Ok, so when my friend Tom suggested we do Ghostbusters this year I thought “yeah, that would be awesome!”. Then I found out how involved building your own pack was. Ironically, I was the “doubting Thomas” and Tom still believed we could get it done… with only a week and a half until Halloween.
Well anyway, we put our best efforts into it and had some pretty decent packs by Halloween. We spent many nights up until 2 am and on Monday we worked straight through the night until 2pm on Halloween. At that point we decided we’d better get in to work with what we had or we’d miss the contest. There are still a few details missing that we plan on finishing off at our own lesiure now.
By the way, we took 2nd place in our work’s Halloween contest and probably would have won had they not split us into seperate votes.
Here’s some pics. I’m sorry to say that after the 2nd day we were too frenzied with our work to bother finding the camera and keep up with the progress pictures.
1st Day (Tom’s Pack):
1st Day (Tyler’s Pack):
2nd Day (Tom’s Pack):
Tom’s Finished Pack:
Just a quick comment about Tom’s lights; he did the lights himself by going to the local electronics supply and buying a couple Velleman kits that had like 8 red LEDs in them that flashed in sequence. He then bought some blue LEDs and some new resistors to replace the existing ones in the kits. I’m pretty sure he spent less than $40 on his lights total, so I just wanted to point out to others that it can be done on a budget if you are resourceful.
Tom posing for our work’s Halloween contest:
Tyler’s finished (well sorta finished) pack:
I had Exoray’s light kit in my pack. I just want to take a moment to praise Exoray on his awesome work. I ordered the pack and gun kits from him on the 17th (before we started building), and I was hoping, but not really expecting, to get them on time. Imagine my surprise when they came the next week. Exoray, you are the man!
Tyler’s thrower up close:
Can I just say that it is a major PITA to make a thrower out of wood that is not only durable, but can fit all the electronics. Had I started a few months early I would definitely have made a resin shell for the gunbox.
Once again, Exoray’s lights in the gun were really cool. I got lots of compliments on it. I’m also rather proud of the grips which I made myself by cutting up a gumout bottle to make a mold and then use bondo (something I’d never used before). I then coated them with plastidip to give them a rubbery feel. Kudos to whomever had suggested that method here in the forums.
Oh, and can I just rant for a moment on how flipping hard it is to find a clear tube that is 1" in diameter? After looking at several places we finally found a tube at Wal-Mart in the fish section. We used the thing that you clean out the fish tanks with which happens to have a foot long plastic tube that is exactly 1 inch in diameter. Hopefully someone else can use info to save some time.
Tyler posing for the Halloween Contest:
Inside Tyler’s Cyclotron:
I just wanted to point out how I got sound into my pack for pretty cheap. I put a hinge and roller latch on my spacer and cake pan. That way I have easy access to the inside by just unscrewing the bumper and then popping the cyclotron open. Anyway, I put most of my electronics inside the spacer (battery packs, portable speakers, battery powered amplifier, and pack lights circuit board) The speakers and amplifier I bought at radio shack for pretty cheap. I then drilled a hole for the connector to the amplifier and glued it in and then put a wooden brace behind the plug.
I can easily reach back and plug my audio cable from my MP3 player (a Diamond Rio I almost sold at a yard sale for $15 bucks) into the spacer while wearing my pack. The Diamond Rio is old, but hey, it works for cheap sound. I put the sound effects from hprops.com on it and then I loaded the rest of it up with the Ghostbusters soundtrack.
Gun Hooks:
Another problem we ran into was figuring out what to do for gun hooks since we didn’t really have time to order any. We couldn’t find any of the suggested alternatives that we liked, so while walking around Home Depot we came up with using the metal braces/ties that are used for framing I think. We found one piece that worked great if you just hammer/bend down 3 sides and we found a long flat piece that slides into it just perfectly. Tom can even manage to reach back and re-hook his gun after taking it off.
More posing pics:
Anyway, we had great fun. Thanks to all those who have put up plans and made suggestions on various components. We’re now just going to take our time on finishing them. Right now we have a huge list of honey-do’s to get to first since our wives put up with us working on the packs so much the past couple weeks (I swear there were times I was really worried we were going to get skinned alive and if looks could kill then I’d have about 50 daggers in me from the looks my wife has given me).
We had great fun though, and the kids loved it. It was really fun to go around with the kids this year. Almost everyone commented on the pack and most people would ask where I got it and were surprised to hear that I made it. It’s just really cool to look at that pack and say “Yeah, I made it”.
