I’ve been building my very own pack from scratch for the past month or so, and decided I should probably put something up on the forum here for everyone to see (and learn from all my mistakes hahaha). I’ve had pics up on the fan props section for a while but sometimes its nice to have a bit of a story to go with it…
This is my first pack of any kind. I’ve always wanted my very own proton pack since I was a kid, and to see how many other people have got one AND built them to the exact specs as the movie is just mindblowing.
I’m working on having it all done in time for my 30th birthday in July, and hopefully it’ll be a huge talking point of the night seeing as not many people in my home city of Adelaide, Australia have made one hahaha!
its been a labour of love so far - I’m spending WAY too much of my time at work building it instead of doing real work hahaha But I plan to keep this one for myself to display at home. I will build more after this, but I’d probably prefer to buy them in shell form next time and speed up the process.
For this pack everything is made from PVC. I’m trying to build as much of it myself as possible, but for the harder to get items like gun knobs and grips etc, I have just this minute ordered parts from nick-a-tron. His parts look awesome and I cant wait for them to arrive so I’ll post new pics when they come in.
At the minute most of the construction work is done on my particle thrower, just need to add the final little bells and whistles then paint. Lights and sound will be added in the future, I’m probably thinking replicaprops and jupiter electronics, but I’ll look into those a bit more. Any feedback on your own experiences with these will be a huge help.
Thats about it for now, I’ll post more pics as I go.
I am gathering materials, I have the gun box taped together, hope to start on that this week, I have a few other pics of my mini pack that I am going to post today! Think I will post the pics from the gun box too.
So heres some more pics of what I have done so far:
I ordered resin parts for the thrower from nick-a-tron and they are stunning! Look so good, I recommend them to anyone considering resin parts. All I’ve had to do is give them a slight sanding then theyre ready for priming!
Since the last post I have added the gun barrel (no clear tube yet), painted up some of the resin parts ready for attaching to the gun body, attached the grips and a little bit of general sanding here and there.
When my parts came in I test fitted the clippard valve and realised it sat about 6mm above the top of the gun box. This wasnt anything to do with nicks parts, it was all due to my crappy measuring when I built the body. So I had fill over the vents I’d cut out, glue another piece of PVC to the top to raise it up a little then add filler where necessary to even it all out. Hopefully you can see this ok in my pics, and you can all learn from my mistakes!
Next step is to order a light kit for the bargraph. Ive already cut out a hole to allow or this, but before I paint the whole thing I need to glue the bargraph window and frame (which I cant do until I have the exact measurements of the lights - gotta make sure it all fits!!)
also…I had some extra time while I waited for nicks resin parts to come in - so I quickly knocked up the gearbox for the pack itself. Its not entirely accurate so depending on how much it buggers up all the other parts that fit with it, I might keep it or chuck it.
I havent sanded it yet or added any filler so please excuse its rugged charm
cheers man! yeah Im keen to check out more of you build
the white stuff in the corners is actually some ‘L’ shaped PVC. It came as one big length - a couple metres or so. I bought it solely for that purpose…to put in the corners to give it strength. I’ll need to use it for when I make the bigger stuff on the proton pack cause my pvc is only 3mm thick so if I whack some of those L shaped brackets in there it gives me heaps more surface area to glue everything together and itll be a lot stronger.
I hope that explains it well enough, let me know if you need pics of how I piece it together cause sometimes it can be a bitch to line up where your brackets should sit so that when you put all your bits together it sits nice and flush.
Excuse my ignorance since I am new to the building world but what is the material you are using to build your pack? I’ve seen it before and am not sure what it is. Is it easy to work with? Better than wood?
Im making my pack out of PVC - or styrene depending on which part of the world youre from
Its a matter of personal choice which materials you make your pack out of. PVC is easier in some respects because you can cut it and manipulate it with stuff you could find around the house like stanley knives and hairdryers which is a simple way to go for the regular punter, and with a bit of sanding here and there and some filler for shaping and hiding mistakes you can get awesome results.
Using wood on the other hand will make your pack a lot heavier which is something to consider seeing as youre going to want to carry it around on your back a fair bit. But its a lot stronger than PVC and can handle a lot of rough handling in case you ever happen to drop it or knock it against something. Another thing to consider is that if you use wood you would need access to jigsaws and table saws and stuff which not everyone may be able to get their hands on.
Decidng what to make your pack out of is a pretty important decision, so I’d recommend having a look at some packs made from either material and seeing which one works best for you. Some good examples of packs made from PVC are by WeeMadHamish and bigi71, theirs look amazing. The only one made form wood that I can think off the top of my head is by Fossilized Art. Search for these guys and check out their photos and that might give you a better idea of which way you want to go.
Hope that helps bro, I’m no expert by any stretch as I’m mainly learning as I’m going but I’m happy to answer any questions
Since the last post the other day I have now painted the gun up. I still have one more coat of black to do in the morning but once that’s dry I can get on to gluing all the various knobs on, as well as the clippard and the heatsink.
I started off with two coats of white primer as shown here
Next was a coat of silver. I wasn’t going to do this but I thought its inevitably going to get scratched and if that happens I don’t want the white primer to be seen. And I also like the weathered metal look
