I have been a lurker for a while now. I have set my mind on making a proton pack before halloween. I have looked at all of the plans and settled on Stefan’s plans. Here’s my idea:
Cut all basic parts out of styrofoam
coat parts in bondo and sand smooth.
follow Venkman’s molding and casting plans
cast 2 shells
make or buy additional parts (clippard valves, wires, elbows, ion arm, etc.)
Mickey Mouse some cheap and less functional version of Exoray’s lights. (battery powered christmas lights, pumpkin lights, etc.)
End up with 2 near screen accurate packs.
Building questions:
I have just started cutting up some styrofoam pieces and haven’t used the bondo yet. Is there a much better way? Is sytrofoam a bad idea? Should i just forget molding all together and build the pack?
Molding/Casting questions:
should i make a fiberglass mother-mold or use cotton and plaster instead? I have seen the Alumilite and Smooth-on products. Is there an cheaper source for silicone rubber?
Thanks for any help. I have spent many hours second guessing how to get this done.
Bondo or any poly resin will melt styrofoam. You will need to use a urethane foam if you want to bondo or fiberglass over it.
To do a silicone mold from a buck will cost you in excess of $400 so if you only want two packs perhaps buying two pack shells would be more feasable, either that or scratch build out of wood.
Styrofoam is a horrible idea. Make it out of wood, Bass Wood or MDF. If you are only needing two packs, make them both seperately out of wood. Otherwise Silicone is so expensive that it isn’t worth it.
Wood packs (shell) will only cost $20-30 in materials if you can do it yourself.. it takes a lot of time though, and that ultimately costs money.
yeah if your only making two packs then you dont really want to be molding and casting them. build one from wood and then if you have access to a vac-former use the wooden buck to make two vac formed shells.
well, when I was in school, we would fiberglas over styrofoam BUT you have to paint the styrofoam with a few coats of Elmer’s white glue. this seals the styrofoam and protects it from the fiberglass and bondo patches that go with it. Hope that helps! : )
I just can’t belive how expensive rubber is. Alumilite High Strength 2 rubber is $165.00 for a 10 pound bucket. I would think 10 pounds would be more than enough for 1 mold. The Fiberglass strips and resin seem pretty cheap at my local hardware store. I would estimate about $200 for the rubber and fiberglass supplies for JUST the mold. Then there would be the additional cost of making the buck and casting the finished shells.
I think i will put this off for 1 year so i can do it properly. For this year i will just make a foamboard pack or dollar store pack.
But i still need lighting. I have seen the LED Chaser Kit but im interested if anyone knows of other kits and such that would work. The Cyclotron shouldn’t be too hard to fake. The power cell seems like it would be a pain to animate cheaply. I’d like to find some sort of LED thing that will look like exoray’s but without all of the features. Maybe some fake led volume meter that just keeps going up and down.
for the sake of only making two pack shells its not worth wasting your money on the silicone and fibreglass. I say wasting money, unless you intended to sell them its a very expensive way to go about making two packs!!
MDF all the way!! I’ve built about 10 packs from MDF and its pretty simple really… The part that takes the longest is adding all the details at the end.
As AJ has already stated you need about 4-5 gallons of silicone to properly mold a pack shell, that is about 50 lbs… Yes, you could cut corners and MAYBE get by with less but the mold won’t last… And yes fiberglass appears cheap on the surface but you need to take a closer look and actually get some experience with fiberglassing before the real picture comes into focus…
And most important notice that it’s a one way street to cast and mold a pack, one mistake and it’s almost always a total lose that will require you start all over with all new materials…
From another of my post on this subject…
Realistically take it from people who have gone there and done it, figure $1000 to get a decent mold and your first casting out of it, sorry but it’s not as cheap or easy as it appears on the surface…