Thanks Chris that means a lot! And yes it can get super tedious, I think you would know that best out of all of us haha. I’m dreading the sync gen and cyclotron since those are the most difficult parts to build imo.
Wow this is looking awesome! Makes me nostalgic for the foam & cardboard packs I used to build haha. Keep up the great work!
Hey guys. Its been almost 2 months since my last update so I figured I should make one. I was going to hold off and wait until the sync gen and spacer were finished before I made an update, but today I had to go for a small surgery with my hand so I will have to take a break from the project for a while.
After completing the EDA, I was going to move straight to the sync gen until an unexpected problem came up. Something fell on the EDA as I was moving things around which dented it and scratched it all up. :sigh: Unbelievable. It was technically still usable but I was so frustrated by it that out of sheer determination, I rebuilt the entire part in less than two days. It actually came out better than my last effort so it wasn’t so bad! 
The new EDA compared to whats left of the old part.
When that was done now it was time to move onto the sync gen.. On my last pack, I used EVA foam to make most of the body of the part. I didn’t want to do this for my new pack because I didn’t like how unstable the flexibility of it was. I decided to make the entire thing out of foam core. I was terrified about building this part since I thought it would be super hard and I was right because it was one of the worst rabbit holes I’ve ever had to go through so far. I think I had to go through at least 4 versions of this part to get it to where it is today. I won’t go too in depth on the process of it in this post since it still isn’t finished, but once I finish it I will go into all the details and my techniques to potentially help other builders doing a build so they don’t have to suffer as much as me.
Heres the section I haven’t finished yet. I was procrastinating it because on my previous attempt, this is the last step I messed up badly. Another thing I discovered from Chris’ 3D files that made the sync gen even more frustrating was that its wider than it is taller. I can’t believe I never noticed that before!
Heres a mockup of the cyclotron on the sync gen. This is not going to be the final version of this, I was just anxious to see how it would all look.
Now we are brought to this lovely point in the build! It’s so cool to see how it has all come together even though there still remains a lot to do.
Thats all the updates I have for a while. I apologize that it isn’t too much and its been taking so long. I’ve really just been trying to get it right. Thanks for reading!
Hey guys I’m back again. My hand isn’t fully healed to work but I can still type. I don’t have an update this time but rather I need some help on the bumper/sync gen. The bumper is one of the most strangest and hardest parts to make from scratch, and how it looks with the cyclotron is the most important thing to me in a pack. Chris Bosh recently put out his excellent bumper model on his etsy so I decided to buy it and print it up to help me in completing the cyclotron later. I just wanted to say, its an absolutely incredible model! Chris really did a great job with this, if anybody is thinking of bumper options, get his! I think the only way you could get better is by having an actual lineage cast. Heres some pictures of it.
Now I have a bit of a problem on my hands.. The bumper is too long! This isn’t a stab at Chris’s work at all, more just my own mistakes. It won’t fit my sync gen even when I add the cosmetic plates. I knew that the sync gen was wider than it is taller, but I wasn’t able to get the measurement exact because of how complex of a shape it was. I ended up compromising on it so while it wasn’t a perfect circle, it might’ve not been as wide as it should’ve. Heres some photos of the measurements.
As you can see, my sync gen is an 1/8 of an inch away from 12 inches. When I add the cosmetic plates that measurement will be bumped up, but it still isn’t enough because the bumper is 12.5 inches. I’ve been in this rabbit hole for a while so I wanted to ask you guys for your thoughts and advice. I could either build my own bumper that will fit my pack perfectly, or I can use Chris’s bumper and try to bend it into shape using a heat gun or the bolts, but I really don’t want to mess up his beautiful work. Another option is to rebuild the sync gen properly for the fifth time again… (I really don’t want to do this, but if I have to then I’ll consider…)
Something else that bothers me is that the Volguus bumper that was sold in the past by Nickatron had a measurement of 12 inches while the Venky bumper is closer to the 12.5 inches. I think in the for sale listing by Nickatron, Venky explains that the hero bumpers were wider than the shells so it did have to be “pinched” in by the bolts/washers. Its all confusing for me as a nooby haha.
This journey has been crazy, any help from you guys is appreciated!
I wouldn’t worry too much about rebuilding your syncgen since even on the screen used shell the bumper is not snug and has some play on the sides. You would have to pinch the sides even if you had a screen used legacy shell. On my older shell I built from years ago I had to pinch the Venky bumper quite a bit on the sides because the syncgen I built was shorter then my current shell and it still worked out fine. Your doing great work man, keep it up!
