I had been holding off to post this until I demolded the silicone from my finished buck (which I did just this evening) and knew whether it had been successful or not. Whenever I share what I’m working on before it is finished I always seem to have some kind of catastrophe. Call me superstitious I guess haha.
First of all I would like to thank a few people. Vincenzo330 for the awesome pack mold making tutorial you shared. Following the basic method you used gave me a much nicer and more professional mold than any I had ever made before. I did deviate from the steps here and there, but definitely took the inspiration from what you shared. I had bookmarked that tutorial and studied it periodically over several months as I constructed my buck, so I would be prepared when the time came to mold it.
Others I would also like to thank include jackdoud for the work you did compiling the Proton Pack Section Index thread. I don’t know how many people actually make use of that thread, but it is an extremely useful compilation of all the best info on the site about pack building. I would also like to thank both bigi71 and pchrisbosh1 for their awesome pack buck build threads. While they both built their bucks from styrene and I used mostly wood, I definitely took inspiration from their work, and also learned a few of the more intricate details of the pack and was able to add them to my own work. Also pchrisbosh1 for the easy to follow texturing tutorial you shared. Then a general thank you goes out to the board as a whole for all the inspiring work and ideas shared every day. I don’t post often but I do visit the site frequently and enjoy reading everything.
I’ve had to deal with some major health issues over the past couple years, including a misdiagnosis that had me on meds that were doing me little good for almost a year’s worth of time while my condition got worse. If I had been correctly diagnosed at the time I likely wouldn’t be nearly as bad off as I am now. Building this buck slowly as I’ve had the time and energy has been a great distraction and motivation for me. It is almost sad to see it completed, but I look forward to finishing out the first shell cast from it soon.
Anyway, on to the progress shots. Of course I sometimes got carried away working and would forget to pick up the camera, or in the case of fiberglassing the mother mold my hands were too messy to be able to handle the camera.
These first few photos are a few that I remembered to take as I was doing initial construction:
Here are the main parts in various stages of putty and primer:
Here the main parts assembled, primered, and ribs attached:
Here it is with a coat of primer and the cyclotron rings attached:
Here is where I realized my power cell fins were too narrow, and thankfully was able to correct them before I got to the molding process:
Here is a shot of the pack taped up before texturing:
And a shot half way through texturing. I ended up adding a bit more after this point:
Here it is after texturing and a coat of primer:
Here are a few shots of the clay up and mother mold:
I wasn’t really able to get any photos during the mother mold or silicone pouring stages since my hands were gloved and I couldn’t handle the camera. Here is a shot I took after I got all the silicone poured:
And here is what the few months of work resulted in this evening when I was finally able to demold the pack. The different shades of purple are due to my digital scale acting up on me halfway through pouring. A couple batches got mixed with a little extra catalyst before I realized my scale had somehow stopped working right:
I couldn’t have asked for a better mold. It captured the texture and detail great, no flaws that I can see, and the whole thing is very sturdy. A bit of the texture did come off the buck with the mold, but it came right off the mold with no problem. If I ever need to remold my master I can easily retexture it thanks to pchrisbosh1’s easy to follow tutorial. The buck itself fared very well, with only one of the EDA disks coming off and no other real structural damage.
I look forward to getting a casting made here in the near future. It has been a long process to get to this point, but I highly encourage everyone even slightly considering attempting something like this to go for it. It is a great learning experience, and very gratifying when you see the finished product.
Thanks everyone for looking!