Since the original creation of the two packs and my uniform a lot of life has happened. Kids, new careers, moving, vacations, marriage, new house, etc. meaning it has been a quite some time since I have gotten a chance to start a completely new GB project. Yea I have updated my pack and uniform through the years, but I’m talking about something brand-spankin-new.
With the introduction of kids into my life, it has been pretty cool being able to expose them to the awesome 80’s stuff we had when we were kids, including Ghostbusters of course 8) And watching them actually take a liking to it is even better.
I recently started doing events with the BAGB’s (not an official member yet but working on it). The kids have started showing an interest in wanting to go to some of the events and the group loves the idea of having the kids join us.
Which brings me to my task as a father, building the kids uniforms and packs for them to play with and use during those events.
I originally contemplated 3d printing scaled packs for the kids but I wasn’t sure if that would hold up to the rough carefree play that kids normally do. Not to mention, it was going to be pretty expensive and take a lot longer to get to the final product. That lead me to making the decision to remodel a couple Kenner packs for them.
Once that decision was made, I searched through the site for ideas I could pull from other Kenner mods (like Riggs’ Kenner Pack Build) and determined I was going to go for a Movie-esk remodle, you know so there’s are “just like dads”.
From there I started gathering the parts I would need to execute the plan I had in my head and here’s where that ended up.
The only thing that I haven’t picked up yet are the lights kits I want to use. Jupiter makes a .75 scaled pack/gun light kit combo that I’m going to go with.
The first step I wanted to try to tackle was shrinking down the normal adult size ALICE pack frames. I took some measurements of the kids and from the Kenner packs and determined how much out of each frame I needed to remove.
And then started cutting.
It was at this point that I realized that my Dremel would not work for cutting this frame because it doesn’t give me the angles that I need. I’ll have to wait until I can get my jigsaw back before I can finish cutting and shrinking these frames meaning the frames work is TO BE CONTINUED.
After setting the frames aside I started work on cutting on the packs themselves. First removing the entire back (they’ll be mounted to aluminum motherboards later down the road).
Then cutting off the stock gun hook and the lower strap/tubing mounting points.
At this point sanded the packs down with 220 grit to get them ready for putty and paint.
Next, I moved over to the guns. I cut off the knobs from both sides (planning to replace them with real knobs) as well as the mount in the middle of the gun.
Cut off the stock yellow tubing attachment point and then drilled out the back of the gun handles to accept the split-less wire loom.
The last thing I did was to sand the guns down with the same 220 grit from the packs.
My next step is to fill in a few of the sticker areas plus the holes left from all the cutting and modifying. This will smooth everything out and get them ready to drill for all the knobs switched and greeblies.
More updates/pictures to come.
