Shortly after joining I was able to jump on the opportunity to buy JoeLuna33’s Venky shell and I think its awesome. I love how it looks like a used movie prop. So I made the decision to keep the look and run with it rather than clean it up and make it a perfect hero. Over the past few months I’ve been hemorrhaging money getting all the parts I could and I’m getting ready to start working and assembling it all. Only one pic to show for now but I’m excited.
JoeLuna33’s Venky shell with nick-a-tron’s Volguus bumper
(not screwed together, just sitting so not lined up perfect but does fit snug like a glove)
Not much work on the pack itself so far. Instead I’m working on the wand first to use that to get an idea of how I want to paint and weather it. Its TC’s new 3VH with Freeky Geeky’s acrylic tip, trigger and banjos along with a Heavy Props light kit.
Overview:
Assembled ready for first coat of aluminum paint and satin brown on the grips:
Ready for the satin black:
Basically assembled:
Next up will be decals, lights green lever extension and weathering which is what I’m stuck on right now. Instead of dry brushing some gun metal paint along the edges I’m taking a shop cloth rag and rubbing down the black paint to show the aluminum paint in places. But I think I put too many layers of black paint and its taking a lot of elbow grease.
A month to the day, where does the time go? Having fun reading other peoples build threads and forgetting I’ve got my own that’s where.
Been having a lot of fun working on my GB stuff that I’ve decided to build a true idealized GB1 or GB2 Hero after this one.
So with that in mind and keeping with this build being more like a stunt / midgrade pack I’m gonna save the 3-way speakers, canakit amp and sound chip from my Crix package for the hero build. This pack will utilize the light kit only. Good for walking around cons and such not caring too much about bumping into stuff or lending it to my brother or a friend like having a spare pack.
Here I pretty much have everything dilled and laid out in a dry fit up. It’s Crix’s full resin kit, nick-a-tron’s booster frame, resin clippard valve and resistors.
One area that was a problem that I couldn’t ignore was the power cell window. When I cut it out, that portion of the shell was very thick and uneven.
As you can see I started to lay out what I thought would be a good thickness. This area is very hard to get at so I ended up just power holding my dremel with a 1/4" router bit and went to town.
Oh and I don’t know if I’ve seen this in someone elses build and I got the idea from them but I’m doing this to my elbows with a hobby knife
Ill paint them grey and the inside gold.
And lastly, I’ve pretty much wrapped up my thrower the other day, I’ll put photos of that up later tonight.
Everything is looking great! Can’t wait to see the finished product. Well done on the power cell window.
I sorta did the same thing with my SMC elbows… I popped that whole ■■■■■■ out and use some hollow brass rod with an ID of 5/32" and epoxied that into the elbow. Works great.
