Wesley Scoggins September 17, 2008

Indy Mogul

Wesley's Weekly HOW TO: Prop Time Bomb

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Tags explosion, crime, spy movie, wires, boom, bomb, countdown, timer, tnt, dynamite, explosive, defuse

 Time Bombs are a staple of Caper films, Espionage movies, and Cop shows. Whether they are being used to break open a vault, assassinate an enemy agent, or being defused by your Protagonist, they are a neat prop that can be used in a lot of situations and types of films. So today, i'm going to show you how to make your very own to put in your own project.

 

 
First, get a thick wooden dowel, and cut it into 4 (or more for bigger bundles) segments about 7-10 inches in length (20-22 cm). 
 

Then take your segment, and some tissue paper (or facial tissue, or toliet paper, etc.) 

 

 
And wrap the dowel in the paper, twisting the ends firmly. 
 
 

 

Now, paint it with some acrylic paint. I combined a lot of crimson red, with a little bit of black, and some PVA White School Glue (To help make the paper stick), then used a foam brush to dab it on. The reason I covered it in the tissue paper rather than just paint the wood, is I like the papery wrapper look it gives to the cylinder, and looks a bit more interesting and less perfect. 

 

 
I did this a few more times, until I had a bundle, and that is the core of the bomb. 
 
 

 

Next, I took an egg timer that I borrowed from my own kitchen, and smeared it with some paint to make it look a little dirty and greasy (because really, if your bomb has been sitting in a crazy bomb makers lab for days, is it really going to be super clean?) to make it a little old and used. 

 

 
Now, attach it to the top of the bundle (which I hand bound together with some black duct tape) with a little epoxy or hot glue (or just tape it.)
 

 I then got a roll of doorbell wiring, that I got at the hardware store for a few dollars.

 

 
 I then wrapped the wire around my finger to make it curly, which I think makes it look a little more interesting. 

 

 
I then epoxied one end on the back of the timer, and the other on the end of the bundle. I then repeated it with the other side, after I had painted the wire black. And there you go a basic time bomb prop. 
 
You could easily replace the egg timer with a digital timer, or even possibly motion track a computer display or digital timer onto a panel of cardboard (that could save you money on the egg timer, which didn't cost me anything because I already have one, but not EVERYONE has one, so if you don't want to buy your own, there are other ways to deal with it and not have to spend extra money). 
 
You could also easily add some extra electronic components to the top, and extra wires for each stick of dynamite, it's really up to you about how elaborate you want to make it for your film. 

 

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