Ahhh, Halloween.

I really cherish having an awesome Halloween costume. If you go through the trouble of building something big, and strapping it onto a backpack so you can wear it all night, you will be rewarded with a great crowd reaction.

Halloween 2004 landed on a Sunday. This meant that a great costume could be drawn out for the party trifecta: Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

Unlike my costumes in previous years (fish head, paparazzi, silver wings, California and Jenga), I decided on a unoriginal design. I went as Doctor Octopus, the super-villain foe of Spider Man. I didn't like using an unoriginal costume idea, but damn! It would be so cool to be Dr. Octopus, I couldn't resist!

Dr. Octopus, if you haven't heard of him, is a mad scientist who wields four flexible super-strong metal arms with large, strong pincers.

There were many challenges to the costume. His long arms are described as in almost constant motion, with lights and pinching pincers.

I also thought it would be great to construct a defeated spider-man figure for the arms to be carrying, above his head. 

On the first weekend in October, I made my first trip to home depot to figure out what might work for the pinchers.

I bought 3" flexible black plastic drain tube and strung a long rope through it. I had an idea that attaching the rope to one end, and pulling the other end would make the black tube curl up and twist around like a monkey's tail. 

To make it more flexible, I cut a bunch of slits along the arm.

That did not work.

I moved on to the pinchers, making several drawings.. 

before I moved to cardboard. 

The cardboard mock-up helped a little, but the three-finger pinching action required something solid to work out the engineering for the moving parts, so I cut some fingers out of 3/4 inch MD fiberboard.

Using a 3" drain tube connector as a base, I screwed this monstrosity together out of springs, clothes hangers, screw-eyes, plumbers tape, screws and string.

Unfortunately, it was a contraption. The coat-hanger wire was too flexible, and the wooden fingers were too heavy for the pinching-action to work unless the force of gravity was helping them.

I needed something lightweight, like styrofoam, but strong enough to hold a the threads of a screw.

Please read page 2 of the Doctor Octopus costume.