My GB1 Style Proton Pack/Thrower

[Warrenzo]

Well i guess it was pretty obvious that the next stage was to turn the shell black (even though i loved the Silver look) so here she is after 2 coats of Satin Black.


Next ting on the to do list was to scuff one side of the red lenses for the Cyclotron…shown here


Once all four of these were done i glued them and the blue Powercell lens into place…i couldn’t help myself to be tempted to get a lamp and shine it on the inside just for a giggle lol!!




So after i had my fun it was time to get back to the real work, which was to screw all the bits to the shell and take more photo’s. You can see that i have added the Ion Arm, Booster Tube, Booster Frame HGA, Bumper, Injector Tubes, Shock Mount, Resistors, Cable Ribbon P Clip, Clippard Valve, Straights, Legris Elbows and Gun Mount to the shell.






[Warrenzo]



A quick shot of how everything looks from inside, you can see that i have used a double nut locking system to completely secure everything and make sure that nothing desides to take a dive whilst trooping.



Next was to find a way of making it so that the Crank Knob actually turns instead of just glueing it on. I didn’t like the glueing idea as i’ve heard too many stories where the public have just said “oh does this turn?” and next thing ya know they hear a snap and they’re now holding it instead of it being attached to the pack. So we came up with an idea that consists of a ball bearing circular bit (no idea what it’s called, we found it lying about my mates shed and liked it) an a few washers and nuts. It wasn’t very stiff so the knob just spun freely, which i wasn’t too happy with so we shoved a piece of foam between the knob and the shell to stiffen it up a bit and this worked a treat!!



So with that done i decided it was time to give the pack a bit of colour and began to add some tubing. Some of had to be glued into place, but there was few other bits that i managed to get away with just pushing into place. Once that was done i added the pack labels aswell.





[Warrenzo]


By this time the Alice frame (used for army rucksacks in WW2 and even still today) was staring at me, taunting me just to mount it to the shell, so…that’s what i did

Now i now i was going for as close to screen accurate as possible, but when i saw the price of 3mm aluminium for the Motherboard i thought “to hell with that, lets see wut my mate has in the shed”. SUCCESS!!! He was able to come up with 1mm thick aluminium that would do the very job FOR FREE!!! Now i know what ur thinking…wont it bend and bow when u go to put it on ur back??? Well surprisingly not!!!

We sat the shell on top of the aluminium and drew around it to get the outline, then with a pair of tin snips proceeded to cut that bad boy out. For the more inticate bits and hard to reach parts we hand to use the grinder to get them just right.


Once that was done it was time to rivet the L Brackets in place, These will be used to hold the motherboard to the shell.


Next we made the holes for the Alice Frame bolts, 3 in total…u can see 2 at the bottom and 1 in the middle i this pic.


To space the Alice Frame from the Motherboard i just used small plastic tubes and cut them in half. Once all that was done and the holes had been drilled in the L Brackets for mounting to the shell it was time for a test fit and more giggle pics lol!!







[nick-a-tron]

Fantastic! It always makesw me happy when people get the alice frame the right height on the motherboard

Must be very proud knowing that you also created the shell from scratch.

[kingpin]

Looking great Warren! This has been a fine scratch-build so far.

Do the screws for the V-hook go through the metal L-bracket? Obviously it’d be tricky to thread them in as you’re using the double-nut method, but I admit I’m terrified of having the weight of the gun applied to the fibreglass (for all I know, the fibreglass could hold it easily, but not having worked with the stuff…)

[Warrenzo]

Indeed i am Nick, very proud indeed cuz i was brickin’ it at the beginning. I kept thinking “this isn’t gonna work”, but im really pleased with the outcome.

Cheers Ben, really appreciate the praise. The screws don’t actually go through the L Bracket, but i made sure the fiberglass there was REALLY thick for that exact reason. So it should hold the weight of the gun without any bother.

[kingpin]

Last question: are those spacers you’ve used on the ALICE Frame the plastic centres from some till rolls?

[parksdesign]

Looks great man. Nice Job you did. :nicejobyoudid:

[Warrenzo]

@Kingpin

Last question: are those spacers you’ve used on the ALICE Frame the plastic centres from some till rolls?

BAHAHAHAHA!!! How did u know???

Yeah i work for Iceland Foods so i saw these in work and instantly thought they would work.

Cheers parks, much appreciated dude

[cpu64]

I figured you would have used an actual switch for the knob. But what you did was pretty elaborate

[Warrenzo]

this way was also free. So long as it does the job, im happy

[Warrenzo]

So this could be the last update on the actual pack for a while as it’s time to start work on the thrower, but not before i update u all on my progress so far.

The next thing to do was to make the 2 filler tubes and the vac tube. These were pretty much made the same way as the Injector tubes below the Powercell. I used a length of Aluminium pipe and cut it into 3 seperate sections, wooden bunged the ends and added the securing bolts. For total screen accuracy there was 2 3mm thick squares below the 2 filler tubes…these can also be seen in the photo. After making these i sprayed them black to match.


Next it was time to make the Ion Arm Cap. For this it is supposed to be 1 solid block of 1/2" Aluminium, but i couldn’t find any in the shed and i wasn’t really wanting to shell out extra money for a pre-built one…so!!! A new plan was drawn up…one that involved 2 pieces of 1/4" Aluminum glued together and an old Water Heater Thermostat for the Brass rods.



So once i was happy with how it looked i fillered the seem, drilled the holes, sprayed it black and glued all the bits into place.


After that it was time to weather it up a bit by scratching off the paint. Then lastly it was bolted to the Ion Arm with 2 screws and some super glue. In the pics u can also see the filler/vac tubes attached and the rest of the tubing needed to complete the pack this far.





