I’m in the middle of making my first pack for Halloween. I’ve been basically following Norms plans to the letter, but I’m concrened with the weight issue. Am I gonna have a heavy pack to wear around if I continue following these plans? Also, for everyone else who used different materials, how much do your packs weigh?
I have a vaccformed pack with a wood frame. And my pack includes all the fixings, lights, sound, speakers, etc. It weighs about 30lbs. However, if you use a real alice pack frame and kidney belt, and tighten the straps right, there should be no problem at all. Thats what the alice pack is used for. To distribute the weight and make it comforable to carry that much for a decent period of time.
My pack is made entirely out of wood and is a touch lighter than the other guys’ 25lb vac-formed packs. I’ve never weighed it myself, but it’s certainly manageable.
Having said that, if you wear the thing for 14 hours then (as we learned the hard way at Gencon) things will hurt the next day. If you’re just strapping them on for a few hours a night for Halloween parties then you should be fine though.
I have a pack made with vaccumformed shells. Any part that is a REAL found part, I have it on my pack, including Clippards. There is a LOT of metal on my pack, knobs, mother board, resistors, misc machined pieces. It weighs in at a whopping 15 pounds.
Approximately 20-25lbs. Vacuformed pack, with some resin cast pieces. The motherboard is 1/4" black plexiglas which really lightened the load, along with the alice pack with kidney pads/waist strap.
I was thinking about getting all the real clippard things. Is it worth it?
I built this one using Norm’s plans. I used wood, metal, plastic and all the “real parts” I could get my hands on… And it weighs about 45 pounds. :x
But the plus side is, it’s extremely strong. Good for all those drunk parties! :lol:
Only if you strive for 100% accuracy. If you don’t mind it being plastic and the knobs not moving, then the resin ones are 1/5th the cost.
Mine’s built from Stefan’s plans and weighs 29 lbs…
Mostly made of wood with purchased resin detail parts.
Darrin
…mine personally is made entirely of plastic, PVC, resin, and a few small metallic pieces. Over all, WITH wand attached, it weighs in 20-21 lbs, which is not bad at all. The wooden ones tend to be a bit heavier, but sturdier! Depends on what you’re going for!
-Thiago