New Here and Attempting a Proton Pack

Equipment Proton Packs
1

Hello guys and gals.

Well, I had been studying thoroughly the varying plans on the site. Norm’s Stephan’s and Seans’

I love the accurate blue prints of Stephan’s, the descriptive “how-to” of Norm’s and Seans

They’d be better if all combined into one tutorial though.

I saw some impressive proton packs COMPLETELY made of wood it looks like…it looks like you need to be a woodworking artisan to put something like THAT together. Even the Ghostbuster Bumper? I thought that was a hunk of metal you got laying around in the junk yard.

With that said, I was wondering…do you guys “Mcguyver” pieces together.

Like a Plastic Drinking cup for that smaller cylindrical object under the Cyclotron filter to those 2 circular shapes above it …I saw one of the stages, looks like a metal top from a Ragu jar…with that said…do you guys sometimes just take household products to assemble it? (ie - Jar tops, parts from an old Buick)

OR…do you do everything from scratch…just get wood, metals chunks and “Form” your parts (circles, squares and routing grooves in some of the areas)?

I read in ONE plan where some advised AGAINST the cake plan for the cyclotron because it’s a pain to sand down and “shape” (think it was Sean Bishops plan) But then I saw the woodworkers do it COMPLETELY out of wood.

I have access to a routing machine, Bandsaw, table saw and even a MILLING machine (for metals) and even a lathe.

Just kind of an amateur though.

Also, I was quite impressed with the authentic sounds when “Powering up” the unit. Someone mentioned they put a speaker in the Cyclotron area for said sounds?

Also, where do you GET the sound effects? Do you put an MP3 player in the unit attached to said speaker? lol How does enabling sounds from the pack work?

(man, sounds like I have tons of questions though)

But I’d appreciate your help…I didn’t know there were actual (star-wars) type legions of “Ghostbuster” chapters/clubs like there are the Star Wars Legion counter parts.

It’s good to be aboard!

E.T.

2

the small cylinder is usually a pringles can. people do what ever they want. some use house hold items, others do it from scratch, others (like me) use resin parts. it is all in what you want to do and what ever you can do.

3

Sounds like you have everything tool wise you’ll need to build a scratch built pack, you can incorporate aspets of all the plans, it just depends on how accurate you want the final result. Building your own pack is like a rite of passage here and it’s the most rewarding!

Lots of info here and a wealth of knowledge from all the builders to tap into ( use the search function… you will be thankful you did) you can always ask specific questions if you get stuck. My advice is plan it out, take your time and have fun with it, this is a very rewarding hobby :slight_smile:

Welcome to the forum!

4

with my pack, i’ve used a pringles can, a microwave plate cover, a bacon container, and a radiator cap. if you can paint it up, no one will really notice. they’ll be too blown away that there is a Ghostbuster standing in front of them! :slight_smile:

5

PVC piping of all shapes and size’s are your friends.

I used both norms and ottos plans when I built my first pack, It was great to get a running walk though from norm, but for my second build now, which is actually for someone else, and is way more detailed then my first pack as far as accuracy goes, im just using ottos.

Ive use FoamCore to build my packs, its light and need some reinforcement as some places, but its easy to use and cheap.

6

People use all sorts of things. I depends on how movie-accurate you want your pack to be.

Me, I’m making a movie accurate pack. But I wasn’t able to get that done in time for Halloween last year so I threw together a bunch of stuff like detergent caps, PC speaker housings, electrical boxes, abd even a pringles can to make a temporary one.

Building the pack doesn’t require godlike skills with woodworking. I used a jigsaw and a finishing sander to make my spacer out of MDF, and the rest, all the little ribbed boxes, I made with a small handsaw, out of bass wood. (You can get that at a hobby store. They sell it with the balsa. It’s stronger than balsa but easy to cut.) And my cyclotron I made with an aluminum cake pan I found at Walmart which was the right size and shape. But making one out of MDF would not be very difficult.

The hardest part is making that spacer and the bumper. I didn’t make my bumper, but it’s easier than it looks. Just a matter of cutting the right shapes out to build it up in profile, and then sanding it down after gluing them together. Time consuming to be sure, just like the spacer, but not terribly hard.

7

I detailed a lot of my parts in my wip thread here:

8

Thanks for the feedback!

I was wonderingn, did you guys actually cut the “motherboard” to the exact shape…or just used a rectangle for the motherboard?

9

You have to cut the motherboard to a shape, because the bottom is rounded with a small bumper tongue on it.

10

[/quote]
Building your own pack is like a rite of passage here and it’s the most rewarding!
[/quote]

That is the best line of the day right there for me!

11

In what order do you build the pack? :slight_smile:

12

http://www.gbfans.com/image.php?url=/images/equipment/plans/stefan_1.jpg

You can either cut your own from wood or plastic or purchase an aluminum one, I sell the laser cut mobos which are exact to the measurements in the diagram

13

Pack build order:

Get parts.

dry fit parts

Get more parts.

Dry fit those parts.

Repeat as needed.

Once you have everything, and have dry fitted a bazillion times, put things together in the way that makes the most construction sense.

Paint, add stickers, weather, n wear!

14

You forgot step one

Look at the plans

15

Actually insert that before each other step.. and also add look at different plans as well as other’s wip threads here.

I picked up tips as my builds progressed