Walker's Junk Pack Build - RGB Style (Now with video)

[KieranWalker]

So! Probably doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I’m working on a proton pack, posting here and all. I’ve been wanting one for a very, very long time, and rather than spend $3,000 buying one off eBay I figured I might as well put my imagination to use and build it myself.

I have been browsing GBFans for a while for inspiration, and I have to say some of the pack builds I’ve seen on here are incredible. The amount of work some of you have put into your packs to make them as accurate as possible is, frankly, stunning. However, as awesome as the screen-replica packs are, I’d rather have one with a personal touch.

Looking around on here, I have noticed a dire lack of Real Ghostbusters-style proton packs, so I have decided to model mine after the RGB design.

BUT! There is a twist! While the RGB packs I’ve seen are cool, a lot of them look too cartoony, like they were pulled straight from the animation and into the real world. The lack of finer details bothers me–it works fine in cartoons, but up close and personal? Not so much.

That being the case, I’m planning to design the body shell of my pack to match RGB’s packs, but also include details from the films such as the ribbon cable, hoses, warning labels and all that fun stuff. A realistic RGB pack, if you will. I’ll be taking a little artistic liberty with it and adding a few body details from the movie packs as well, such as an HGA and a gun mount box. I’m using Stephan’s plans to get the rough dimensions from, and so far I’ve had pretty good luck finding parts to size.

Of course, I don’t have hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to spend on this project, so I’m trying to keep it as simple as possible in terms of materials. What it consists of so far:

One 2x4 sheet of 1/4" MDF for the motherboard

Five various-sized electrical boxes for the gearbox, power cell, and gun mount

The cap from a can of carpet cleaner for the HGA

An old peanut butter jar for the large yellow canister in the center of the RGB pack

One five gallon bucket to cut apart for the cyclotron and synchronous generator

PVC tubing for the booster tube, vacuum tube, and ion rifle

A sturdy cardboard storage box for the booster tube mounting area (sounds cheap, but this thing can take some abuse)

Scrap pieces of MDF will be used for vanity plating and possibly the upper arm of the spacer

Split wire loom and 3/4" plastic tubing for various purposes

Incidentally, have you ever tried to clean rancid peanut butter out of a jar? Not pretty.

Anyway, I have an ALICE pack frame on the way to mount the finished pack on, and I plan to run lights and sounds as inexpensively as possible–lights will be just basic, non-animated LEDs, but I’m planning on getting a budget sound kit from ReplicaProps for that special touch. Components are gonna be screwed into the motherboard for strength.

Photographic evidence of progress thus far:

Basically just dry-fitting the parts together to make sure I got the dimensions right. The whole thing will be 14" x 26", roughly the same dimensions as a movie pack. The lid of the five-gallon bucket stands in for the synchronous generator there; I haven’t cut the bucket to size yet, and I need to do that before I can draw out the cutting pattern on the MDF.

Now, on to questions for more knowledgable people! Mainly, I’m curious about paint. I’ve heard that Rustoleum automotive primer and BBQ Black spraypaint is a good way to go for resin/fiberglass, but as this is all plastic and wood, I have no idea if the primer will actually stick to it. Any suggestions?

[KieranWalker]

In the meantime, shock mount:

Just threw that together out of washers and a big flathead bolt. It’s surprisingly heavy. Also not as long as the shock mount in Stefan’s plans, but I like the way it came out.

[valentino_42]

@KieranWalker

In the meantime, shock mount:

Just threw that together out of washers and a big flathead bolt. It’s surprisingly heavy. Also not as long as the shock mount in Stefan’s plans, but I like the way it came out.

I mentioned this in another thread a while back, but I’ll throw it out there again: Switch out your inner metal washers for nylon ones. Once they’re all sandwiched together, you won’t be able to notice they are white, but you can always give them a quick dusting with some metallic spray paint. It will greatly cut down on the weight, and possibly prevent it from causing damage from sagging over time.

[KieranWalker]

Hm, good advice. Thanks for the input.

[KieranWalker]

As you might guess, my ALICE frame finally arrived today. I like the LC-2 version better than the LC-1s, if only for the more padded, uh, pads. Looks like I might have to drill some holes in the cross frame for the motherboard, though… Although I could just use zip ties. It’d work just as well.

That big piece of MDF it’s sitting on is going to be the motherboard; I got the cyclotron and the spacer cut to size, but they need some sanding before I do anything more with them. I should have the motherboard cut out and most of the pack ready for assembly this weekend; I’ll post pictures.

Also: Sound board is on its way.

[Jamie_Riser]

I’m having a hard time finding a decently priced alice frame. So I think I’m gonna use an old lawn chair and make my own a frame. And find/buy the straps for it.

[KieranWalker]

Not a bad idea, really. I only sprung for the A frame 'cause I wanted at least one part of this pack to be authentic. Plus it was only forty bucks.

[KieranWalker]

BEHOLD! Progress! Ahead of schedule, even.

First off, I got the parts for the cyclotron and the spacer trimmed up. I like the thing’s profile; inaccurate as shit, but it looks cool to my eye.

Then, I threw everything together and traced out the motherboard. I hadn’t intended to cut it out tonight, but after I got it drawn out I couldn’t contain my excitement.

