Custom Built "Santa Stuck In A Chimney"

108CAM

Proud to have the largest display on my street!
Joined
Nov 22, 2022
Messages
41
This is my favourite custom made element on my display. I call it "Santa Stuck In A Chimney" due to obvious reasons.

IMG_2817.jpg

The Santa legs used to be part of a full size, light up Santa decoration that was thrown out because it's wire frame was badly bent and deformed.
I deemed the head and torso as damaged beyond repair so I got rid of those but decided to keep the legs and a Merry Christmas sign as they had sustained far less damage compared to the rest of the decoration.

During the 2018/19 season, the full decoration sat unused while I figured out what to do with it but while I was setting up for the 2019/20 season, I decided to turn the legs upside down and place them on some garden stakes and building a chimney by stacking bricks around the lower part of the legs. The first 2 chimneys I built had the bricks stacked in a different pattern to what I use now. This resulted in the chimney being lower and wider than the current setup which I adopted during the 2021/22 season. The 2022/23 season included a new addition, a string of coloured fairy lights with covers that resemble the old C shaped bulbs.

As for the lights inside the Santa legs and Merry Xmas sign, I deemed them redundant as I had no means of powering them.
This all changed during the 2022/23 season when I discovered the lights used plugs that are compatible with my Czjutai power supplies. I then decided to try and get the lights working so that the decoration would be visible at night time.

Getting them working involved the removal of an existing female plug and splicing a section of wire onto the fairy lights inside the legs to create a lead in wire which connects to the power supply. I then went back outside to put the legs on the stakes and right as I was sliding them down, I found something hiding inside one of the feet. It was the male connector on the other end of the string. I had been trying to find this end of the string so I could connect the lights in the Merry Christmas sign to the lights in the legs but had given up after almost 15 minutes of searching.

Once I found the male plug, I was back inside and working on getting the Merry Christmas sign functional.
To do this, I had to relocate the lead in wire that I had just spliced into the female end. After cutting the wire, I pulled the male connector out of the foot and respliced the lead in wire to the male end. The female connector I had removed earlier was spliced to the end of the string to provide a connection point for the Merry Christmas sign. I then created a lead in wire for the sign by splicing the male plug that I cut off the legs onto some spare wire. The other end of this wire was spliced onto the wires inside the sign and the male plug on the other end plugs into the female plug that's inside the legs.

After a test run and some final adjustments, I went back outside to set up the legs and sign and by night time, my chimney came to life!
IMG_3604.jpg

And lastly, a side-by-side of the day and night photos
Chimney.png
 
Top