Apparently pack building is the new Canadian sport and I’m throwing my hat into the ring.
I’ve been a Ghostbusters fan my whole life. My mother was pregnant with me when she and my dad saw the first movie in theatres and I must have been able to hear it because I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love it. I had all the toys and loved my RGB pack but being a ■■■■■■ the straps became too tight and I outgrew it. 20 something years later I still want to be a Ghostbuster which brings me here.
My pack will be a hero Ghostbusters 2 pack, Ray’s in particular because he’s my favourite Ghostbuster and because we have some nice reference photos of his pack thanks to all of the great Sony Lobby shots from people here. Thanks for that! I’ll be using all aluminum parts, real Clippards, crank knob etc and I’ll be trying to hit as many marks on accuracy as I can but I will concessions if I must.
I started working on it today. I’m using a GBFans shell and motherboard which is now attached using Ejgunth87’s L-brackets. First thing I did was give the shell a bath in warm soapy water to clean off the mold release chemicals, then I sanded the shell down to remove the texture so I can add my own. I’ll probably go over it again before painting but it’s okay for now.
My father helped me out with the mounting. He’s the tool guy, I’m not but I’m learning now. He would make the first hole and show me what to do and I would do the rest. Baby steps. We got the motherboard on so the first step is done. There are some gaps between the shell and the mobo, mostly in the middle portions of the pack but I understand that’s normal, right?
I’ll get back to it on Monday where I hope to start attaching some of the metal parts. I’m waiting on some more bits to come in the mail and I still need to source a few parts so this won’t be a fast build but I’m excited to start it.
Some pictures. Sorry for the quality, the Ipad 2 has a terrible camera.
You can’t see it in the picture but I told my dad I would be removing the n-filter at some point (I have a metal one to go on) and when I came back out to the garage with the motherboard he got a little over zealous had a hacksaw half way through it. :shock: So now I’m definitely going to be putting the metal one on.
Hey VincentVegaFFF, I think you must be right about pack building being a new Canadian sport. I mean there is only another month and a bit of hockey left (GO HABS GO!). I haven’t done a pack build thread but as I type this I am just finishing all the dry fit assembly of my pack tonight. In a couple weeks when things warm up it will be time to disassemble and paint. Maybe I’ll post some pictures when I’m done.
Looking forward to following your build my fellow Canuck.
Yes, I’ll have to make sure to keep an eye on him. He’s been off work on disability for 6 months and I think he was bored and excited to do something new. On the plus side seeing a hacksaw halfway through the n-filter made me much less anxious about drilling into the shell. :mrgreen:
I prefer the first movie but the GB2 packs have things about them I like better. The ribbon cable looks better and so does the black crank knob and the hero packs retain other things I like from the first movie such as the mesh in the n-filter, which aren’t on the semi hero packs. The GB2 hero packs are a nice mix between the two styles allowing me to have my cake and eat it too.
Another day off so more work done on the pack. Added today were the vacuum tube, beam line and filler tube from Ejgunth87 and irricanian’s injectors, hga and ribbon cable clamps. The Clippard pieces are from the GBFans store.
There were a few problems. I drilled the beam line too close to the filler tube and now have a hole to bondo. There was also some chipping here that will need to be fixed .
It’s wasn’t hit or anything so I think maybe the fibreglass didn’t settle fully there because it feels a little soft around it as well. Not a big deal, I expected I would need to get the bondo out but it’s something I didn’t want to do unless necessary. No one said building this stuff would be easy, I guess.
I feel like such an idiot. What happened was the brass Clippard connectors came in one small bag with the elbows in two pieces. Since I got them a few weeks after placing the order and being dumb I forgot I needed to put them together and looking at shots of the hero pack from the Sony Lobby of that specific area I thought they had to be hose barbs attached to the side. It wasn’t until I was taking the pictures for this post and looking at some of the photos in the reference section I realized what I had done. It’s fixed now.
It’s not a big deal in the long run but its one that ■■■■■■ me off. I’ll order the correct fitting from the shop once those sexy elbow pads come in. Well, at least the vacuum tube was easy to install.
Right now I’m waiting for the bumper, booster frame and bellows from Nick-a-tron and I have a request for a V-Hook and Ion Arm in with CPU64, just waiting on word that they’re done and an invoice and they’ll be on their way.
I really want to get the hardware to attach the Alice Frame soon. I’m anxious to strap this baby on. Despite my annoyance at my own stupidity I’m happy with the pack and the project so far. When I first looked into building a pack last year I thought it would be impossible but I’m glad I decided to go through with this. It will all be worth it when I finish, gear up and hit the power switch and hear that awesome start up sound coming from my very own proton pack.
A question. What do the red and blue tubes from the injectors connect to on the ridge near the cyclotron? Are they going to legris straights or Clippard barbs?
Clippard barbs in the bottom of the Injectors (on some builds anyway), straight into the fiberglass shell. I just drilled two small holes and hot glued them in place.
Awesome!! I’ll be starting my own gb2 pack (2nd build) soonish… have you sourced the black crank knob yet?? What will you be doing for straps? Padded?? Go habs go!!!
Haven’t found the crank knob yet. I would prefer a black one but if I have to paint a grey one I’m okay with that.
As for the straps I have the correct shoulder straps but I not the kidney pad, yet. I don’t think I will be putting extra padding in them. I can’t sew for one and watching a bit of GB2 the other night the straps in that are huge, I prefer the look of the normal sized ones in the first movie. I don’t plan on going to many cons or events with it so comfort wise I should be okay with the standard straps.
