Phillbarron's Proton Pack for the tragically inept

[phillbarron]

Sadly I was born with the complete inability to cut anything in a straight line.

Anything.

At all.

Despite this overwhelming handicap, I still want to build myself a proton pack. The last time I tried this, for a friend, I used Poundshop plastic and it came out … okay.

Adequate, I guess. For a friend who didn’t care about accuracy.

Problem is, I do. A bit. Not as much as I probably should, but enough. I want my pack to look right, but I also want it to look homemade. I want to be able to point at bits and go “that’s just a something we all have in our bathrooms”.

So my pack has to be more accurate than the last one, but still cheap and cobbled together from odds and ends.

But then there’s that problem - what do I build it out of?

Wood? Plastic sheets? Something else I can’t remember the name of right now?

Basically all the things I can’t cut. Not straight at least. Part of that’s not having the proper tools, most of it’s not having the proper ability.

I can’t afford to buy a pre-made shell … or rather, I can afford to buy one, I can’t afford to lose my long-suffering wife when she finds out.

They’re kind of hard to hide.

So what does that leave me with? Well … cardboard. And papier mache.

I have no idea if this is going to work, but I need it by Halloween and time’s a ticking … so let’s see how it goes.

First up - a big pile of things:

… with a note from my six-year-old daughter. These packages have been arriving for a while now and the postman is getting really annoyed about it.

All of these things are off eBay - just bits and bobs to finish off the pack, nothing cost more than a pound. Except this:

Which is from JT - the only pre-made part because … well, just because. It’s pretty.

The rest of it I’m building using Stefan’s plans and it started off looking like this:

And after a bit of newspaper and PVA glue:

This was the end of the first day:

Which is looking hopeful. Right? I mean, all the parts are vaguely recognisable. To me, anyway.

Day two I discovered one of the limitations of papier mache - drying time. Damn this stuff takes a long time to dry. Day two I couldn’t add the second layer, so I busied myself with incidentals:

Clippards:

Trigger box and instrument bar:

(made out of plastic cut (badly) from DVD cases).

Injector tubes:

And a dry(ing) fit:

Day three brought a pink(ish) layer:

I figured it would be wise to alternate between regular newspaper and a pink one so I could tell what I had and hadn’t covered with each layer. I also widened the powercell window since it was looking too narrow to me.

This second layer went on much quicker. I also changed the way I applied it, instead of dipping the paper in the glue, I brushed the glue onto the pack first, laid the paper and then soaked the paper with more glue in situ. This was easier to get the paper lying flat and seems to aid drying time.

I even had time to make the bumper:

That’s foamcore and hotglue …

wrapped in more papier mache.

Immediately upon finishing it I realised I’d put a rather odd slope on the bottom for no reason. I keep forgetting the cardinal rule: check the damned photos because it doesn’t look like what you think it looks like!

Day four I fixed it by attacking it with a knife and some filler. The day also brought another layer and another dry fit:

Day five (I’m only doing a few hours a day, by the way) was today. This morning I hotglued all the bits into a shell, of sorts:

And then a fourth layer. Pink(ish) again:

And that’s where I am so far. It seems to have gone a bit wonky somewhere, seeing as the bottom block on the spacer is not vertical but a little askew … but I can’t really fix that now.

It’s got all the right shapes (sort of) in almost the right places. The cosmetic plating to the right of the spacer seems to be coming too far down. Not sure if that bothers me enough to fix or not. Overall, kind of happy - the newspaper swallows up a lot of the detail in photos. One more layer to go and then I’ll see what happens when I spray it up.

[PssdffJay]

Nice! We’re building a mini pack in a similar way. You do seem to be missing a pretty important part.

The gun mount.

http://www.gbfans.com/wiki/File:Stefan's_Proton_Pack_Plans_Page_9.jpg

[Grimmy_GB]

It’s about time you put this thread up! Looking good so far. And you have skill, albeit it might not be cutting straight lines,but your pics show the skill.

Looking forward to this!

[phillbarron]

@PssdffJay

Nice! We’re building a mini pack in a similar way. You do seem to be missing a pretty important part.

The gun mount.

http://www.gbfans.com/wiki/File:Stefan's_Proton_Pack_Plans_Page_9.jpg

Good eyes! Yeah, I figure that part has to be more sturdy. I’m going to try to make that bit out of wood.

[phillbarron]

@Grimmy GB

It’s about time you put this thread up! Looking good so far. And you have skill, albeit it might not be cutting straight lines,but your pics show the skill.

Looking forward to this!

Thank you, sir. I’m following your build with admiration and awe!

[phillbarron]

Last day of papier mache today (I think! Although I might have to make a cardboard booster tube if nothing suitable presents itself) which means after hours of work …

… it pretty much looks exactly the same as it did yesterday (except for the eda discs). And the colour. While I’ve been waiting for it to dry I’ve made a start on some odds and ends:

Palm Rest, Beam line, Filler Line, Clippards nudged a bit closer to being done, the beginnings of a booster frame and an embryonic crank knob (a bottle top I forgot to move before I took the photo).

Sadly I actually have to do some proper work tomorrow, which is mighty frustrating. Still, had to happen sometime. It’ll be Friday before I can push on with this. I’m quite keen to get some primer on the shell, just to see how good/bad it’s going to look … but the amount of rain hitting the UK at the moment might delay that for quite a while yet.

I still need to make the plates for the spacer and gun mount and the ribs for everything before I paint it really … problem is, patience just isn’t my thing!

[phillbarron]

Fighting through jetlag, I’ve managed to make a start on the gun block:

Cut from wood! Me! I cut stuff from wood! Not a straight line in sight.

