[Tyger Cheex]

Getting my GB Costume complete has been a nightmare.

In August 2009 I agreed to let someone build a pack for me for the princely sum of £300. It was promised it woudl be ready in time for an exhibition in November...

November came and went with a long list of excuses over Christmas and the new year!

August 2010 arrives and I get a call. "It's ready-ish!" So I go to collect it! £300 is cheap for a complete pack and to be fair to the guy who built it for me I had told him I had had enough of waiting so I wanted whatever he had done and I'll finish it myself! This is what I got:









For the record, that bottom photo is where I had pulled off the FOAM COVERING on the power cell because I was unhappy with it. All the ribs on the Spacer, power cell, gear box and gun mount were made from self adhesive foam!!! I was completely disheartened by the whole thing so I abandoned it. It's certainly a "fixer-upper" and it will be perfectly fine when I get round to sorting it, but it's not what I had hoped for. I want a pack that I can wear AND hang on the wall of my lounge which is where Sevv came in.

This arrived in the post today:



I'm already itching to get stuck in!

I've bought some acrylic from ebay for the power cell and cyclotron lenses, that was fairly inexpensive and will leave me plenty to do both packs!

I also went to "poundland" and bought 4 torches for a total of £4!!! I Stripped them down for the reflectors which I'll use behind the cyclotron (cyclotron pictured if the "old" one)!



I've been in contact with a few members regarding screw sizes and how they fixed their resin bits together. Most helpful and I got some great ideas!

Next up I need do a little sanding to get the shell to sit flat (minimal work required thanks to Sevv's excellent workmanship), a bit of clean up on the other resin bits, source a nice Alu-motherboard in the UK, do a "dry fit" of all the parts and hope that R2DEVO gets in touch regarding payment for his lighting kit!

And Electrician friend of mine has two drums of flexible conduit. One is plastic coated metal, the other is plastic!

Metal( OUTSIDE diameter of 17mm)


Plastic( OUTSIDE diameter of 20mm)


This is the Data Sheet for the Metal Stuff

This is the Data Sheet for the Plastic Stuff)

I'd like to put the metal stuff on my pack as it would hang a lot better, but I worry about the weight and the fact that it's slightly narrower than the plastic stuff!

Either way I can have both for free so I'll see what they look like once I pick them up!

Exciting times!

[GAVAL]

Happy for you! You've still got lots of time before Halloween now that you have a shell and parts to work with!

[Gareee]

I'm pretty sure the plastic is what was used on screen, so it would be more accurate and lighter. You want to reduce the weight as much as possible, if you can.

[Tyger Cheex]

Yeah, in the end I decided on plastic... and I was able to buy some 25mm OD stuff too which looks loads better!

I'm sure it wont be done in time for Halloween but I dont mind too much...

[Gareee]

Don't count yourself out yet. It really depends if you want a full b lown lights n sound pack, or can just be happy with one with lights for now.

I scratch built two packs last year in 3 weeks, so I'm sure with a shell like that, you can manage something wearable by Halloween. Just get done what you can, and make sure you can add whatever else you want after the holiday.

[Tyger Cheex]

Progress looks slow but tonight i have:

1) drilled all holes in N-Filter
2) Drilled and glued M6 Bolts in to the injectors, the two cylinders on the "cosmetic plating" and the crank knob.
3) Drilled the Injectors ready for the hoses
4) Drilled the PPD ready for the hose
5) Drilled out all the cyclotron light holes (waiting for small flat-wheel to clean them up!)
6) Cut the slot out for the Power Cell lights
7) Drilled the hole for the ribbon cable
8) Drilled the holes for the Clippard, barbs and Legris's (Legrii?)
9) Drilled a HUGE hole behind the N-Filter to allow me to bolt the thing on to the shell! (See pics)
10) Drilled a nice circular slot (using a hole saw) that just happens to be the same diameter as the tube on the space (where the flexible conduit goes) - rather pleased with that! (See pics)

So yeah, lots of drilling and glue mixing.

