Well, i’m now considering building my own proton pack and have just been looking over Norms plans and… ITS MAKING MY BRAIN HURT!!! I have never taken on a prop building task like this before, the closest ive got is building a model airplane from a little plastic kit! I’m thinking of purchasing the aluminium motherboard from ebay that would be a good start but after that ive not got a clue!! The Synchronous Generator is confusing me something wrotten! Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Especially from people who had never done anything like this before and came out with a first class pack! Thanks…
No one gets a first class pack on their fist try. They either bought a shell or had help from someone else. Your best bet is to start with the basic shapes on the pack. They will be the easiest to build. As you progress, you’ll become more skilled at working with your material and will eventually be able to construct anything.
There’s a lot of knowledge on this board and Proptopia. Use the search function to look up previous builds to help you for construction tips and ideas. If your still stuck after that, let us know. I’m sure one of the hundreds of members here will be able to help out in some way.
Welcome to the hobby that will take over your life. Best of luck to you!
I was on your shoes once. Norm’s plans are (to say the least) overwhelming at first, but after reading over them a few times they’ll slowly begin to make sense. Try this…glance over the plans for about 10-15 minutes each day, or longer if you want. Do this for about 2-3 weeks before you try and build anything. Keep looking back at the picture of the complete pack on one of the last pages so you’ll know which parts go where. (It can be very frustrating to see complicated directions for building something, but to have no idea why you’re building it.) After a while, the terminology will become clear and you’ll realize how the pieces interconnect with each other. When the plans no longer seem confusing and you’ve got a pretty good idea of how it all fits together, you’re ready to begin building.
That worked for me, anyway.
I hate to burst your bubble, but the aluminum motherboards on Ebay aren’t compatible with Norm’s plans. They could be made to work, but only after doing a lot of adjusting to Norm’s measurements. Just go with Norm’s motherboard for your first pack.
Do you think it would be a good thing to buy to get used to it all for my first proton pack? It looks pretty sweet to me but you guys would know better, thanks…
If your going to buy a pack shell from Funkzilla or a pack kit from Hotshot, these work great, if your going to scratchbuild from Norm’s plans cut your own motherboard from wood or aluminum.
I agree with these guys… but if you do wind up making your own pack and you cut your own motherboard… DO THAT STEP LAST!!! That way you can be sure all your peices will line up and nothing will be hanging over the edge.
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