The rest of the evening’s been spent on ribs and plating:

And the marginally different rough assembly:

Hopefully I’ll be able to start spraying over the weekend.

[phillbarron]

Oh dear. Yesterday brought an annoying surprise:

The gun mount sits too far down, the bridge between it and the crank gen is too short and the curved plate above the gun mount is too big.

Bugger.

Luckily it’s all papier mache, so a brief attack with a knife and an extra sliver of wood fixed the problem. Here it is after I’d covered the wooden gun mount with papier a mache (so it’s all the same texture) and ribs:

And, finally, the first coat of primer:

Hmm. Okay, so the papier mache isn’t quite as successful as I’d hoped. The EDA discs in particular look terrible, I’ll have to find something to cover those.

The rest of it, well … maybe after texturing, covering with labels and tubes it won’t look so bad? This is it partially assembled:

And here it is after the texture layer:

Yeah … that might work.

[halliwax]

very good job! i am very impressed with the way you scratch built your bumper!

[phillbarron]

Cheers! It may not be the prettiest bumper around, but at ‘free’ it’s probably the cheapest.

[Grimmy_GB]

I like it!!! More MOre MORE!!!

[Alan_Hawkins]

[phillbarron]

Cheers guys!

I seem to have spent hours and hours tonight achieving very little … but it’s inching forward. Tonight I’ve done the HGA:

Including some appalling fake welds which are going to need a lot of fixing tomorrow.

By the way, if you ever get tempted to use whatever you have lying around for fake welds and whatever you have lying around is TigerSeal … don’t. Seriously.

I reckon I’ve spent at least three hours tonight scrubbing my hands after a particularly unfortunate TigerSeal-related incident. This stuff is almost impossible to get off your skin.

Or my skin, anyway.

Also in that photo you can see one of two brass elbows made out of three nuts sprayed gold(ish). There’s a screw into the side of the HGA (spray can lid) and the ‘brass elbow’ screws onto that screw’s head.

Here’s where I’m leaving it tonight in state of utter exhaustion:

[phillbarron]

A full day of crawling around on the floor today, wishing I had somewhere other than the living room to build in.

Today was a mixed bag really. I feel like I made quite a lot of progress, but it was despite everything conspiring against me.

This was about lunchtime when I’d painted it black, left it outside to dry, panicked when it began to rain, rescued it, dried it, had to paint it black again and glowered at the sky for a couple of hours.

You can also see the booster frame (which was looking much better until the paint melted it), the PPD and the Ion Arm cap - made out of wood, covered with aluminium from a Diet Coke can with a wooden elbow-thing.

The booster tube looks much better in real life. Not sure why it looks like this here.

As I’d hoped, the texturing has covered the worst of the papier mache lumps. It still looks like what it is, but slightly better than I was afraid of.

My last task before lunch was to cut out the motherboard from a sheet of 6mm MDF. This should have been easy. I have a jigsaw, bought especially for things like this.

Unfortunately the damn thing is broken and I had to cut the whole thing with a junior hacksaw.

Which took a longer time than I’m prepared to admit.

Most of that was swearing.

But here it is!


I even painted the bit no one will ever see silver so I can pretend it’s aluminium!


Then I got a bit carried away and did all the labels - I thought I was being all innovative and clever by sticking the labels to kitchen foil … but then found out loads of other people have done the same thing.

They look good though, all thanks to valentino_42 for providing the downloadable labels.

Next up, tubing - cheap tubing. I still have metres and metres of clear plastic tubing in my shed. I have no idea why, but it’s proving very useful, especially when wrapped in cheap electrician’s tape from the PoundShop.

I even made some Legris elbows:

They’re too small, I know … but they’re free.

I like free.

My drill stopped working somewhere around here, so I had to use my dremel and widen all the holes in the pack by hand.

On a roll, I made the cable clamp from Diet-Coke-can-covered wood and a ribbon cable out of … well, two other ribbon cables. It’s wrong, but it’s pretty.

Finally, I made a few resistors for the Ion Arm using a bit of rubber left over from the pens I hacked up for my Belt Gizmo and some of the small split-loom.

Which leaves me here:


Or … it would have done if I hadn’t felt the need to do this:

It's alive!

[Naptime]

I continued to be awed by how creative your builds continue to be. I’m currently involved in my own personal hell of scratch building a pack out of foamcore, but your artistry and dedication serve as an inspiration to me! Thanks for sharing this!

[phillbarron]

Oo, are there any photos yet? Don’t know about you, but I’ve taken to writing a list of what I have left to do … and at the end of every day the list gets longer!!!

Good luck!

[Naptime]

I have many photos, but I haven’t had the time to post any pics yet. This thing is going to be the end of me [FACE WITH STUCK-OUT TONGUE AND WINKING EYE]. Still, there’s light at the end of the tunnel! Finished my gizmo today!

[Grimmy_GB]

@Naptime

Finished my gizmo today!

Pics or it didn’t happen

[Naptime]

Gah! Ok. Gimme a minute to start the thread!

[phillbarron]

Yesterday was my last build day before Halloween. Technically morning since I finished at 2 o’clock this morning.

Did I say finished?

Gave up, is more like.

Still, it’s nearly there:

Proton Pack, lights and (random) sounds test

Still need to do the resistor on the side of the Ion Arm, the crank knob, the bellows, the heatsink and to secure the n-filter in place.

The sound comes from individual soundcards, each with a separate sound on … unfortunately, because several switches use the same power supply they tend to trigger at random intervals - hence the fire sound on start up in the vid.

But, hey… it’s a wearable pack with lights and (random) sounds built from stuff I had (mostly) lying around the house. I even managed to make a v-hook out of a biscuit tin. I have the cuts to prove it.

I’ll post more pics later on in the week (when I have some time/internet access).