I’m going to try to help you out and explain how retardedly warped the screen used shell is haha so it might shed some light on your dilemma which I understand can be frustrating. I’ll illustrate with a few pictures on the screen used shell.
This is the right side of the sync gen when looking straight at the shell. As you can tell using a straight angle ruler it warps inward to the top of the syncgen.
This is the left side of the sync gen when also looking straight at the shell and you have the same exact issue
So because of the warping it leaves the bottom of the syncgen wider then the top portion since it gets shorter as the warping goes inward to the top face.
Here is a the measurement of the bottom portion of the syncgen
which is about 12.0625 or 12 and 1/16th before adding plates. Since the top of the sync gen is shorter then the bottom portion because of the warping it puts your measurement pretty much right on the money!
Now if you try to build the top portion the same size at the bottom part of the sync gen it’s going to throw off the measurements with your cyclotron border edge to the syncgen edges! You would have to try to angle your plates similar to what’s pictured to accommodate or just take the compromise and pinch the bumper a little more. In the end the screen used shell is so warped it’s just not worth trying to get all the warpage and create more work for yourself.
On the Volguus bumper being shorter then the Venky bumper that’s just because of the casting techniques which caused more deformity and warpage due to the foam they used to fill the insides of the semi-hero bumpers. The GB1 bumpers were fully resin cast and the GB2 semi hero bumpers if I remember correctly had a resin shell but were filled with foam hence the seam line in the middle of the Volguus GB2 Semi hero bumper.
Wow! Thanks so much Chris! I was genuinely so disappointed in myself that I messed up somewhere and had to rebuild. But you just saved me from making a big mistake and explained everything so clearly! The warping on the screen used shell is definitely something haha. I always wondered how the warps happened, but it definitely adds character. Once again, thank you so much for your knowledge and everything you have done to help me man! :love:
Your pack is looking awesome. Can’t wait to see more
@OnEdge - As someone who build his first 2 packs out of cardboard, it isn’t easy, ever!
But you’ve learned a lot building and rebuilding. It’s coming along nicely! Don’t rush it and be sure to double-check your measurements.
That was my mistake, but that’s how we learn. By trial and error.
Your new pack will be your pride and joy, so enjoy the build time.
Hey thanks for taking a look at the build! I will admit that last month I rebuilt the power cell again just for an experiment. This time it wasn’t because the measurements were wrong although I know people are still gonna call me crazy haha, but it turned out way better than I thought so I’ll share those results in my next post! I’ve also learned a lot since I started this project more than a year ago, the goals for it changed a lot too and although it can be frustrating at times, it’s also so fun. There still remains a lot to do and some of it scares me (like the cyclotron) but I’ll take my time with it, thanks!
Hey everyone! Its been a very long time since I last updated this thread, but basically I lost some steam with the project so I put it away for a while. Over the past few weeks though, I really missed having something to work on so I decided to get it back out. When I last worked on it, things changed and some of it is bad and good news. Long story short, I restarted again. Now you might be thinking “wow this guy is never gonna get this project done if he keeps restarting”, and you might be right about that, but! I have reasons for this and it’s not all bad news.
To understand what happened, we have to rewind a little bit. In October, Halloween was coming up and of course I wanted to dress up as a ghostbuster again, only there was one slight issue. My V7 Fan Expo Pack was still in very bad condition from that con. I thought I could fix it up, so I spent a day making repairs to it for Halloween and thought it was okay to be used again. On Halloween day, the whole thing fell apart! Although I made a new motherboard, my shoddy foam system completely failed, the L brackets all broke off so the whole shell and gun came crashing down to the ground. This basically totaled the pack as it made all the parts glued on fall off. I was not too surprised that that happened, but I was still a little sad. As soon as I got home, I decided to just scrap the whole thing and salvage some parts that could still be used.
After this incident, I no longer had a pack that I could use for trooping and I didn’t want to use my GB1 foam pack and potentially dent/damage it (maybe I should’ve started a styrene build from the very beginning lol). Thats when I had the idea to make a “V7.5” pack, one that is meant for going out with, but would be built far better and last. I wasn’t sure what the basis for this pack would be though, but as I continued working on my GB1 pack, I remembered that a lot of the top section parts I had already made were from the same poor quality foam that was used on the Fan Expo pack. It should’ve been obvious, but the quality of foam board makes a real difference in how your final result will turn out. I used to use white glue to attach parts, but this caused warping and was a mess, so I tried using a glue stick instead with some good quality foam for the sync gen and it turned out great! I also realized that I had a lot of old parts I collected that I wasn’t going to use for my GB1 pack like a Heavy props bumper, a BoK motherboard, nfilter, and ion arm.
