Mike Decays "I'm finally building a proton pack"

Equipment Proton Packs
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Well, this has been about two years in the making. I got my aluminum thrower from CPU64, March 30th 2013. Unfortunately a lot of personal stuff kept me from carrying on in that time. Now I’m at a better place in my life, have a 7 month old daughter to have fun with and a better pay rate to be able to pick up where I left off. :slight_smile:

First and foremost, thanks to all people on here who have been helping me figure a lot of this stuff out.

CPU64 for being in constant contact with me over those two years and answering my incessant barrages of PMs.

Pssdffjay, who’s build thread had been a template for me to read over and over to make sure I do things right and don’t do what he did wrong. :stuck_out_tongue: just kidding Jay, your build is excellent an very in depth. Thank you.

GrimmyGB, Bishopdonmiguel, Pyhasanon, Kingpin-reading my random questions and helping me out tremendously. An all around great bunch of people here on the forums.

And the sellers.

Nosllit, Hijacker, Spongeface, Wiz-GB008, Ejgunth87, Enderwigan, Crix, Master Taran, umoribawar, Nick-A-Tron, JoeLuna33, and momeraths24…thanks for all the parts and help. With out you guys, I would’ve never had what I needed.

Last but not least, a huge thanks to AJ Quick. For providing this site and the GBfans shop, where a lot of the main parts came from. With out this site…where would any of us be?

Now enough of this mushy hooplah horse crap! On with the build!

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I remember that!

Now less talking, more building!! :smiley:

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So before I started this thread I got the HGA, crank knob, vac tube, and gun mount installed. Also mounted the mobo to the Alice frame and shell to the mobo. Pics? Yes…have some.

Dry fit of parts. Damn those look good.

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Went the Canadian method on the spacers. Hockey pucks. Thanks again Jay.

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Inside of shell where gun mount goes is a bit lop sided. Used washers to even it out with longer bolts.

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So now here’s a dilemma I face early on in the build. I have an excellent Wiz resin bumper. A GBfans shell. The bumper is bit wider than the shell. If I have the bumper right up against one side of the shell, I have a huge gap on the other. Anyone else have this problem? I was thinking after I drilled the holes and tightened the bolts, it would pull everything together, but thought I’d ask the peanut gallery first. Thoughts? Suggestions?

One side

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The other

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Close up of said gap

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Haha! Oh I have a whole slew of pics. Been building all weekend. Just too lazy to post them all at once. Keep em wanting more.

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First off. Those parts look AWESOME. Love the weathering on the thrower handle (dunno if that was intentional weathering but it looks great!)

Secondly, yea you shouldn’t have too much of an issue with the bumper, it will flex a bit and tighten right down.

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Hah the weathering on the handle was due to the Rustoleum BBQ paint, wears away nicely when handled constantly. Was always messing with the thrower figuring out electronics and parts placement waiting for the shell to come in.

Yea I was thinking the same thing. Kind of hoping someone else would’ve had this issue to reassure me it’d be ok. Lol Think I’ll just go for it and cross my fingers.

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I always love seeing this part of a build when parts start coming in, and dry fitting bare aluminum on a new shell. Makes me want to start another one. I should finish mine first though…

I think you’ll be fine tightening on the bumper with the flex. You could try pushing it tight to the shell just to see but I don’t see too much of an issue.

Any trouble finding hockey pucks? :wink:

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So here’s me attaching the booster tube. Took a page right from Pssdffjay’s thread. Found the center of the tube and marked it on both sides. Marked where I wanted it to go and drew my line. I decided to put the center of the tube right between the EDA discs. I saw some of the reference pics of the sony lobby pack had it this way.

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You can see here my first line…which was not centered at all. Second line looked way better.

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Throwing the ion arm in there to check placement.

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Say what you will about gel markers. This thing showed up very nicely on the black of the shell. I call it Spud green.

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Marking placement for holes. Marked a few times and tried to go with areas where the dip in the shell wasn’t as bad.

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Laid the tube back down and lined up my lines again. Marked holes from underside of shell onto tube.

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Put tube in vise to hold it steady while drilling the holes. The rag is to keep the vise from digging in and marking up the metal. I use split point drill bits to drill all metal parts. Reduces walking of the bit and you don’t need to punch the holes.

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Didn’t get any pics of the holes after they were drilled. But here it is bolted in place from the inside.

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The finished product. I also managed to get the ion arm on there in the process. Didn’t get any pics of it either for some reason. I’m really bad at this whole taking pics in progress thing.

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I know. I’ve just started this one and already want to start another. Wanting to get my hands on a Pchrisbosch shell. Hear that’s the cream of the crop there.

I’ll be messing with the bumper tomorrow hopefully after work. We’ll see how it turns out.

It’s funny…I read all the comments about the pucks in your thread. We have a play it again sports nearby that I went to. I asked if they had ice hockey pucks and they gave me the whole “do you mean street hockey?” I seriously looked at the guy and said “did I say street hockey ■■■■■■■?” He just kinda pointed to the corner of the store. I can’t stand stupid…I’m sorry. :stuck_out_tongue: but yea it worked like a charm and I really like the look of them.

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The booster frame was next. I drilled the holes in the frame and lined them up on that center line of the tube. I held the frame in place and just drilled through the frame into the tube.

Crappy picture I know.

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First hole drilled.

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Always use oil to lube up your tap before tapping a hole. Helps it cut the threads smoother and easier. Also…that’s what she said.

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With the first hole tapped and the screw put in, I lined up the upper hole and decided to drill it with the frame attached. Another great suggestion from Pssdffjay’s thread.

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Once the hole was started, I moved the frame and continued.

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And voila! Perfection! I know that cable clamp is pretty small. Had it from when I started to collect parts two years ago. I think it’s 1/2". What is the size supposed to be? 1"?

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I saved mounting the Booster Tube for last because it seemed so difficult and here you smashing that chore like a boss from the get go. Respect.

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Thanks Bishop. It wasn’t too bad honestly. I wanted to tackle cutting the Nfilter off first honestly. I think that’ll be the most hectic part. I figured if it went south…I’d just put this thing in a closet next to my other projects and not come back to it for a long time. I do that when something doesn’t go right. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Looks bad ass motha $@$#*

The booster tube was the hardest part for me. I had so much trouble trying to mount it straight. There’s like 4 plugged holes hidden underneath mine from screwups lol

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Check out: Riggs’ Studio Creations Build (Pic Heavy?) post (page 4)

He also had a resin bumper that was to big, he put it in hot water.

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Awesome work dude. Looks boss

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Thanks guys.

Lowberg - this booster tube wasn’t without its slight problem. The top hole didn’t line up quite right. I ended up sticking the drill back in the hole of the shell and bore it down a little bit. Wasn’t too bad after I got the washer on and tightened it up.

Robandliv - I checked out Rigg’s build thread. That is an excellent solution! Thank you so much for that! I might be trying this out myself tonight. I’ve actually used this method to straighten bent limbs on action figures. Don’t know why I never thought of doing it with this.

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This is looking fantastic! Keep it going.

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DUDE! Nice work thus far! Seriously leaping in there like a pro!

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Thank ya gentlemen.

Grimmy-I’ve looked over so many build threads in the last 5 months that it was like nothing. Only thing I needed to look up in the process was rough placement of parts. This whole website is like a giant owners manual for a proton pack. :slight_smile: