Animated Trail Hitch Plug Build Process

The Skull was printed in ABS and was found on Thingiverse “Jolly Roger Wall decoration” by Cadshark.

The cross bones print a little funny and are not really connected to the skull. This actually worked out good in this case because the center portions are removed to make room for the motor mount. The outer bones are glued back in place with CA and the motor mount I designed is just glued inside with epoxy.

The entire model is then coated with spot glazing putty to fill in the layer lines.

After a quick sanding it is ready for finish.

Everything is then primed. (rattle spray cans)

Then airbrushed white (with a touch of yellow mixed in to give it more of a bone look.)

The detailed are airbrushed on with some black.

The trailer hitch plug part was designed to look like a pirate flag and is also printed in ABS. (I might change this to just an oval so it’s a bit smaller.)

Test Fit.

There are three LED’s used in the skull. Two for the eyes which are activated by the brakes/blinkers and one that lights up the mouth area at night and comes on with the the vehicles lights.

The LED’s are just epoxied in holes I drilled in the model.

The motor is a little geared job I had laying around and I made a crank out of aluminum and a few 2/56″ screws and some wire.

The top portion of the mount was printed in ninjaflex to try and cut down some of the noise it makes. (I should have done the bottom piece this way also but to late now. The wire runs out of a hole…..

… and just connects to the jaw piece. The jaw piece on the model is actually already hinged but needed a little work with a Dremel to free up. The hinge pins are just some music wire that is siliconed in place so they can be removed if need be. (not shown)

Here is the finished wiring and you can see the skull is held onto the hitch plug with screws and heat set inserts.

The finished product…. The hitch plug was sprayed with tool dip and a white border was painted on so it stands out better when mounted.

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