Florida Haunters First Make and Take 2015

Got to meet up with some of Florida's home haunters this weekend at the home of host haunter Bethany  Smith-Globing. The event was building some 38" toe pincher coffins from pre cut wood kits put together for us by haunter John "Spyder" Nilsen.

John's "prototype" toe pinchers

Couple of us used my own patented method of assembly which I use on almost all simple assembly projects:

Step One: Assemble color coded wood pieces,
Step Two: Using power driver, screw each piece together,
Step Three Unscrew and disassemble all the pieces,
Step Four: Assemble them correctly 
Step Five: Re-screw all the pieces again...
Repeat as necessary

 Though it has taken me many years to develop this process, feel free to use it on your own projects.

Evelyn Coleman of "Team Coleman"and yours truly battle it out with power drills.. Cue  the "Face-Off" music!
Photo courtesy Tammy Kane

These toe pincher coffin kits were inspired by the "Mini Coffin for Willie" created by Sharon and Hamilton Timmer a year or two ago.  They aren't so big they could also be used as part of an interior decoration. Just a couple ideas, you could build it with a couple shelves for your Halloween knick knacks, or a vertical rack inside for your Halloween DVD's.

John designed the size of the coffins to fit the 36" skeletons usually available at Halloween.
Photo courtesy of John Nilsen

Once the coffins were assembled our hosts provided us with an excellent lunch and we spent the remainder of the afternoon talking Halloween crafts, prop building, and the upcoming conventions. Bethany showed a rather extensive collection of Halloween crafts she has made. I'm always at a quandary as to how people find time to create and decorate inside their house as well as outside at Halloween. Maybe I'm not that motivated... or just lazy.

Haunter Bill Ramsey tacking on the bottom of his coffin. John in the background telling me I'm doing it wrong.
In my defense there was an engineering flaw with my kit!
Photo courtesy of Tammy Kane.

I still have to put a paint or finish on the one I created so I'll probably do another post at that time. Was a good day of meeting up with folks of a like mind to create something fun. Special thanks to Bethany Smith-Globig and John Nilsen for putting  all this together!

There are some instructional photos at Jon Nilsen's "Spyderwood" Facebook page if anyone would  like to create their own Rustic Coffin. Spyderwood Disclaimer ; "measurements may not be exact"!