Since I stay in a haunted house, time to build a proton pack

Equipment Proton Packs
1

OK so weird as this may sound, I think my parent’s house is haunted. I have been spending a lot of time there lately as my mother has gotten quite old and needs a lot of help doing stuff. I won’t go into all the details but based on the amount of creepiness, ill-will and bizarre events that are associated with the house, I’m guessing it was built on an Iroquois Indian burial ground. Seriously, I’m starting to wonder…

Moving right along, my goal here is to entirely scratch-build a proton pack. I’m going to make plywood and MDF bucks and vacuum-form the main sections, and other than a few specific parts like the ALICE pack frame and the hoses and stuff I am going to try to build every part myself. Needless to say what I will end up with will NOT be screen-accurate, but to the extent I can I am going to make it look as accurate as possible without, for instance, buying legris elbows or resin copies. I want to make all that stuff, out of materials I am comfortable with, and hope to achieve a level of quality that will not be 100% but that I think I and other fans will enjoy. Yeah I will probably end up cutting some corners, for example I might not get the perfect rainbow ribbon cable and a few other details might not be quite spot on. But I hope to do this project for a somewhat sane cost, and avoid being bogged down in GETTING EVERY SINGLE DOGGONE DETAIL SPOT ON. So bear with me, hopefully what I end up with will be something you guys will like. I don’t intend to end up with ■■■■, make no mistake.

The other thing I am absolutely insisting on with this build is that what I end up with has to be something that myself and maybe two friends can wear on Halloween or at conventions or wherever and NOT BE FREAKED OUT if someone touches the pack or if it gets bumped into or some kid grabs at it or if it gets a beer or two spilled on it. In other words, I don’t want to end up with a pack that cost so much it belongs in a museum and not on someone’s back. So that’s the basic challenge for me here – make it look good, wear well and not cost a small fortune.

As always, please feel free to chime in about anything that strikes your fancy with my build. I will post some pix as I progress so you guys can see what my thinking is and how I am moving forward, hope you enjoy checking it out. Just FYI I have been using the Venkman71 and Stefan plans and some of the other plans and blueprints and build diaries and stuff as seen on this forum for reference so I think I have a pretty solid pile of reference material to work off.

OK sorry for the ramble… Anyway, here are my very first steps in the process…

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These are my first shots of what I’ve done so far. Not much frankly, but it’s a start. What you see there is a stack of MDF cut-outs that will eventually be glued together and sanded down to the right diameters and thicknesses to make the spacer and its raised circular sections. Needless to say I need to clean them up with a disk sander and a palm sander to get them all the rights sizes and shapes, and I may need to belt sand or plane down the spacer itself since it is about 1/8 to 1/4 inch too high since the MDF sheet was warped and so there is a bit of artificial height to the spacer that needs to come off. Regardless all the peices look too big and lopsided and screwy but they will get sanded down to size when I get back to work. Also, these are just bucks for vacu-forming so I don’t need to get TOO worried about every detail, you can cheat a little bit with vacu-forming and still get great results.

OK so a lot of talk and not much action, but I wanted to just set up for you what my goals are and show you the route I’m starting down. Hopefully I’m heading in the right direction!

Bill

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looks good so far keep us posted on your pack

when you go back to the house,

they know who to call

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im not taking you seriously. just thought you should know that.

1 Like
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I figure in this case of Indian burial grounds, it’s best to fall back on superior intellect, and superior firepower. And that’s all she wrote! :slight_smile:

Bill

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Just get some ecto-chickenpox and take care of them the white man way.

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They moved the headstones but didn’t move the bodies!

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who cares about the proton pack! tell us about the house and the stuff happening within.

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Chief Diamond phillips tribe huh? hate it when that happens. Great start, looking good

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What he said, I wanna hear about the spookiness of this spooky house some more.

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now i definetly think you’re a joke.

2 Likes
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Well, since in my neck of the woods calling someone “a joke” is a pretty nasty insult, I will just chalk it up to the fact that Floridians are people of the land…the common clay of Central Florida…you know – morons.

Bill

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People of the land? Are you joking? Nobody’s been born in Florida since 1872! It’s a giant nursing home where our old go to die, and where Cubans wash up from the Gulf and Atlantic.

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I know, that was a paraphrase of a famous quote from “Blazing Saddles.” Most of my posts contain at least one movie quote. I’m funny like that…

Bill

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One tip on that stack of MDF, (if you weren’t planning on it already)

Hollow out that thing before you glue it to keep the weight down.

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Thanks for the input on my progress, I appreciate it!!!

Just to clarify, I am using the MDF pieces as bucks to vacu-form over, they will not be on the final pack so I am not too worried about the weight of the MDF. . But I did actually cut the centers out of the spacer layers, to use for other pieces since it seemed like a waste of MDF not to. And it’s true, the 4 pieces glued together weigh a TON.

If I get decent vacu-formed parts I might offer them up to forum members who might want them. But that’s FAR down the road…

But I really do appreciate the input, seriously, thanks!

Hey Meph you’re out in Ithaca? I’m over in Albany myself. My mother’s haunted house is down just outside of Oneonta. :slight_smile:

Cool glad to see some upstaters out bustin’ ghosts!

Also, I really don’t mean to bash Florida, I lived in Tampa for 3 years and it was a lot of fun. No offense meant to anyone from the sunshine state, just goofing around.

Bill

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don’t take what one person says as speak for all the others…taking your project as a fun factor is the way to do it.

I grew up in Central NY,

looks like you are doing a great job on the proton pack.

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Completely off topic here, but is your user name from the song “Waiting for the Beat to Kick in” by Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip?

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Walter Neff is the name of the murderous insurance agent played by Fred MacMurray in the classic film noir movie “Double indemnity.” One of my favorites!

Someone mentioned ealier the fun aspect of making the pack, and that is totally what I am shooting for with this - fun. I “rediscovered” Ghostbusters after not seeing the films for DECADES (can you even believe it?) and I realized how much I loved the ghostbusting gear. Can’t wait to really start making some progress on the proton pack, and I am especially am eager to make it my own creation from the ground up. I can’t guarantee what I’ll end up with but it should be a fun ride regardless.

Bill

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Well, here’s one thing that I always say when building your first pack. Don’t be afraid to deviate from the “screen accurate” design, have fun making it your own pack by changing/substituting/adding things as you see fit. It’s the little details that really make it interesting.

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If you want a pack that looks good but you won’t freak out if something happens to it, make sure to check out the threads on the dollar store and budget packs. You can get great results with a little imagination and some black spray paint!