Sanded down some stuff to fit and cut the booster tube to size while I was at it.

Finally, I decided to do another dry fit to make sure everything fit the motherboard after cutting (yeah, I arranged all the parts first, but c’mon, accidents happen when you’re working with power tools).

Now THAT’S starting to look like a proton pack.

[KieranWalker]

Made some progress today: Finally started on the thrower.

The box and the handle are a PVC electrical box and pipe, respectively. The barrel is a water gun I found at K-Mart and cannibalized, since it’s kinda got the right look for the RGB throwers. The side wings are cut from MDF; I know they’re not the right shape, but I got to messing with a cardboard pattern and really liked how it came out, so I fired up the jigsaw and there you have it.

I think I’m gonna redo the top part of the pack’s spacer out of MDF; I don’t like that plastic thing I threw on there.

[Miniature_Geek]

Any more progress on this, I’m loving the ingenuity.

[KieranWalker]

As a matter of fact, yes, I just got some stuff done today. Got the power cell, booster tube mount, gear box, gun box, and lower cyclotron all mounted to the motherboard, and started priming everything for paint. Ran out of primer though, so I have to go pick up some more, then sand everything down and do another coat.

To mount everything, my brother and I used wood blocks (some of which you can see inside the synchronous generator) screwed into the insides of the parts, which were then screwed in through the back of the motherboard (we countersunk the screws so they sit flush and shouldn’t be noticeable once it’s painted).

[TheBigGuy]

I like this idea. Good work!

[KieranWalker]

Some more pics. Got to work on it this morning and figured I might as well get some shots of everything all put together, so here we go.

And while I was at it I popped the hex head cap screws into the HGA to get a few shots of it.

I’m currently sanding the ever-loving shit out of the cyclotron, since it got roughed up when I cut the 5-gallon bucket apart.

[Gareee]

Interesting take! FWIW, I have the same electrical boxes on our packs as your crank box. If you want to pimp it up, pick up a set of those battery powered led color changing skeletons at Target. Pop the skellies off, and stick the lights inside the electrical box. Mount the battery pack on the opposite side of the motherboard, and you’ll get a glowing color changing effect from the slots on the electrical box.

[KieranWalker]

I’ll keep that in mind, Gareee.

Meanwhile, the paint seems to be finishing nicely on the parts I’ve actually got done. I’ll post some more pictures when I have more of it finished. The cyclotron still looks beat up, but after sanding it relentlessly, several coats of primer, more sanding, more primer, a coat of hammered black, yet more primer and a top coat of satin, it’s hard to see the scratches. I’m calling it good enough. It was getting too dark in the garage to see if the top coat needed any touching up, so I’ll have to work on it more tomorrow.

[KieranWalker]

I’ve finally reached the point in this build where I stopped thinking of it as a pile of random parts and started thinking of it as my proton pack. I know some of you can relate.

Known issues:

The cyclotron, despite my best efforts, still looks really beat up. The last coat of paint I put on it didn’t take as well as i’d hoped either, but that’s less noticeable. If this were anything but a junk pack I would consider it unacceptable, but I’ve reached the limit of my patience, the bumper will cover some of it up, and I’d like to think of it as “pre-weathered.”

The paint didn’t take quite as well on the MDF, and in direct light it looks kind of uneven. I’ve tried to correct this with limited success, but for my purposes it’s probably okay.

The wood grain on the upper section of the synchronous generator isn’t nearly as obvious in person as it is in the picture. Even if it was, there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it, aside from maybe plating the thing with styrene. Which is a possibility, but I’ve already sunk more money and time into this thing than I initially planned and as I said my patience is wearing thin.

And where’s the damn bumper? Truth be told, I haven’t fully decided how to make the thing yet. I’d appreciate any suggestions; my options thus far are straight-up MDF or a matchbox car track with an MDF backing plate for rigidity.

[Gareee]

I liked the tutorial here on how to make a wooden one, by KC ghostbuster. Others have made them from mdf quite well.

As far as your issues, odds are you are seeing things the general public will never even notice. Sometimes you get to close to a project, and have to step back a bit, and see it with fresh eyes.

I think your cyclotron looks fine, considering the build material.

[RoboTrap]

@Gareee

Stuff

Agreed! Spending enough time with something can either blind you to problems, or make you to blow them out of proportion. And you’re definitely blowing them out of proportion.

[KieranWalker]

Well, thanks for the vote of confidence!

I’m painting the thrower right now (well, not right this minute, but you get the idea). Thing is, I haven’t really been sold on the barrel. Given the way it’s put together, I can easily finish the rear half of the gun while fiddling with the front half, and I’m considering the possibility of trying to make something more akin to the movie throwers. Do they make 1/2" clear acrylic tube? I used 3/4" tubes out of necessity for the gun handles, and it’d probably be a bit more difficult for me to adapt 1" tubes to the center box at this point.

[Gareee]

You might want to consider those lightup wands I got from walgreens. They run the length of the tube “barrel” and you can either have them in slow flickering “standby” mode, or use the test button on them, and kick them up to full bright. For $2.50, its hard to go wrong with them.

Add some pvc bits n such, and you have what looks more like the original thrower barrel than what you currenty have. (Athough what you have now, while different that the original guns looks great.

You can check my build thread for pics of ours done this way.