By my estimate it’s been about seven years or so since I last attempted to build a Proton Pack… and the results were… less than satisfactory:
After I first met Andy and co at Collectormania 10 back in 2006, every so often he’s dropped the comment “When you gonna build a Pack?”
Being the procrastinator that I am, I would reply with some variation of “soon”, and then the idea would be filed away not to get any movement until he would bring it up again.
And so this pattern continued until a “lightning bolt” moment happened: Ghostbusters: The Video Game. I wanted to help promote the game with a pack and suit, and it was probably that moment where I finally began to seriously make movement to get a Proton Pack built. I’d collected a lot of the custom parts over the past several years and I was at a point where a lot of the Pack’s structure could be assembled.
And so an agreement with Andy was struck where he, Lawrence and I would spend a weekend at Andy’s and get as much done as physically possible. And this past weekend was that weekend.
First and foremost I want to say that Andy and Lawrence were both a huge help in getting this project off of the ground and their advice and access to their skills was invaluable.
I’d only been off of the train to Andy’s suberb of London about ten minutes when we bought the first piece of material for the day, a huge board of wood.
Once the board had been cut, we deployed ourselves into Andy’s work shed where I unloaded some of the resin and electric parts I was hoping to get mounted over the weekend.
Andy’s work shed: I was left green with envy, because thanks to my dad, I barely have any work space in our huge garage due to junk and booze occupying almost every flat surface.
Work begins on the top of the Spacer whilst Andy begins to mark out the sides of the EDA (grey pack parts are older ones not made for my Proton Pack). By this point the face panels for the Gear Box…
…had been drawn up and were ready to cut from the wood.
And of course, all of our measurements were accurate to the nth degree. 
Work continues on mapping the EDA sides…
Whilst placement of one of JT’s Cyclotron covers was compared with the top of the spacer. The parts fitted beautifully. 
As work progressed, the “beast” of a Gear Box was glued together by yours truely and Andy and Law. They reassured me it would clean up a treat, to which there was no doubt in my mind.
And as the day wore on, the Spacer came together. It was a nice photo opportunity as it would’ve been difficult for more than two people to put it together.
As the Spacer’s glue dried, the additional elements of the Gear Box were added: the sloped plate and the tube for the hosing.
Soon, we had enough parts to begin testing the layout.
And then it was time for Colin’s Booster Tube to be glued and screwed onto the EDA.
And layout testing continues using the motherboard, also one of Colin’s.
The two madmen of the evening posing with the fruits of our labour.
And with Lawrence’s help, we commemorated the time we were about done, 18 minutes to one in the morning.
The final act of the evening was to give some of the parts: Spacer, EDA, Gear Box and Gun Mount a course of Bondo (technically, really called “Body Filler”) for smoothing out in the morning.
And that chronicles the first day’s work of Proton Pack building. Stick around for Part 2, which will hopefully be up some time this weekend.
Looking good there Ben, going to be a nice pack when all is said and done.
