(Edit: Image Shack stopped hosting my pictures, so I lost a lot of pre-build content. However I recovered some build pictures later in the thread and those have been revived.)
I’m in the process of compiling parts for my latest and greatest proton pack build. I plan to use aluminum parts where available, except for the N-filter, which is molded in to the shell I’ve ordered from Venky. The plan now is to have this be mostly a GB2 pack, but there might be a detail or two that hold to the traditional GB1 packs. It’s my custom build, so I’m going to pick and choose what I like best, or in some cases just because I already have certain parts on hand. This build is going to be a slow one, partly because I don’t have my shell yet, and partly because I’m still in the process of gathering the parts I want, and saving up money for said parts.
That being said, I’ve got a couple of boxes in my bedroom next to my old pack that have my new parts in them, and it’s getting hard to resist tinkering with them. So before I start drilling holes and painting, I wanted to post what they looked like when I first got them, some of them with parts already fitted. So here goes!
Here are the boxes of parts. I won’t waste time posting pictures of tubing and some of the smaller stuff until they are fitted on the parts later.
I bought the GBfans gun track (MIP!) and heatsink during the Black Friday sales last year. That makes good financial sense, good advice. I won’t be working on the thrower for quite a while, so these will stay in the box until then.
I also bought the injector tubes from the GBfans shop. I plan to use the hose barbs for the tubing. I need to buy a few more, I had to borrow these from my old pack to show them off for the pictures. I provided a few angles to show off the base where it’s mounted to the shell as well as the degree to which it is offset on the plate.
I’ve been buying a lot of the new aluminum parts from Multimedia Mayhem. I’m considering having my checks direct deposited to him. Here’s a group shot of the PPD, GB2 ion arm end cap, and vac tube. I plan to use a hose barb on the PPD as well.
Here’s the MMM beam line and filler tube.
The part I’m most nervous about is my MMM ion arm. It had holes drilled out for the elbow and one resistor, but I’ll have to drill the rest for the end cap, two other resistors, and the GB2 style Clippard fitting. Some of you guys talk about drilling/tapping parts like it’s nothing, but I’m afraid of what damage I might do to them, since before my builds have been with wood and foamboard.
So far my favorite part I’ve bought is the HGA. It’s from MMM, and I asked Colin if he would custom drill the elbow holes for me. I noticed in pictures of the Ramis Profiles in History auction pack that the two elbows were not exactly lined up, actually noticably offset. I’d never seen that before, or seen another build with that detail, so I had mine made that way to give it a little character. It’ll be a nice detail that will help identify it if it ever gets lost in a pile of other proton packs. Hey, it could happen!
Here’s the photos I found here on the site and sent to Colin.
I’ll take more pictures of other inventory when it arrives or when I take some parts off of my old pack, like the Clippard valve for example, and if I do decide to start drilling I’ll post the results of that as well. I don’t have a lot of time for all of this, being married with a 5 year old playing T-Ball and a 10 month old deciding he doesn’t like the idea of sleeping at night makes hobby time hard to come by, but I’m itching to get started whenever I can.
Thanks for looking!