All of these factors created this perfect storm that I could just use what I had already built for my new trooping pack, so thats exactly what happened. For this pack, I also decided to stop worrying so much about perfection and its been coming out great! Heres how shes looking. Some of those parts are from the old pack, but I’m really happy with how the cyclotron and crank gen looks compared to my old pack.
Heres the two together, poor thing 
Meanwhile for my GB1 pack, I was actually able to rebuild the entire top section relatively quickly and they are some of the best parts I’ve made in a while! I hope I can start the sync gen soon for this one.
When I first began this project nearly 2 years ago, I always imagined it as one build, but the truth is that this thread has basically been a documentation of almost 4 builds. I never anticipated it would take this many twists and turns but this journey would have never happened if I had just bought a spirit pack. Right now, I want to finish my trooping pack before I get back to working on this build full time. I’m anticipating it will take around a month, and I’m not sure if I should document the progress here or if I’m allowed to make a new thread for that build. Anyways, sorry that its been such a strange journey. I know the forums are a little bit quiet, but GBFans will forever hold a place in my heart. Thank you so much to everyone for sticking with me on this journey and for reading, all comments are welcome
Shame to see the version 7 got damaged, but 7.5 is looking good so far.
To be honest they are all looking amazing and it’s great to see you carrying on with the builds
Wow what a great build, I can’t believe I am just catching up on it now! I have not felt the inspiration lately to work on things, but reading through your build diary is motivating!
Thanks for always sticking around! Its been quite the journey haha.
Wow! I’m really glad my build was able to inspire you I appreciate it :). I’m looking forward to your finished build!
Okay everyone I got good news! The shell for 7.5 is finally done :). I decided I would post the updates here since these two builds are so intertwined but I’ll start from the beginning. I apologize in advance for the amount of images in this post, theres a lot to share!
One of my most procrastinated areas of the pack was the corner plate. It’s a relatively straight forward part to build and it was one of the last things stopping me from moving onto the next phase. I got scarred from using EVA foam on my last pack since it was so unstable, so I wanted to try using the method Chris Bosh did in his build, which was to create a channel to fill putty in. I also did this method for the cyclotron. In the past I disregarded filling/sanding, but it became more apparent that the project would benefit a lot if I did.
I cut out the base and the top and measured it to create the sides.
I then moved onto to finishing up the gun mount. On my last pack, I didn’t like how square the ribs were considering how rounded off they were on the real pack, so I wanted to try and bend it over the edge to get that effect. I cut out the entire shape, and used my heavy metal ruler to create the bend. This was also how I made the bend for the sync gen. I also sanded the corners to round them.
I admit that the ribs didn’t come out the best since I didn’t cut the rib long enough so I had to add extra material at the bottom of it. One other thing I wanted to share is that I also remade the bridge from gun mount to the crank gen since I also wanted the edges to have that nice rounded look like real packs. Believe it or not, it took a lot of attempts to get it right (those darn measurements) and I still didn’t get it quite right for 7.5, but for 8 I was able to get it perfect.
I then proceeded to finish up the details on the crank gen. I just had to add some styrene plastic to cap off the PVC pipe and used some foam board that I just ripped the paper off of to finish that taper I made. I also made the EDA discs from pex tubing capped off with styrene. I didn’t quite add the rivet detail since I was feeling lazy, but I’ll definitely try doing that on my next pack. I was now finally able to move onto filling and sanding! I decided I was going to try and use wood filler since epoxy putties like milliput/magic sculpt seemed a bit too expensive for me. The first parts I wanted to do were the cyclotron, corner plate, and crank gen.
Before I started to fill, I sealed the parts with white glue. Heres the parts with their first filling. A note on the cyclotron: When I was originally building it, I messed up the height of the sides, so when I attached the base, the cyclotron was way too tall, so I had to rip off the base and hack away at the side with a blade to shorten it up. This made it so the cyclotron doesn’t actually sit flush whoops! The top also naturally ended up bowing because I placed the bumper on top of it when I finished it.
After it all dried, I then began to sand away. This stuff wasn’t easy to sand and it was hard to get the shape right, but I bought some new wood filler when I ran out, and it was much easier and better to work with. After a lot of rounds of constantly sanding and checking, I decided it was good enough since it was so much work getting everything perfectly smooth. I then wanted to attach everything together so I can begin working on filling and sanding the seams.