As i said,it looks like slow progress but a little is better than NONE!

MESSY!!!


GLUEY


DRILLY


FITTY


BOLTY

[Kingpin]

My only concern is that the hole for the Ribbon Cable may have been made too large, when wound together it doesn't have a very big footprint compared to when it's unfurled.

[Tyger Cheex]

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Too late now!

You might be right, Stefan's plans show that hole as being around 24mm (just a guess as it's not dimensioned) but the smallest hole saw I had was 30mm. I think that once the whole thing is painted and the motherboard is also painted the hole will disappear in to the shadows.

Failing that I could always stick a 30mm Rubber Grommet in there!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-x-Rubber-Gromme ... 68c6d67657

Then just push the cable through that!

[slime me please]

wow this brings back memories your building your pack almost identical to the way i did mine,
i used sews fiberglass pack too
progress looks good so far
dont worry about the ribbon cable hole if you cut the ribbon 3 ways once you thread it through
it should hide any gaps

[Tyger Cheex]

Cheers SMP,

I had spent a great deal of time looking at the pictures of your build prior to the arrival of my shell from Sevv... plenty of inspiration there, which reminds me... I need to source some of that lovely fine mesh for inside my N-filter like yours! Really sets it off!

[RedSpecial]

Cheex, First of all nice work so far, everything looks perfect.
Secondly where were you when i was trying to figure out how to attach the tube that the loom goes into ?

seriously though its gonna be one hell of a pack by the looks of it, especialy with that pro paintjob you were talking about.

Ive got some spare aluminium mesh for the nfilter if your interested. shoot me a pm if you want it.

[Tyger Cheex]

Plenty of progress since my last post, to the point now where I only have the crappy jobs to do before painting! (Always the way isn't it?)

Red's offer of the aluminium mesh was very generous, thanks mate. It arrived safe and sound and I'll be certain to use that once I do the final assembly. No point fitting it prior to painting eh!?

I was really please how well the bolts that I glued in to the ends of the injectors (and filler plugs) turned out so I used the same process for the HGA and Ion Arm (after filling them with resin). This has given me a good strong fixing on to the pack and with a little added epoxy glue prior to tightening the bolts I cant see these ever moving again!

One thing I was not too pleased with was the quality of my sanding on the fill ends of the Injectors and filler plugs. I dropped them on the pack and they wobbled quite a lot because despite my best efforts I coudl not sand them perfectly perpendicular to the bolt. This is where my new best friend came in to play:

Mr Lathe!


I dropped them in the chuck, skimmed the ends up and now they sit perfectly on the underside of the power cell & pack body!


Last night was mostly abotu drilling and tapping holes and doing a final fit before it's off to the paint-shop!


I undercoated and painted up the top of nick-a-tron's excellent clippard which will look awesome as soon as I put the stickers on!


I drilled and tapped all the holes for the HGA, Booster frame and ion arm and dry-fit all the components (along with all the other threaded bits on the main pack body). I also drilled the side of the crank box to accommodate the 25mm splitless loom, which I think looks great. (I think the slight larger diameter looks way better on the pack than the thinner 20mm stuff!)



I also fit the bumper. I was a little worried about how much strain the bumper would place on the holes on the side of the synchronous generator when the pack was in the vertical postion. The shearing forces might crack the fibreglass so I decided to cut a couple of pieces of 6mm "Trespa" (a laboratory grade worktop material we happen to have a sample of in the office) and glue those into the inside of the pack prior to drilling the mounting holes. I'm really pleased with how it worked out but I still think I'll bolt the shock mount through the cyclotron too, just to add a little extra support.


So, there it is... ready for painting (save for a little bit of sanding).


I'm really pleased with how it's coming together and I've been VERY lucky in that one of my friends happens to know a costumer who works as a bodywork sprayer. He lives in the same village as him and he's offered to give my pack the "pro-paint job" it deserves.

