A bit of an inane topic this one but in my quest to keep busy during lockdown, I decided to take a deep dive and look into just what they used for this minor detail.
It turns out, as with a lot of things on these props that even the zip ties on the Hero’s were Milspec, with steel locking pins in the head.
Two ties were used on the thrower, one through a hole in the underside of the handle, just above the grip then another going through that tie and wrapping around the split loom.
Apart from the Super Hero pack which used one standard black zip tie here looped through two holes at the face of the handle
I wasn’t able to see if these were used on the ribbon cables due to the part being so small and the available reference from before the GB2 conversion being so sparse.
I’d be surprised if they weren’t though.
(Thanks to Julz for the reference pic of the underside of the handle)
As you can see from these photos, they have an odd dome shaped head and lack the notches that are on standard ties.
Instead , they have a series of raised stipples and strips.
Already on the website looking to order some, it’s the little details that make this fun!
Not to open another can of worms or derail this thread but I see in that second picture where the steel braided line anchors to the thrower handle. Is there any info out there as to what sized line they used or where it anchored on the pack side? It’s something I’d like to add to my build but not a detail you see often.
I’d never noticed that the loom was zip tied to the wand through a hole by the grip. I’ve spent the last hour going through reference pics on the site. At least one pack has a hole on the bottom side by the grip and 2 additional holes on the top side. The Ramis PIH pack only has 1 hole on the bottom from what I can see. It’s fun to find those little details to replicate. I guess I’m drilling at least one hole in my wand soon.
I’m not sure about the guage of that, it’s been done before so hopefully someone will have that info for you.
I will say though that they’ appear to be a strictly GB2 upgrade from my research.
Thats actually how this whole zip tie business came about when I was looking into the cable for my own build.
It’s really evident by the lack of hole on the Murray pack on GB1 where it is attached today at the front face of the handle instead of the cable tie hole as on the other throwers.
There’s also no evidence of it in any screen caps from GB1 or the Marshall arts pics
Two at the top where a standard black zip tie loops through as well as one on the underside where a cable attaches to although that one appears to be a layer addition.
the Ramis, Murray and Aykroyd hero’s have the zip tie hole on the underside, where they later attached the cable in GB2 which runs through the loom and anchors to the mobo just before the mouse hole. .
Other than the Murray, which they drilled a new hole on the outer part of the handle to attach the wire in GB2.
The Omni /Hudson most likely also has the same setup as the other three named packs but the reference just isn’t there to corroborate that.
Now this is quality content. I feel like the board is 15 years younger!
I bought some 6" ** Panduit #BT1.5I-C** on ebay. That seems a little longer than the length you mentioned but otherwise identical. With shipping it was like $23 for 100. That’s better than a lot of pack stuff, because Zip ties are actually useful.
Now please tell me about the smaller ties on the ribbon cable.
Edit; I just read your build thread. Are all the ties the same size?
Edit II; Oh I see, it was GB1 only and there’s not great reference. They look like they could all be the same size.
The next size down from this is 2.4mm which is way too small.
I only know that because I also bought a pack of those along with the 3.6mm in order to compare as I wasn’t sure what would be the correct size for the handle and tried them on the ribbon cable.
Not a bad price at all, I paid £18 for the shorter length ties with shipping so that seems to be on par.
The only reason I listed the 155mm length was because it was the cheaper option.
I was running into the same issue with them looking thin, then thicker on both screen caps and the Marshall arts pics.
It was the head size that swayed my decision.
As the heads on the smaller ones are just too small compared to the refs.
I think the thin look of the ties at times could possibly be caused by the way the convex shape of the tie reflects light in comparison to the flat shape that we’re used to seeing on standard ties.
As an irrelevant aside, I realised the reason these probably don’t have the standard notches that ordinary zip ties have is because of the noise.
These things are silent when you tighten them which makes sense for military applications.
