First of all sorry for the long post and cell phone pics.
I’m a new member here (been lurking around for a while) but my son (10) just recently got into Ghostbusters. When he told me he wanted to be a ghostbuster for Halloween I jumped at the bit to make him a pack. I came here looking for info and found KC’s foam build and planned on making something better than the backpack with a cardboard box taped to it like I had when I was his age.
Similar to KC I took Stefans plans and scaled them down to 75%. It’s taken me a little longer than I expected but I’m having great fun. As of today this is where I’m at. I still need to glue several of the pieces in the pic and sand the edges of the layers flush. The black pieces are foam poster-board. I plan on using wood glue to harden the pack and use wood putty to smooth the edges and blend the layers before paint.
While going through old equipment that was being decommissioned at work I found this gem. It’s the 40 pin version of the cable so it’s just under the 75% scale but it was free and better than coloring a SCSI cable with paint pens which is what I planned on doing originally.
I’m going to light the kit with two of the following chaser kits.
The red LEDs will be replaced with white ones and I plan on doubling 8 of the second kit for the cyclotron.
My son is super excited and I admit I had to scale the project back a bit due to time constraints but I plan to have the pack ready for paint this weekend followed by the gun build coming shortly there after.
I’ve been using wood glue between the pieces but I found it seems to hold better when I rough the mating surfaces up a bit and apply glue on both sides. Also if the foam layers don’t sit flush set something on top to force the layers together.
The foam is on home depots site here. It’s in the insulation section of the store (I almost missed it). I used the 1" thick piece but the 1/2" would probably be better. If you are making a pack I suggest figuring out how many pieces can be one solid layer. I built mine just like Stefans plans breaks everything out and it would have saved a ton of time if I would have made the first layer of all the pieces as one.
Thanks - I’ll have to give it another look - I walked all up and down Home Depot and just didn’t see it - I saw some other foam stuff with silver glued to it, but nothing pink aside from the Pink Panther insulation. I’ll have to go back tomorrow.
And any particular glue brand you recommend or just regular old wood glue ? I’m guessing Hot glue would be an issue w/ the foam.
Alright so I’m on a roll, but I’m not a huge fan of the texture of the foam - does anyone think some bodo could smooth out some of those edges ? It’s just Polystyrene like the pink foam - only white.
shit - this foam was the only stuff I could find - none of the home depots or Lowes near me carry the pink or blue stuff - which really sucks.
So do you think just filling the shite with some wood puddy could cover the mess ?
***Just did an internet inventory search of Lowes and Home Depots of L.A and the surrounding areas and apparently NO STORE carries the sheathing Foam. This blows.
It’s rigid Insulation foam. Just ask for that. Home Depot carries it in the area where the drywall is. The sheets are pretty huge though, so bring proper transportation to pick them up or ask someone to cut them for you.
Well here is where I’m at now. I still have some more sanding and filling to do. The wood putty worked pretty well. I originally thought I would thin it down a bit with the glue but it was harder to sand once dry. I have all the pieces ready to go around the spacer just need to get them attached. The green foam was something I had lying around that I thought I would try. Tomorrow I cut the bumper and figure out what I’m going to do with the booster. I figure I have about 3 more days on the pack and hope to have most of the thrower complete by early next week. It will still be close though.
Well here is where I’m at today. I’m about a day behind where I want to be. Tomorrow should go quick though since I have all remaining parts ready to attach, If it comes down to the wire I will probably take a day off work to complete the thrower before Halloween. I already decided not to do the alice frame since I wasn’t able to make one sturdy enough. Instead I’ll attach replica LC1 straps to the motherboard.
Oh the paint is Testors spray paint for foam. It says it’s not for the insulation foam but with the glue and putty it holds up just fine.
The light kit was purchased. I have a link in the first post. I plan to update it to the DIY kit on this site once halloween is over since most of the parts are the same.
Looking good.
