Real Halloween Fog for Your Desk

Need to decorate your desk at work for Halloween? Don't just use any old run-of-the-mill decorations, go above and beyond just skeletons, jack-o-lanterns and cauldrons.... Have a desk with creepy swirling fog rolling over your desk and off the edge.

I used an ultrasonic fog machine to produce desk-top-hugging spooky fog. And you can too.

Read on....

The main part of this project is the black plastic duct that will mount to the work desk and direct the fog across the surface of the desk. This duct is constructed of double wall corrugated plastic sheet.

1. 3 sheets of 17 in. x 13 in. black double wall corrugated plastic sheet
2. Accordion Downspout Drain pipe adapter (sized to match the diameter of the output pipe on the fogger)
3. Ultrasonic Halloween Fogger. This is a newer version of my Fogger Instructable
4. 2 Common Bricks to lift the ultrasonic fogger to the proper water depth.
5. Distilled water. Distilled in the fogger so that after the fog evaporated there would be no mineral residue.
6. Multiple frozen 2 Liter bottles full of water (to keep the water in the fogger cool)
7. Black plastic sheet (cut up garbage bag) to protect the desk from water. Lots of fog = lots of water.
8. Razor knife
9. Straight edge
10. Glue Gun and glue sticks

We are going to construct a rectangular box that acts like a duct for the fog. We use 13 in x 17 in corrugated plastic sheets.

I used a razor knife to cut two 1-1/8 in wide strips off of the long, 17 inch side of the corrugated plastic sheet. I cut two 1-1/8 in. wide strips off of the 13 inch long side of a different sheet.

The third untouched 13 in x 17 in sheet is the rear of the box (duct). The 17 inch long strips are the bottom and top of the duct. The 13 inch long strips are the sides of the duct. The sheet that had the 17 inch long strips cut off of it ends up being about a 12 x 17 inch and is the front of the duct.

I started by hot gluing the side and bottom strips onto the untouched sheet to form 2 sides and a closed bottom. The front sheet was glued onto the sides and bottom. The top finished the box (duct) off.

I hot glued some tabs on each side at the top to let the box hang between my work desk and the next.

I also added a short spacer in the center of the top of the box to help prevent it from getting crushed.

We need some way to get the fog from the fogger into the duct. I cut off the square end of accordion drain pipe downspout adapter to give me a length of adjustable flexible plastic pipe. I hot glued this accordion pipe over a hole cut in the front of the duct.

I just love ultrasonic foggers. It is miraculous how the little piezo disks vibrate the water into fog. I assembled the fogger with the disk assembly set up on bricks so that I could increase the volume of water in the fogger tote. The more water the better of a heat sink it is in order to keep the fogger elements/electronics cool. The disks also have to be at the correct depth to work properly and produce the most fog.

I added my frozen 2 liter water bottles to keep the water in the fogger cool and help sink the heat from the electronics.

I connected the power supply and tried out the fogger. With this latest version of the fogger I had the fogger's fan controlled by an adjustable DC power supply. The lower the voltage the slower the fan. I can adjust the fogger to put out minimal fog or blast it out!

After making sure the fogger operated correctly I attached the duct to it. I then placed a large cutting board (any flat surface will do) up against the duct to see if the fogger and duct combination would give me the effect I wanted.

It DID!!!!

Looks real spooky!

My desk abutted the desk next to me with a gap between. My duct was constructed to fit between them and hang from the plastic sheet tabs I had added to each side of the duct. I installed the duct between the desks.

I placed the ready-to-go fogger on the shelf under my desk and connected the output elbow to the accordion pipe on the duct. I covered by desk top with black plastic sheet with the back edge turned up to keep the fog from getting into areas where it shouldn't. Keep fog away from electronics and electrical power. Everything should be ready to go at this point.

Flip the switch and let that fog roll! Super spooky fog billowing off my desk.

Happy Halloween!

Enjoy!