Part 5 in the Frankenstein’s Laboratory prop series, leading up to Halloween.  The next prop for Frankenstein’s Lab was also inspired from pictures of the movie set.  This one is a giant wheel.

Materials:

1. Two Large wire wreath frame
2. Styrofoam rod
3. Styrofoam disk
4. Newspaper
5. Flour
6. Water
7. Brown spray paint

Note:  I just did this one by the seat of my pants with no plan.  If I were to do this one over again, I think I could have made it much better.  I’m going to provide instructions on how I think it should have been made, rather than how I actually made it.

Steps:

1. Cut the Styrofoam rod in half.
2. Space the rods evenly around the Styrofoam disk and trace the circumferences onto the Styrofoam disk.
3. Cut out the rod circumferences around the Styrofoam disk to about 1 – 2″ deep, judge the depth off of the position of the wreath frame.
4. Place the Styrofoam rods into the Styrofoam disk and make sure they position so they fit inside the large wire frame.
5. Place the Styrofoam rods inside the two large wreath frames (sandwiched) and tied the wreath frames together.
6. Mix the flour and water together for the paper mache.
7.  Rip the newspaper into strips.
8. Paper mache the newspaper strips around the wheel frame.
9. Do about two coats around the entire wheel.
10. Once dry, paint the wheel with the brown spray paint.

OK, Since this was my first time doing paper mache in many, many years, I found that I made many mistakes,  The paper split.  Not sure why?  I tried to smooth it out with plaster of Paris and that was a big mistake.  Overall, I wasn’t entirely happy with the end product, but I didn’t feel like ripping it apart and starting all over again.  Hopefully these instructions are better than the process I initially followed.