So third time’s a charm right? Around two years ago I decided I was going to be a Ghostbuster for Halloween, I stumbled across this site and said man this looks really cool I bet I can do that… at the time I was unemployeed (i.e. broke) so I started researching pepakura, which lead me to the Halo community and distracted me for a good 6 months from my proton pack. So I eventually took stefan’s plans and created 3d files from them and made a pepakura proton pack. well it sucked, it looked low budget, because it was low budget. and since Halloween had come and gone I threw it in a corner and moved on to other projects and school.
Around Feb of this year I was cleaning the garage and started looking at my pep-a- ■■■■ pack and said you know now that I'm working I can do it better.... so I salvaged all of my pvc pipes off of it and tossed it in the trash.... I know I should have taken pics of it but I didn't think about it. I knew I was going to start from the ground up so I started fresh with new research and all. This is when I decided to go the Styrene route instead of the wood route... I figured I don't want to have to buy a bunch of wood working tools and lumber for this project... so I ordered some styrene, a new set of xacto blades and using pchrisbosh1's build as reference I set out to discover I can't cut a straight line to save my life.... at least not with an xacto blade.So after starting another craptastic pack, and getting 2 free 4'x8' sheets of styrene from a local print shop I abandoned that project pretty quickly.
I started looking at cnc machines I always thought it would be cool to have one, but never thought I could afford one. anyways I had some extra cash laying around in May thanks to Financial Aid. So I invested in the probotix Fireball V90, which has taken me a while to learn how to use it, so now I’m putting my 3d files to good use. Anyways I wanted to share what I’ve gotten done so far. everything still needs some touching up but I think its looking good so far.
Here is my power cell
And heres parts of my Gunmount and Booster/EDA box
I’ll post more pics later, as I get more put together…
You know i’ve thought about using mdf, and come to think of it I bet it would be cheaper… I started out using poplar wood, then tried a piece of aspen(I think) now I’m using cheaper white wood, the first two cost me about 30 bucks a board, the cheap stuff is still 10 bucks, and I know mdf is about 35 a sheet…
heres a couple of more pictures, other than glueing the pieces together I haven’t done much to them yet, hopefully I’ll have time to start sanding and finishing the gunmount and booster/eda box …
Yes mate, change to MDF as it is completely uniform.
No grain, or chipping. When done, seal the ‘open’ edges with a mixture of white PVA glue and water (should be like white water when made up). When dry, give it a light sand and the edge will be like glass!
thanks weequay, I’ll have to make a trip to home depot and pick some up, I need to get some thinner wood anyways I’m tired of waiting for the CNC machine to cut 3/4 inch wood down to 1/2 inches in spots like the center spacer where the filler plugs go
anyways I have an Alice frame question, is there an belt extender available or will I need to make one? and if I have to make one does anybody know where I can get the belt material like whats on it already? i’d like to get the same color so it looks natural…
Update 7/15/12:
well I went to home depot this morning and picked up a sheet of 1/2 & 3/4 inch MDF, and after an hour of cleaning up my cnc machine, I’ve got it up and running again, working 6 on and 3 off sure cuts into my building time… hopefully I’ll have some more pics for y’all later today, I’m still deciding if I am going to re-cut out everything in mdf or not, I guess it depends on how nice all the new pieces come out…
sorry for the double post just wanted to share some pics of what all I’ve gotten done on my three days off and get some opinions on my cyclotron design before I commit it to wood… anyways I’ve got lots of bondo/filling work left to do and tons of sanding, but i’m hoping to have everything done and ready to mold by the end of august… mid august would be better since I’ll be out of school, but I don’t think that will happen… anyways on to the pics…
and here’s a screen shot of my cyclotron, I know I need to move the top two rings, and I’m not sure about the placement of the N-filter…
my rings are
2 3/8" OD, 1 1/8" ID
2 1/4" OD, 1 1/8" ID
other than that I used stefan’s plans for the positioning which is why I know the top to rings need to come in and down a little bit due to the size difference… but I cant find where to place the n-filter… I know its supposed to hang over the spacer a bit , but I havent seen anyone who has mesurements on it…
heres a quick update before I get back to studying, this is the last week of summer school so I’ll have the rest of the August to finish up my pack before Fall starts. I think it turned out pretty good, still need to sand the edges a bit, but that goes for everything I have done so far, lots and lots of sanding
well it’s been a little while but I’ve finally gotten back to work on my pack, I"ve also discovered a big whoops, i’m not sure if it’s from me sanding too much or the cnc machine, I’m thinking it’s more me sanding, other than that this will be a lot of pictures, and since I’m off work for 4 more days I should get lots done this week…
ok so if you look closely you’ll see the bottom half of the spacer isn’t as big as it should be…
and now that i’m looking at the picture of it I’m definately going to be cutting it out again, I guess I’ll take tonight and redesign it so it’ll cut out faster I just wish I could cut out the spacer in one piece that would make life too easy though, should have bought a bigger cnc machine I guess haha
anyways here’s some more pics of what I’ve gotten done. In the near future I see lots of sanding, wood filler, and more sanding…
I can’t believe it’s been a month, lets see I completely remade the bottom spacer, and the booster & eda box, and then there was the sanding, lots and lots of sanding, until about two days ago when I finally realized that i was going to texture the whole thing so who would know that it wasn’t perfectly smooth to start with… oh well its done, and now for your viewing pleasure some before & after shots, sorry I didn’t think to take a picture of it all together before I textured & painted, I was on such a roll I didn’t even go to the SHSU home opener, that I had planned on going to tonight…
ok so after adding the eda discs I’m planning on molding it in the morning… especially since it weighs over 40 lbs in its current form