Rightyo, now as some of you have noticed with my posts over on Farcebook, I’ve been engaged in building a Steampunk styled Proton Pack.
Thought now that I’m not far off completely done I’d better add a build thread, as a few have expressed interest in maybe attempting something similar.
You may be surprised at some of the materials and parts that I have used but theres good reasons for their use.
They are durable and keep the weight down due to the heavier nature of some other parts, plus they add easy access for battery changes and more lights/wiring to be added.
Again as usual I got over excited building certain parts and neglected the photo process so please forgive me if it seems like large jumps between certain stages.
The main difficulty has been choosing parts and then finding out halfway through that the part isn’t going to work or just plain looked wrong, so mainly stumbling blocks were hit along the way, and many eureka moments at bedtime while trying to sleep were also had (and no Derek not in THAT way either lol)
Anyway enough of my yap, pictures and blurb…
First thing I chose was the old Ghost popper, I had planned to use this for another project but it fit what I was looking for exactly so went with it.
Took it to bits carefully setting all the parts aside as I planned on using them later.
Chopped it in two at the gun to body area, as I didn’t want the foam darts storage area on the top.
Flipped the rear parts over and re glued the two parts together on both halves, taking extra care to make sure they lined up once up back together. Used that model kit plastic welding glue for a good strong fix.
I then moved onto the pack itself while the glue set, and cut some mdf into the overall shape and dug out my XGB, yes Extreme Ghostbusters Proton pack which had the industrial look I wanted, and disassembled it, and some clear plastic boxes from Boyes, a microwave plate cover, and a few bits of ■■■■■ wood cut offs for fixing purposes.
Laid everything roughly out and cut and first fixed the boxes in place.
Laid a few more parts out and added the first of the layered levels of the board and cut and added the 4 circles of hollowed out mdf that would form the base and sides of the cyclotron.
(now some parts you see in these early stages just didn’t make the final cut)
Built the motherboard and frame using mdf and some 1" by 1" ish scrap wood from work we get in as packing.
Then layered the pack up using the same 1" x 1" ish lengths and screwed the whole thing together and drilled out any holes I’d need for wiring.
Still laying out parts and trying to decide where looks best, also started adding what would be the riveted plates.
I had always planned on using the lights from the XGB pack, but not where they had used them, wanted them to light my powercell.
You can see the XBG lights shining through the top plate, just removed them as a whole piece and fitted, (with some jiggery pokery) under the top clear box.
I had planned of using the area they came from to have a clear piece to show cogs inside and then Elwood had the craaazy idea of lighting that area, so I found some battery Xmas lights and they did the trick.
The inner piece is a shipping tube plastic end from work, with the cogs fixed in place with split pins so they could turn is a motor was added, but felt that was beyond me at the moment, and the lights pushed into place around the edges.
This required, quite a few attempts to get everything to sit right and fit inside.
I had a bit of clear perspex kicking about and gave it a light sand to stop it being too clear.
Next part was adding rivets. For these I used pvc window nails, the come with a pvc covered head, the only downside was I had to cut quite a lot down due to fixings and so on, that they weren’t that easy to cut.
Added the power cell plate cover, made from an old wooden blind slat, and gave the inside of the microwave cover a quick spray of black to see how the light would look out the little steam holes.
Added the grill part to the cyclotron using the side from a stacking desk tidy, the kid you get from Poundland, cheap nasty plastic things only good for cutting up and using on builds, and bolted it in place with a piece of blue perspex behind.
The rivets didn’t stay on so I left them off in the end.
Also during this stage I found useful parts from old roller blinds, the powerhandle off the XGB pack and various other junk parts at work and home, which didn’t get photoed going on but did in the next few painted ones.
(sorry)
Also did a lot of gap filling with milliput and sanding, but those would have been boring pics anyway.
I also cut the speaker out of the XGB pack as I didn’t want that awful robobtic voice sounding off everytime I turn the lights on.