Bill and Ted's Phone Booth Antenna

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Much better on the height. I think this is a passable round one. Ya, I said that before but it was too tall. Future treatment on round one, if I get to it, is glitter red or glitter orange if that exists in spray paint. Looking for my next sacrificial umbrella for round two.
 
Wow, thanks for starting this thread. It made me want to get back to working on my phone booth which has been gathering dust in my backyard.
My antenna was just a quick project, but I’m glad you’re doing it justice.
Mine is just popped on temporarily:
IMG_4018.jpeg
 
I picked up five compact umbrellaa at thrift today, Salvation Army, for a total of 13 dollars. This is one of the cheapest replicas I have worked on but one of the most fun. At this price, I could begin to leave them up on the old booths I find. With this pile I will start round 2, the moving popup version and round 3, the lightning version. I am going to make a second round one base model and add some sparkle to the red paint for more contrast when up on the booth.

Local urban legend that happens to be true, Oregonians can be divided into two groups using one simple characteristic difference. If you were born here, you do not use an umbrella, even if you own one, when it rains. Those that have moved here will stand out like an elephant in a bunny farm the moment they pull out their umbrella. So, a curious side effect is the great number of unused umbrellas at our thrift stores. Kind of ridiculous cool for my project.
 
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I have removed the hornet's nest from the booth so I should be able to get a first draft picture soon. I have started stripping down two more umbrellas and have found that one is rightside up as I had guessed. This one is not a match to the movie version so I will stay with my assumption that it was a compact model turned upside down. This newer one has longer initial arms and one less fold mechanism so the end arms will be rods instead of the folded sheet metal. However, this does give me the ability to construct an auto opening flip up version. It is the one on the left (below).

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The spring will likely need replaced as it is very aggressive. The goal is to get it to flip up and deploy as it does in the movie but I also want it to then collapse and fall back to closed when done. The second half of the process is harder than the first.
 
I very successfully broke one leg on the auto umbrella. The spring is far too aggressive. I am working on soldering a fix this weekend. It did work correctly with a new cross pin that stops it at the right expansion. I intend this auto to be stage 2 that swings up and expands for a good video opportunity.

The original round one has survived at the local booth now for about a week. I figured it would be stolen well before that.

Round 3, the lightning night version got painted today and I found another very nice stainless center rod out of my dissected inkjet printers. They really do have quite a lot of good material in them. Round three will be like round one in that it will always be open. I will build a much wider base as it will carry the battery packs for the lightning ropes and a few strobes. All is already purchased so it is just a matter of putting it together.
 
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