First thing I did was strip all garbage parts down. My buddy Nick is providing me with all quality parts so the first plan is to get the shell in a workable condition.
The first owner made the Ion arm riser tower, the booster tube, and the injector tubes go THROUGH the shell so there’s giant holes cut out ugh
I epoxied 1/8" styrene plates from the inside to all the areas that were cut out and in areas that needed support.
After a few coats of bondo body filler, it’s starting to take shape. Final filling and smoothing will be done at a later state
Next that N filter HAD TO GO
Sent this picture to our GB Group chat on facebook
SO MUCH BETTER. We are using a Nickatron N-filter. This will be attached later on but we started to cut space for it
I’ll probably need suggestions on certain parts! Everyone’s input is welcome.
I’m considering sanding off the the EDA discs and filling that area flat. I’ just don’t want to compromise the structural integrity by removing more of the shell
Hose hole/mousehole is going to get cut to the correct shape
Considering cutting off the right side of the bottom half of the shell, it overlaps where you should just have the motherboard showing.
All the other main parts are going to be PVC (injector tubes, filler/line tubes/ riser tower, hga) to keep the cost and weight down
The state of that pack has me terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought. BUT I agree with gloom, the n filter alone makes a big difference.
It’s coming along though. I can’t imagine what the original builder was thinking with some of those braces though. A lot of unnecessary cutting into the shell. Must have severely weakened it all together. Definitely cut off that right side where the mobo shows though. And correct me if I’m wrong, it looks like it needs trimming on the left and around the entire edge where the ribs are.
Not too sure, it’s had a couple previous owners so I don’t know.
Here’s it next to a 2014 SC shell I bought for my own build, to be finished after this one
Don’t let this thread discourage anyone from buying a vac shell. The new studio creations one (Left) is WAY nicer and is a great value.
The shell had really weird multiple wacky mounting holes that were all off center and bent the shell out. I filled those tonight and flattened it all out
Got rid of the brutal mounting holes, drilled them out and re enforced all corners with styrene from the inside. Then bondo’d over them to get the shell flat in those areas
Started to clean up some of the webbing that the previous owner just cut right out.
Filled all the poorly placed holes for mounting hardware
Lots of work to do before painting but I did some paint tests on scrap styrene..
Hammered Black, Satin Black, Flat Black.
I’m thinking the satin black would look the best, but the hammered finish might hide some of the imperfections.
Opinions?
looks like some of my facebook image links are broken… sorry. I’ll start using imgur
Looking great. I do agree with ya, the satin does look the best. But as you said the hammered will hide a lot. And with all the work youve got ahead on it, its gonna need all the help it can get.
Alex it’s coming along amazingly well. Can’t wait to see how this one’s together in the end. I’m debating between the hammered black and the satin black. Satin black is more of the standard classic pack look, however you do have a point about the hammered aiding in the concealment of additional imperfections. I just want this to look the best that it possibly can for what it is. From Diarrhea to a solid floater, this will be a great light weight stunt pack coupled with a matty thrower. I’ll swing by tomorrow, bring some more parts and bounce some additional ideas.
The pack was initially owned and assembled by Matt Fix who then donated it to me. I sent it down to Randy Forester in Texas to be stripped and rebuilt. But after about 2 years with no progress and what were gonna be retardedly high costs given the nature of its condition I asked to have it shipped as is back home. Randy had already torn the pack apart to near nothingness. I figured with people like Mr.Low in the group, myself and others, we can start tackling the majority of stuff in house. Alex is doing a phenomenal job restoring the pack back to a proper usable shell. I couldn’t see trashing it, throwing it away. I also couldn’t consciously dump it on to someone else either. Not for what it was.
Sorry about the broken links, from now on I’ll host on Imgur.
All the main holes are pretty much filled, I trimmed off the unnecessary styrene “motherboard” section on the right side
I re-built a “shelf” for the N filter to sit on for mounting. This will give it some extra support as well.
The webbing around the edges is going to be impossible to get rid of, I’ve been sanding it down gradually getting it all to sit as flat as possible and we’ll have to just work with it.
There’s some major gaps where the two shells attach, I’m going to tack the two halfs together on a few points with epoxy putty and then work on filling those gaps in with putty and bondo and blending it as smooth as possible.
Re building this shell is the trickiest part, after it’s in acceptable condition it should be smoother sailing just attaching parts and such.
Shooting for having the shell finished by the weekend.
We tracked down a photo of the “original” build of this pack hahaha. As long as I can make it look nicer than this then mission accomplished:
I feel like the problem with most vac-packs are that the buck they are formed from has all of the smaller details already in place i.e fins, cyclotron windows, clippard spacers. Had it been stripped down more and it may have been a bit sharper looking.
