Super pumped. Got home today and found the box containing my GBfans proton pack shell and aluminum motherboard sitting on my porch. Still have a bunch of the other parts to order, and I need to decide on a thrower (leaning towards the throwingchicken kit) but I should have the money next month to get everything else and get started on building this.
Really looking forward to getting this started and eventually completed. I’m hoping to wear the full costume to a couple of charitable events my company does to help get a little extra attention. They are really excited about it. Also planning on being really daring and doing a few laps on my road cycle for the 24 Hours of Booty. Again attention getting, some other people did outlandish stuff last year, I figured it’d be different.
I 100% support the throwing chicken purchase. Thats what I have and it is amazing. If you are looking to texture your pack, wet sand it with 400grit then 600grit to get the shell nice and smooth, then throw your texture on. Best of luck! Looking forward to more pack poRn
Definitely exciting to open the box up and see that shell. It’s impressive.
Trying to decide on how I want the pack to look. I was really thinking about a fresh off the assembly line, flat/smooth looking finish to the pack. But I’ve seen a lot of things people have done with texturing, weathering, etc. which has me thinking it over some more.
You’re gonna bike with a pack on your back, Jack? That is hardcore! :mrgreen:
Always exciting to start a new build; once you get on a roll though putting everything together it generally goes fairly smoothly. Trickiest part is getting everything lined up properly!
So I’ve made some preorders, and purchases the last few weeks. When GBfans posted that they’d have electronics kits in stock I jumped all over it. I had already purchased a soundboard during the limited run a few months ago so I wanted to get the electronics kit to match.
Beyond that I purchased and received
My own ThrowingChicken Proton Wand. Planning to start prepping it and doing a soft assembly this weekend to fit things up.
Also planning to purchase some resin parts for the pack from KCGhostbuster/EricHunter from ebay next week. At which point it’s getting everything put together.
The best part is I’m going to have to schedule all this around college classes I’m taking online the next 6 months.
So I have a bunch of stuff sitting around and or have stuff on the way to start making some real pack progress. Received my GBfans light kits for the pack and wand and started the leg work on getting that tested and hooked up to the big blue battery. I also have been working on painting my throwingchicken wand because we’ve had some nice weather here lately and figured no time like the present.
I’m currently waiting for the black to finish drying, but here is a quick tease of how it is looking.
Rather than go with a metallic, my wife suggested that doing a brushed nickel look may give it a nice tone. Valspar (Lowes) sells a nickel spray paint and I decided to go for it. I’m SUPER pleased with the results and decided to take a few artistic liberties in my wand design. Stuff I’ve seen on other packs, but stuff I think the nickel color makes stand out over the black.
Also received some Aluminum pack labels, which are super awesome from Darthdono74. Received my v-hook, mounting brackets and booster tube bracket from Ejgunth87, and ordered a resin kit from Crix. Also have a ton of GBfans stuff that has come in over the last few days. AJ probably saw my name over those days and was like, damn this dude again. j/k
Also, I’ve tried doing some searching and come up empty, but has anyone installed the gbfans wand lights in the ThrowingChicken v3 wand? I’m running into an issue with the trigger box switches not fitting. It’s a super tight fit and seems like it once these things go in, they aren’t coming out (if i can get them in first)
Been busy getting this thing put together the last week. Got all the final batch of parts for the pack from Crix last week and went crazy drilling, sanding, and painting parts onto the pack. Had really nice weather with low humidity this weekend so I spent the last 3 days getting the pack painted and ready for final assembly.
Also, if you read the post before this, I had been trying to figure out how to get my switches for the gbfans light kit into the trigger box of the throwingchicken v3 wand. Figured out how to do it without serious harm to the box. Basically took my dremel and sanded some grooves into it so I could slide the switches in. Pictures of that soon.
Put some more together today and did my first full assembly of the pack, motherboard and alice frame. Not completely finished but here are some shots on where I am at.
The picture below shows it mounted for effect, but after I took these photos I took the shock mount off and painted the metal washers with the nickel spray paint I’ve been using for the metal effect. Unfortunately it is still in the drying stage so no photos of that assembly.
I found cork at Lowes and decided to use that to mount the soundboard onto the motherboard. I had some random computer screws laying around so I drilled some holes into the cork and threaded the screws to the cork. Afterwards I hot glued it to the motherboard.
If anyone is curious about the speaker placement, I decided to do it because I didn’t want speaker holes in the motherboard. As far as I am concerned there is no discernible loss in audio quality and it gives the pack some nice vibration when it is running.
My last few bits should on the way to my house tomorrow and eventually a set of labels to finish things up. Very pleased so far with the results.