So next up will be updates on the thrower, but there is still a few things to be done to actually have the pack complteded such as:

Ribbon Cable & Clamp assembled and attatched,

Light & sound kit assembled and installed,

Pack needs weathered by dry brushing silver paint on to areas that would be easily chipped.

[nick-a-tron]

Looks great! The only thing id say is you might want to redo the ion cap weathering. If you look at reference photos the paint chips off in large sections around the edge leaving an “island” of black paint in the middle instead of lots of thin lines.

[Warrenzo]

Just a quick update before i start my Thrower build updates.

I was putting off making the Ribbon Cable as i was a little unsure of the route i wanted to take on making this. I finally decided that the cheapest and quickest option would be to use a sheet of sticky back plastic. To do this we peeled off the backing and lay the wires down on the sticky side like in the pic below.


Once that was done we doubled over the sticky plastic and twisted the cable to replicate how it looked in the movie. Once that was done, it was secured in place with the Ribbon Cable Clamp and P Clamp, then finally passed through the hole in the pack.

I’m not completely happy with how it turned out, but for a cheap option until i get a better one it’s not bad.


[Warrenzo]

Ok, so now that the Pack is practically finished bar electronics/sound and weathering, it’s time to begin the thrower.

So here is a pic of all the parts needed to make up the thrower. The white toilet roll holder is now redundant as i gave up on implamenting the extending barrel idea, mainly due to the fact that i wanted the hat light at the tip of the barrel to light up and this would cause a bit of hassle with the wires. The Gun Kit im using is Nick-a-tron’s who also made all my resin bits for the pack.


I forgot to include the clear barrel tube in the pic above so here it is lol!!


The job was to cut out the bar graph section, the hole for the handle and drill all the holes for the switches, clip lights, hat lights and atatchments.



I also drilled the holes on the bottom of the Gun Body for the bottom plate to screw on. I also glued in some fitings for the cap screws to screw into. Unfortunately one of the screws would have been right at the end of the post so i used some fillers to make it up a bit.


Next it was time to attach the Gun knobs to the body…yes i know i screwed up on this, but i did fix it i promise…keep reading to find out how. I also attatched the Heatsink to the otherside of the body. For this i used 4 cap screws and small amount of Super Glue for added security.



Of course once that was done, it was time to accidentaly drop the thing on the concrete floor and smash the fins of the Heatsink into loads of tiny sections…at this point i was ready to fire the whole lot across the room and give up altogether with the build/costume, but JT calmed me down a little and we worked on supergluing all the sections back on again to make the best of a bad situation considering the thing was stuck to the gun body and i really didn’t want to start pulling it apart if it was salvageable.




[Warrenzo]

I then glued the Palm Rest in place.


Next it was time to turn my attention to the Trigger Box. Once marking out where they had to go we drilled the holes for the Intensify push button and the Activate switch.


Whilst doin that i couldn’t resist having a play with the handles just for a quick photo.


While i had the handle there i thought it would be a good idea to drill the holes to attach the front handle to the Body.


For the Gun Track, we marked out where it had to be and then glued it to the Gun Body bottom plate. Once that was done we screwed the other half of the Gun Mount to the Gun Track



OK, back to the Trigger Box, and this time the Rear Instrument Bar was glued to the Trigger Box.


Once this set, 2 self tapping screws where screwed into place to make sure it was doubley strengthend.



In order for this to happen 2 holes had to be drilled in the side of the Trigger box, which were then filled.


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[Warrenzo]

In the pics above u can see i have also glued a piece of wood into the Instrument Bar where i intend to use a screw from inside the Gun Body to hold it in place. What u don’t see is a groove that had to be cut in order for the wires to be allowed to pass through to the Slo-Blo cap light.

Remember the Gun Knobs i screwed up on?? Well here we go, all fixed. I literally had to take a block of wood and a hammer to it to remove it from the front of the Gun Body. This fewer concretes my love for using Plastic Weld for building things :001_smile:


U will also notice that i have added the trigger used to extend the barrel…basically i used a 4mm Allen Key and shoved some green tubing over it.

Next it was time to glued the Rear Cylinder on and put wut i had done so far together for a few pics and an idea of how it’s all coming together.





I wasn’t happy with the top Clip Light hole as the drill walked a bit whilst drilling the hole, so we decided to add a little bit of fillers to this also.


Once that was done, i sprayed all the knobs that still need attached silver. For the front knob i drilled a hole and glued a screw into place as wanted to attach it with nuts instead of glue.


Next after sanding the Rear Grip to make it sit flush, i glued it to the aluminium handle and sprayed everything Satin Black




[Warrenzo]

So next it was time to begin the front section. So i marked out the areas that needed to be frosted by masking it off and sanding it. I also sanded the front of the barrel to a 45 Degree angle.


I then sprayed the Barrel Spacer and Trigger Tip silver and glued them in place.



While that was left to set i glued the Gun Lock and Trigger Ear to the Front Grip.


On the movie packs im guessin the Gun Lock was held in place with the Cap Screw so i added this to mine also.


I also did the same to the Trigger Ear, but recessed it and filled it as it shouldn’t been seen.


Next i drilled the hole in the Barrel Ear, and glued another fitting in so that the Banjo scre has something to hold it in place.


I then glued this on to the Front Handle and also glued the rest of the bits to it. U can also see the line that was lathed near the back of the handle to replicate the join of the screen used Thrower.


And this is pretty much where im up to for now.

[kingpin]

I’m going to have to steal that idea for attaching the Trigger Box for when I assemble my next Proton Gun.

Good progress so far Warren, looking forward to the next update. Are you not going to run the wires for the Gun Ear light and button under the front handle?

[Warrenzo]

Cheers mate…steal away…i actually stole the idea from Rich (Cheex) so he deserves all the credit.

Nah i’ve decided to just run all the wires inside the front handle instead.