Heres the crank gen, gun mount, and corner plate all attached together. I’m genuinely really happy it all looks! Especially that darn crank gen. I’m so glad I went with this route and not how I was going to do it in the past.
Heres the shell fully attached, this was such an awesome moment for me after so long!
Before I started to fill and sand everything for the last time I realized something. I forgot to add the sync gen plates. That was pretty embarrassing so I quickly cut out all the plates, and made the boxes at the bottom out of the same styrene plastic. I was then able to finish sanding and start painting
Heres that finished result.
I then coated the whole thing with white glue, and I wanted to try something new. We all know already about the texture on the hero packs and it’s specific look. Homax wall spray was the primary method of replicating it, but my experience with it is terrible and it’s super hard to get right. Even when you do it right, it doesn’t look all that right. Chris found out that Krylon truck bed texture worked really well, but I couldn’t find anywhere that sold it, and ProTex was not an option either. I was not interested in buying many different texture sprays just to see what it would look like either. I then remembered how Chris said he tried stippling Elmers glue on and that intrigued me. He said it wasn’t close enough, but I thought that if it looked good enough for me, I would be happy with it so I tried it on a small test piece and it surprised me because I thought it looked great! I thought this pack would be a great candidate to try that method out so I did that and followed RedSpecial’s guide on where the texture should be.
Heres that small test piece.
When the glue from the stippling finally dried, there was a bit of a problem. A lot of air bubbles formed from the stippling process of the glue, so when it dried those air bubbles stood out like a sore thumb and looked bad. The texture itself wasn’t too bad and I think its way better than that bumpy mess that was on my last pack. I think this method might have some potential for my GB1 pack, so I’m gonna see if I can maybe experiment more to see if I can get rid of those air bubbles. There wasn’t much I could do at that point so I painted the whole thing with Rustoleum grey primer, and with that, the shell was finally done!
Finally heres a picture with the bumper on :).
The shell is imperfect in so many ways, but like the real pack, it’s still so beautiful :D. The paint really helped me feel better about the result, and it is such a gratifying feeling to stand back and look at it to say I built it. I’m getting closer to finishing this one, I just have to build a few more parts and then attach everything together. Thank you so much to everyone in the community for their research and guidance, and for reading this post!
For the air bubbles, you could try gentle heating with a heat gun once applied.
Love it. Even with the air bubbles it still looks great.
Nice to see a build that is physically made
AND you made it yourself! That is quite the achievement that very few people go after. Excellent work!
I was finally able to find time again to work on this project and I feel like I’ve made a lot of exciting progress that I can share :). I also wanted to say thank you for all the support!
I decided that my first step was to modify my SMC elbows. I saw other people do this like edspengler in his build and it gave me the confidence to try doing this myself. so I bought some brass pipe online and went to work. The first thing I did was pull off the end pieces, and start cutting the brass pipe when I ran into a bit of a problem. The brass pipe I got had too small of an outer diameter! I went for 4.5mm OD because I tried using the insert piece from those compression nuts for the fake legris straights which I thought was 5mm OD, but I was wrong. It also happened that I saw GohstTarps build thread where he used 5mm brass pipe off of amazon and I had a big facepalm moment. I decided I didn’t want to let the pipe I bought go to waste, so I used it anyway, but next time I’ll get 5mm OD pipe.
I then masked off the areas with tape and went to painting it with Rustoleum gray primer and I didn’t have any appliance enamel like what edspengler used. Later though, I remembered I still had a lot of the Watco clear laquer in satin spray that I had used to seal the crap out of the Homax texture on my old pack, so I thought to try that while I was painting and it worked great!
Here’s what my finished elbows look like. Definitely not too bad, but the OD of the brass pipe bugs me and I think I cut them too long too. Next time I’ll do better for sure
After that, I moved onto making all the parts that bolt onto the shell, like the booster tube, injectors, filler tubes, vacuum pipe, hga, etc. I was contemplating between 3D printing all the parts or cutting them out of all the PVC pipes I still had which were collecting dust. I decided to go the second route since I didn’t want the pipes to go to waste and to also save some money, but it won’t be so accurate since all the pipes are the wrong diameter. The first pipe I cut was the booster tube. I realized I ran out of the pipe I used for this originally, and I didn’t want to go buy more so what I ended up doing was using the old pipe from my old pack, and cutting it to the proper angle. This made the pipe too short, so I took my old HGA, and hacked off a tiny piece, then I super glued it on and filled and sanded it. Not ideal, but it works for now. I also made my booster plug from pvc pipe, and some floor mat EVA foam. The booster plug fits pretty good into the pipe, but I’m worried it will fall inside it and I’m not sure how to glue it in. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d appreciate it!
