laid him out on a table.
• We used a conduit bender to bend the light rebar at 90 degrees.
• One end we passed through the loop on the top of Bucky's head. The long end of the rebar we pointed down his spine.
• We took the conduit and positioned it next to Bucky's spine and inserted the upper rebar into it.
• We measured how much conduit would be required to reach the ground and cut a piece at 58 inches.
• The thick rebar was pushed into the ground, the washer put on top of that, and the conduit with Bucky dropped down over the protruding rebar.
• Paint the conduit, exposed rebar, and washer black, to hide it in the dark.
• Use black tie-wraps to secury Bucky's spine to the stand so he doesn't sway too much.

Notes:

We cut the conduit with an Angle Grinder. A hacksaw would have worked just as well.
• We weren't sure what it would take to hold up Bucky without bending under his weight. That's why we wanted thicker rebar. We were lucky that it came in precut 3-foot lengths, because our bolt cutters probably couldn't handle it and we couldn't fit a full length into the car.
• We used the conduit bender to bend the upper rebar, because the bender was nearby. You could just as easily put the rebar in a vise and whack it with a hammer.

Dennis uses a conduit bender to form the upper piece of rebar into the 90-degree bend.

The bent upper rebar must be long enough on the "vertical" side" to stick down into the conduit securely. It will have to be long enough on the horizontal side to go into the loop on the top of Bucky's head.

Stick the rebar down into the conduit.

The top part all fits together like this.

David stands up Bucky.

Thank you for visiting. Your comments are welcome.
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