Be Right Back, Uninstalling

I know I asked about this a while ago, but me and my family have been working on the proton pack from Ghostbusters for the past 5-ish months and have made considerable progress, all things considered. Using Stefan Ottos' schematics for a proton pack, we have built the majority of the pack out of cardboard. Most of the parts that can be fabricated accurately have been, and we are in the process of finding/purchasing the rest of the parts that can't be easily fabricated out of cardboard, including resistors, tubing, knobs, etc.

The plan is to fabricate everything, disassemble the proton pack into easy to assemble components, strengthen the entire pack using resin, gap fill any unnecessary gaps and clean up the product, and use a plastic molding process to make copies of the prototype. After making the plastic copies, the proton pack will then be reassembled, any extra bits attached, painted, and if the family relative with experience in wiring is capable enough, wire up lighting/sounds to it. A rough estimate of when this project will be complete is around the end of this year.



This is an earlier picture of the project, with only a couple parts attached. Turns out rounded edges are difficult to make without compasses, and equally difficult to cut accurately using an exacto knife. A couple extra bits were also purchased at this point for posterity's sake: clicky. There are still a number of issues with the build that can be seen at this point:

-The round cylinder in the center of the elevated plateau is not smooth enough. The current plan to fix this is, after applying resin to the entire pack after finishing production, take that cylinder and sand it down until it has a satisfactorily-round surface.

-The pie plate needs a square lip circling it. The current solution to this is to use a modeling two part epoxy, such as green stuff, and make a square lip after strengthening the prototype with resin.

-the glue stick case is too long. Easy fix, cut it to size.

-The box in the upper left of the picture does not have ridges on it. The current plan to fix this is to purchase strips of balsa wood, cut it down to size and attach them to the box.

First Transition State

Nothing too special, just a new box built. The creation process of this box can be seen here. In addition to this, the A.L.I.C.E. pack arrived around this time: clicky.



At this point, some necessary bulk has been added to give the pack some detail. Other pictures of this point can be seen here and here. There are a couple issues at this stage that still need to be addressed:

-The multi-layered section does not line up with the frame it sits on due to relaxed accuracies during production. An easy fix for this is to extend the frame enough to fit the multi-layered section.

-The space in the middle of the pack on the left side of it is supposed to have a box that is slanted at the top in it. The reason that this wasn't fabricated yet is because we hoped that we would find that part already created due to its complexity. Unfortunately, we have not found that part so we will need to fabricate it manually.

One more box has been fabricated as well since the previous picture, but I do not have the pictures for it yet. If I remember tomorrow, I will take a few pictures of the pack in its current state along with all the current bits we have purchased. We also have a functioning proton wand replica to go with it.

The molding process should be another challenge I'm looking forward to taking. Our current plan for the molding process is the basics of plastic molding via a sheet of heated plastic, a makeshift seal-able vacuum platform, and the prototype. In order to heat the plastic, we decided on using a space heater inside a heating box facing upwards that should heat up the plastic sheet after it is placed on top of the box. Any thoughts/questions/concerns/feedback?

Do you remember Striker? He's done ghostbuster cosplays before (damn good ones too). I'm sure if you get in contact with him then he'll have some pointers, sage advice, etc for you

New pics and progress:

Previous session's work

Nothing too special, just another necessary part. The small box on the tip of that part is too small and needs to be bulked up slightly.

Here's the proton pack after today's session:



The proton pack is fleshed out a little more and better lined up. A different angle of the pack can be found here. I also have better pics of the bits here.

In addition to this, I have picture of the neutron wand that goes with the pack:

Unboxing the wand

The wand turned on and sitting idle:



Using the wand

(03-29-2015, 10:21 AM)Eightball link Wrote: [ -> ]Do you remember Striker? He's done ghostbuster cosplays before (damn good ones too). I'm sure if you get in contact with him then he'll have some pointers, sage advice, etc for you

I'll be sure to hit him up for help in the near future and wouldn't mind some tips now.

There isn't much else we can make out of cardboard now. The rest of the pack is going to purchased as premade parts along with being finished up using balsa wood. Unfortunately, there are two parts that we have been having the absolute most difficulty finding: this and this. They look like old electrical boxes, but we have not been able to find them anywhere, likely due to them no longer being manufactured. Fabricating them accurately will be difficult as well, due to the precisely-rounded edges. Any ideas about finding/building them?

Damn son

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Seriously poke striker directly, man, or direct him to here. I think at least one of his packs was built up from a kit, but it's still worth poking him.

(03-30-2015, 06:43 AM)atm0m link Wrote: [ -> ]Seriously poke striker directly, man, or direct him to here. I think at least one of his packs was built up from a kit, but it's still worth poking him.

I think he commissioned one and built another from a kit iirc, if I see him online tonight Ill try to remember to point him here.

Good work so far

Long time, not update. Images from the latest session can be found in this album: Clickie.

I have made progress on the the previous parts I was not able to find before. Turns out, they do not exist and need to be fabricated by hand. The parts in question can be found here and here.

Both parts were decided to be fabricated out of wood. The original idea was to use balsa wood for the parts due to the lightweight nature and ease of cutting/sanding. Unfortunately, I could not find balsa wood, so blocks of pine were used instead. For the first half of building the parts up to what I have now, the parts were broken down into simpler parts.

The gearbox was simplified into a 'c' shape without the ridges and with 90' angled sides. From this point, the shape was then broken down even further into individual blocks that needed to be cut to size and glued together. An image of this in progress can be found here.

The corner plate was broken down into two sections for ease of beveling the top: the top beveled portion and the bottom straight portion. After creating the two parts, they were then glued together and cut/sanded to their current form. An image of this part in progress can be found here.

Pictures of the current progress:



The corner plate is basically done, save for some final sanding/gap filling. The gearbox, on the other hand, will need a lot more work. It will need to be tapered on one side, have all the ridges glued on, all the corners be rounded, and gap filled/sanded. All of this, unfortunately, will have to wait until the weather is more temperate; at least two to three months before we can start again. In addition to this, there is one more part that needs to be made out of more wood. Because of the temperature, it is almost imperative to make it out of balsa wood to keep a timely schedule.

Balsa may not be a bad material go choose just based on total weight, too.

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(06-22-2015, 07:56 PM)atm0m link Wrote: [ -> ]Balsa may not be a bad material go choose just based on total weight, too.

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The weight is primarily for handling the prototype. The idea is to make plastic casts of it, which won't weigh near as much as the prototype.

Looking good so far