I then made the HGA by cutting it from my old N Filter, and I capped it off with styrene, and added hot glue welds. Those fake welds took me forever because I was trying to make them individual beads. They don’t look particularly great, using epoxy would have definitely looked better and saved time, but I’m on a bit of a tight budget with this pack.
I then used some pex tubing to cut the filler tubes, and I was able to buy 1/8” thick styrene so I was actually able to cut the baseplates unlike last time. I also added the fake hot glue welds to the baseplates too. This was my first time working with 1/8” styrene and its awesome lol
I salvaged the old injector tubes from my last pack too, and sanded it. I then cut the baseplate from the same 1/8” styrene, and also capped them off with more styrene. I again added the fake hot glue welds.
I made the vacuum pipe from more PVC that I salvaged. I then cut the circular baseplate and oh my god it was a NIGHTMARE to cut that thing. I was scoring for probably more than an hour, and I ended up just using a hacksaw to cut around the damn thing and snap it. Came out pretty good though!
The last part I made was the PPD, and this time I got the angle for it right. The originals were resin filled, but I didn’t want to go through all that effort so I capped it off again with styrene.
Here’s all the parts together before and after priming. They’re definitely not perfect and have some inaccuracies, but I’m a lot more happy with how these parts came out compared to my last pack!
I then decided to start on the v-hook. The Hasbro Neutrona Wand that I’m using for this had a v-hook piece that I didn’t use since I used a 3D printed v-hook last time. That v-hook didn’t work very well and cracked so I wanted to try using the original piece it came with and looked into some options for the male piece. I ultimately decided to just make it myself after seeing Batfly make his out of styrene in his build (it also saves money lol). I measured the female piece of the hasbro v-hook, and traced/cut the pieces out of styrene. I also used pliers to try and snap off the more tricky pieces. Heres what those looked like.
The next day, I sanded those parts clean so it can fit into the female piece better and have a cleaner appearance. I still need to drill holes for bolts and paint it, but for now this is done!
The next part I wanted to work on was something I was dreading for a while, which was to reshape the BOK motherboard to fit my shell better. The motherboard was cut oversized so I didn’t have to worry too much about it being too small in some areas. It created the problem though that there were a few areas where it was way off. The really bad culprit areas were where the spacer was, the top of the power cell, and the corner plate. I decided to take this to my friend’s place to get his help with this since he has a lot of power tools and a grip sander which was SO useful. Heres some pics, just ignore our very unprofessional setup 
Heres some photos of what the finished result looks like in these areas. These areas looked really bad but they fit so much better now and I’m really glad we were able to get it done!
The last thing I did was finally attach the BOK N-Filter onto the shell. The BOK N-Filter’s diameter is too small compared to what is accurate, and it also came to me looking super rough so I had to sand the top of it and the sides to make it more smooth. I don’t know why I did this so late into the build because I should’ve done it during the initial sanding stage. I had to sand the opening out a little better so it would fit, and then I hot glued it to the shell and reinforced the inside with more hot glue. I then took wood filler to fill in the gaps and sand. I tried to also fix some areas of the cyclotron.
Heres what it looked like after the first round of filler
After a lot of filling and sanding, we’re back to this point
I’m not actually super happy with how the roundness of the cyclotron came out still. In the photo above you can tell it looks really rough and I also think its not sharp enough compared to the real pack. In this photo of the super hero’s cyclotron, you can see the sharpness of it very clearly. I also think I was growing a bit impatient with how much sanding I was doing so I rushed it a little bit and said it was good enough. I was using medium grit sand paper for the whole thing so I should’ve probably switched to a much finer grit later on to smooth it completely. It might be the wood filler’s fault too but I’m not sure, it could be a bit of both. The cyclotron is one of those parts on the proton pack that I have a very specific eye for. I want the roundness of the cyclotron to look better for next time so I would appreciate any comments about this!
Anyways, thats it for all I’ve done so far! I made one last final order from GBFans with everything I need to finally finish this beast. I’m running out of things to do until then, but I think by the end of this month, we will be done! Thanks for reading
What’s the inner diameter of your brass pipe? Typically it’s 0.5mm wall thickness, so 5mm OD pipe will have a 4mm ID, so unless you’ve got 0.25mm wall thickness your ID is likely to be 3.5mm, which will be too small for the red tubing to feed into.