I’m building my first proton pack, I want it to be relatively light & durable, and want to have it done before October.
I haven’t settled on a specific build yet, so right now I’m just working on the basics.
I started using a Studio Creations vac formed mk2 shell. I know the drawbacks of using the vac shell but I’ve seen some really nicely done ones on here. Since this is my first build, I figured I would rather make mistakes on a budget shell to start.
Here is the shell as it arrived in the mail. It ships in two pieces.
I tried roughing up the seam between the shell halves with a dremel sanding attachment and using construction adhesive and gator clamps to get the halves to bond to start with, but it just wasn’t sticking well. (plan was to put bolts in after it dried).
I ended up drilling 3 bolt locations and using bolts and washers to hold the pack together.
I then fiberglassed the interior to make it a bit more rigid.
I made sure to wrap the seam between the halves with cloth and give them some extra attention with the fiberglass.
I let the fiberglass bond, and then the next morning started filling the seam on top with bondo using a 1" spatula to force the compound down into the cracks between the bolts and against the fiberglass joint I created on the bottom.
Here is the back after I cleaned up the extra fiberglass strands and gave it another coat. (You can see the bondo seam)
Here is the bondo seam after it’s first pass sanding.
I’ve done two passes with sandpaper and dremel on top smoothing down the bondo. I gave it a quick spritz of spraypaint so that I can see the inperfections in the finish better. Looks like I need to sand some more and maybe touch up a few voids with more compound.
I’m not sure where to go from here when I start adding the additional parts and hardware. I considered working upward from the N-Filter. (but I’m kind of dreading figuring out how to do the bumper)
