I have always wanted to build a pack to wear to megacon, but I am such a procrastinator. But today that all ends, for you see I have bought my very first piece of many.
This little bad boy was hiding in a bin of random knobs at a place called Skycraft Surplus, in winter park, florida. and it only cost me 53 cents after taxes. As you can see it is a MS91528-3S2B. not a bad find. now I know I have many parts to go, and I am planing on making the pack from scratch instead of buying a premade form, so this is going to be a long build for me. I am hoping to be done in time for megacon 2015, but who knows.
Tomorrow I am going by my local army surplus store to find an alice pack frame, last time I stopped in there, they had plenty of them, I am not worried if it is not the exact one, it will do either way, for a first build.
This site has such a plethora of data on building a pack, I cannot wait to see how it ends up. and since it is a black one, I guess I will be leaning towards the GB2 pack, but I can always paint it gray, if I need to.
Not sure if I will order metal parts, or try my hand at making my own, but that is the whole fun in making it. wish me luck, and I hope to pick some of your brains when I need a little help, or advise.
Oh I know it will go up from there, but I just got back from my local army/navy surplus store, and they had plenty of alice packs, but only one LC1 and it was in bad shape. The real sad part is, they wanted 80 dollars for each one, so I will be ordering the one off here. along with some small parts with it.
still trying to decide if I am gonna try doing this one by hand, or just order the shell. I dont have access to many tools, and I have no idea how I an gonna cut the motherboard. The whole project will have to be done by hand, since I have no power tools, or table saw, or even a belt sander, everything will have to be done by hand.
Update:
I only bought the alice pack, but I will be slowly getting everything i need, once I have all the parts, then the building begins.
I would ask if you could delete that portion of where you bought it from. People reading this thread will buy out everything from there and then turn around and sell for higher cost on eBay. When you find stores like that don’t post the information.
i remember the very 1st part I purchased for my very 1st pack (ion arm cap), great feeling. Have a browse on my site to see the pack parts I offer…www.nickatronprops.co.uk
Well in my defense, here in the Orlando area, there are quite a few army/navy surplus stores due to the fact that we use to have a very large military base down here. so finding the one I was at will be a challenge, unless I say which one.
Don’t worry. Skycraft doesn’t carry that knob. It was a freak accident that he actually found one there with the other knobs.
The last items they used to carry were some models of Clippard valves, legris type grey elbows, and the orange hat lights.
One guy I won’t name went and bought all the hat light caps in the bin, no one else could get them.
The only remaining pack specific items you can find there are switches, ribbon cable clamp, trap pedal relay (not the Italy model) and sometimes the correct dale/gold resistors.
I am making a trip to skycraft tomorrow morning to look for a few resistors. when I went there the last time, I never thought I was going to find that knob, but when I found it, that was when I decided to start my pack.
I thought he asked me to pull the name of were I bought the alice pack, thats why it says my local army/navy surplus store. skycraft is an electronics surplus store. and there are a bunch of army navy surplus stores here in the orlando area. so my bad if putting the name of the electric surplus store in made you upset.
hope I find the resistors, and I also now have access to some power tools, so now I just have to find a local place to get the aluminum sheet for the mother board.
I just want to float an idea around and see what comes of it. I have been thinking of ideas on how to build the synchronous generator. I have been looking at how others have been doing theirs. some use wood, or insulated foamboard. So I thought up an idea, but am stuck. I am thinking of making it out of thin metal. as in the top and bottom would be a solic piece, then I would use a few thin pieces of either wood or other material to hold them apart. Then for the outer side wall, I was thinking of using a slighly thinner metal strip and bending the straight sections on it, as well as letting it curve around the sides that curve.
So now this is were I would like some suggestions. I an trying to come up with a way to attach the side strip to the top and bottom flat pieces, and make it all look like it is one solid piece. keep in mind that the bottom piece will be cut open as to attach other pieces as well as being able to get to the screws and such for the other pieces on top of it.
I forgot to say I am using the blueprints from stefans plans. for my first made from scratch pack.
And I am trying to find a place to buy the aluminum sheet, for the motherboard. might try aluminum for the sync gen as well
I was not able to spend enough time at the electronics surplus store due to being called in early to work, but I was able to find the DALE RH=25 resistor
I wasn’t sure which one to go with, either with the name or without, so I bought 2 of each just for arguments sake.
And thanks to one of the employees there, I have 2 sources to get the aluminum sheet I need for the motherboard.
well i am off to work, while I think of ways to make light metal parts for my pack.
And so far kinda slow at finding parts, plus I am still trying to decide on the actual material I plan on making the pack out of. I really want a metal pack, but aluminum is kinda expensive, and steel will make it to heavy. plus I wanted to use aluminum because I would be able to use low heat aluminum rods to weld everything together, then just make fake weld lines later.
I have also considered plastic as my main building material, do to it being light, and easy to glue together. I know the plastic is called something else, but I forget the name right now.
Another problem is the backpack frame. well there is nothing wrong with it, except that my fat belly wont let me connect the waist strap. so either I lose 100 or so pounds, or I make some adjustments to the pack. but I wont need to worry about that until the pack is basically done.
Oh and I have actually considered getting a few more smaller dale resisters and cutting them up and gluing them together to make a big one with the logo on top. will post a pic if I try it.
