I made this 12 Foot Tall Gigantic Pallet Beast entirely from pallet wood and a little bit of reclaimed red rope. Total cost: Zero! Halloween Fright Level: Off-the-charts! How to create your own 12 Foot Tall Gigantic Flaming Pallet Beast.
Build Materials – all recycled and scavenged locally:
- Radiator and boiler pallets from local plumbing merchants
- Long Bolts (scavenged from a skip)
- Empty plastic 1-gallon milk bottle
- Rope
- Paraffin/petrol mix
- screws
Equipment:
- Nail Gun
- Chop Saw
- Hole cutting drills bits
- Staple Gun & Staples
- Homemade pallet opener: based on Izzy Swan’s Pallet Pal
Head Construction:
Within the back of the head, between the eyes, is a holder to grip a 1-gallon plastic milk bottle. It also has funnel pieces down towards the mouth. The mouth has a “gutter.” The bottle will be filled with paraffin/petrol mix. Once the beast is on fire, the bottle will melt, and the flammable fluid will pour out of his mouth. Hopefully, it will catch on the way out, so he is spouting flames from his mouth.
Neck & Arms Construction:
Neck
This is designed to drop into the torso with the front of the neck acting as a brake, so it stays in the right position. The weight of the head keeps it in position nicely.
Arms
The key part of the arms is that I’ve marked the angle required to align with the shoulder joint. Once they are aligned, mount them with two M10 bolts to hold them in place.
Severed Head Construction:
I drilled out a matrix of holes into the top of the head and gave him hair plugs! Then, I threaded old, reclaimed nylon rope through the holes, and knotted the pieces at the back. Then, I then unwound the three intertwined strings of the rope to increase the volume of the hair. It ended up looking like Mick Hucknall from Simply Red! (no malice intended!) Finally, I added a few more ropes that were slung up from the back into a holed piece of wood attached to the hand of the beast.
The Legs & Tail:
Legs:
The legs are similar to the neck. I built them so that the lengths of wood fit into sockets at the bottom of the torso. Then, I installed a couple of bolts to provide additional rigidity through the joints.
Tail:
I cut a couple of angled slots at the back of the torso to hold it in place. Then, I used a single bolt to secure it.
The Torso:
I designed everything to hang, bolt, or slot into this key element. For this reason, I didn’t just nail gun the panel pieces together. I secured it with screws. The only thing that may not be easily figured out from the photos submitted is that there is a slot between the legs that receives a 2″ pole. This allows me to suspend the beast about 24 feet into the air! This will allow me to suspend the beast about 24ft into the air.
Painting:
I utilized any leftover paint we had: yellow, white and red gloss paint. Thanks to Scott & the kids for the painting help!
