This post has been a long time coming. It took 2 trips to California and making contacts with multiple professionals just to learn how a 30 year old prop that 99% of people didn’t even realize did more than have “blinkin’ lights” worked. As many of my Facebook friends have already seen, my buddy Adam and I got a guided tour of Sony’s Property Archives back in May on our second trip to California over the last 2 years. I was allowed to take photos of a lot of things, but sadly I am not allowed to share some of these photos. I am in good standing with my contacts and would like to keep it that way. Though I can not share the actual photos or explicitly state what I did or did not do on my visit to Sony; what I CAN do is replicate what I may or may not have seen and share my replications with you.
First, a few photos to show you I’m not pulling your legs:
Screen used GB2 Sign.
The “Murray” Pack:
And lastly, the other proton packs that Sony has in their possession (excluding the Semi-Hero still on display in their main lobby).
Now if you still believe me, lets move onto what I’ve been working on.
We have been over engineering the popping mechanism for years now in this community. I have been working on helping a friend complete their proton pack for Dragon Con 2014, and I decided I’d use their pack as the “test” for this set up. What you will see today is the front handle assembly and the spring set up. I have not yet finished the spring loaded latch for the mechanism and I do not know if I will before Dragon Con with building this GB1 pack and finishing the scratch built electronics in my Game Pack. So I apologize if my next update won’t be for a bit.
First up, the video of this set up in action:
What you see in this video is the exact same functionality as what is inside the Hero pack. The front handle consisted of 3 aluminum tubes stacked together; the outer most tube that could rotate freely about 90 degrees, the middle tube remained stationary, and the inner most tube of the handle was able to slide freely back and forth into the gun body without any rotation. Inside the gun body, the guide wire for the spring is attached to the rear of the gun body by one of the socket heads holding the rear cylinder on. As the inner most tube slides into the gun body, the spring just coils up inside the gun. There is a small square hole on the top of the tube that slides into the gun body for a spring loaded latch to grab onto and hold the extending tip. What you see in this video is accurate to the screen used hero props from the first film.
Now some pictures of what’s going on inside the front handle. But let me get one thing straight first: I do not know how the front handle was assembled! This set up is my interpretation as to replicate the functionality of the handle that I experienced:
Extended
Retracted
There are 2 important details to take away from these photos. The first is the set screw holding the acrylic tube inside the inner most tube. It doubles as a guide screw to let the tube only move the distance it is needed to without rotating. The second detail to take note of is the square hole at the rear of the inner most tube. That is what the latch will grab onto inside the gun body to keep everything retracted.
One of the KEY details to make this set up work, is that the 2 bolts holding the front handle onto the gun body and the other bolt that is letting the outer most tube rotate around the other 2 have to be cut short; like REALLY short. They have to be just long enough to thread into the first 2 tubes, but not impede on the movement of the inner most tube that slides into the gun body. I believe this would be the reason for the stacked brass washers in GB1 as well as how many of the packs that have survived from GB1 are missing these bolts. They are so short that they could easily be stripped and/or lost.
Other than that, there is a latch that is attached to the brass bar lever. It is spring loaded to keep it held down. Eventually I will get around to replicating this piece as well, but as of right now, it won’t be for a little bit until things slow down a little for me. Hopefully this bit of information is enough to get people started!
Thanks for reading and good luck!
