I’ve had nothing to do with my weekends since I finished my last Proton Pack and my project car is in the paint shop, so I’ve decided to use the stacks of leftover MDF and make a new Proton Pack that’s worthy of taking a mould of. I’m basically following Sean’s plans.
Here’s what I got done this weekend using 1/4" MDF, 1/8" MDF for the fins, and 30mm PVC. Liquid nails and bondo for the joinery, and lots of sanding.
On the agenda for next weekend is the EDA/PPD. Hopefully it’s a bit easier, and I’m cheering that there’s no fins to cut!
Yeah Nick, for the bottom 6 blocks, I used 1 strip of 1/8" mdf and carved the grooves into it by hand with a jigsaw blade, then sanded with a rolled up piece of sandpaper. It turned out pretty cool and not that hard to do.
Heh, that reminds me of my friend’s pack. it took about six monhts for me to notice that he had put seven ‘blocks’ instead of six… I’m sure no-one but a true ghosthead will ever notice that.. Still that looks like a great start, for me that piece was the hardest one to pull through, and it was the first piece of the pack I started working on. It got a bit easier from there on..
I’m not sure if I’ll offer shells for sale, I don’t really want to get in to that aspect of propping. Plus, if it’s not as good or better than Exoray’s there’s not much point. His is the industry standard. And it’s also not economical for me to ship to US and UK so it may end up being more expensive than Exoray’s anyway. Thanks for your enthusiasm though, hehe.
My reason for wanting to make a mould is so I can reproduce a set of proton packs that are identical, and faster than building them from scratch. But we’ll see how they go.
Yeah that’s what I’m hoping, hehe. The hardest part was keeping the whole thing square while the glue set.
For the EDA/PPD, I’ve bought a few packets of right-angle brackets which I’ll screw to the corners during construction. Then after the glue and bondo has set I’ll remove the corner brackets and fill in the screw holes. I figure that’ll be the easiest way of keeping the angles square.
I know the feeling.. We used a ton of hot glue sticks to hold the pieces together while the glue set on.. And as you can guess, burnt most of our fingers while doing so.. Still, keep us posted, it makes me feel that I should bother my neighbours a bit more, at this time of night..
Not much of an update this week, but here’s what I’ve managed to get done:
As you can see, on the inside of the box I used right-angle brackets to help keep the thing square while the glue set, and I also used leftover body-filler to help strengthen the joins.
I’m working on the PPD at the moment, and should have this part finished by tomorrow afternoon.
I reckon I’ll probably still make the guns from scratch. The last one wasn’t that hard, but next time I’ll try to make the barrel switch work properly like your one.
PPD almost finished! Just need to add the discs. This piece was a pain in the ■■■■ and took most of the day to make. Very fiddly and lots of small pieces, and lots of filler to join them together to make a smooth solid part.
While I was waiting for the filler to dry I started making the lightbar as well. It still needs sanding and the fins, but it looks alright to start with.
Here’s a pic with a bit of tubing to represent the… tube thingy
Great work so far, I’ll take a shell if you ever get that far!