All I need to do now is find out what type of finish the shell should have? (Matt, Satin or other?) and where to buy the paint from. Finger crossed, next week I'll be wrapping the parts up and putting them in a box to go to be painted!



Oh, I still need to sort a Alu-Motherboard supplier in the UK and order a few bits from MMM after payday but money is getting tight this close to Christmas!

[Bob Wobbaz]

I don't think anyone makes aluminuim motherboards here in the UK, MMM is really the only option if you're after one. Mine is aluminium, but a very strong densely packed fibrous plastic, it has the same shine as the painted aluminium, but it was difficult to cut

[Tyger Cheex]

I don't think anyone makes aluminuim motherboards here in the UK, MMM is really the only option if you're after one. Mine is aluminium, but a very strong densely packed fibrous plastic, it has the same shine as the painted aluminium, but it was difficult to cut

Cheers Bob, I'll certainly keep that in mind but I'm reliably informed that a guy in the UK was selling 3mm Laser Cut Alu-Mobo's for £30. This was a few months ago now so I have no idea if he has any left but it's certainly the avenue I'll be taking when it comes to finishing my pack!

[Tyger Cheex]

Lots and lots of good solid progress since my last update... the end is in sight, but still a few weeks away just yet!

I got my Alu MoBo this week:



And my 8mm (approx ¾") thick Angle has now been fitted to it ready for drilling and positioning of the fixing screws (when they arrive)





The light kit has also arrived and been tested so that's good!






(Okay, I've only tested the pack part of it so far!)

I spent the rest of the evening using a Dremel with a flat grinding stone in it thinning the resin wall where the lenses go so it looks nice and neat! (and the lens doesnt look so deep inside the pack when assembled)





This needs careful, precision sanding and consequently is quite a slow process so I only managed to get one of the cyclotron holes done and the power cell.

Dusty messy work, cant say as I'm looking forward to doing the other 3 cyclotron holes next week!



Next week I will be mounting the Mobo to the Alice frame and making my spacers/stand-offs so it's all nice and neat then it's off to the painters! HURRAH!

[nick-a-tron]

Fantastic progress! Where did you get the Mobo and L-brackets?

[Tyger Cheex]

L Brackets were from ebay!, it was just a seller who offers free cutting so I boguht 250mm length and asked him to cut it in to 5 equal sections! (£10.10 delivered) Seller's name was "forwardmetals" and shipping was insanely fast! (Ordered on the afternoon of one day, cut and shipped the same day, arrived the day after!)

As for the motherboard, I mentioned on the UK:GB forums that I wanted one, Mark pointed me in the direction of the OLD forum where a guy was selling them on there ("smithythesurveyor" I think his name is) so I emailed him to see if he had any left and he has. £43 delivered (48 hour shipping)!

He's on GBFans too (and your friends list it would appear!!!), but it doesn't look like he's got a for sale thread for them!

http://www.gbfans.com/fans/smithythesurveyor/

[nick-a-tron]

Thanks for the info!

[Stroudy]

Progress is looking very good! Can't wait to see it done!

[Tyger Cheex]

Another week, another update:

Right, first order of business, my goddam bolts never arrived and neither did my taps so I couldn't mount up the MoBo to the ALICE frame or the shell to the mobo... but bollocks to ebay sellers... I went to a local fasteners place and bought some bolts and borrowed an M6 tap off my Uncle so we were all go!

I cut my spacers out from the length of Alu Tube I received on Monday... I opted for a 1" stand-off and bolted the whole thing together!

Ta Daaaaaaaaaah!



So I'm pleased with that and I think it looks great! (I'll add the squash ball once I have it all painted up!)

So yeah, this is the first time I have ever put my pack on my back and I gotta say, I'm rather proud of myself (as you can see)




After that was done I got busy with the rebates on the cyclotron lenses... dusty and messy and smelly work but it's all done now!



The I trimmed the lenses down using my very technical piece of equipment! (A sanding wheel in a drill, clamped in a vice with the trigger taped down!)



They fit beautifully! Once it's all painted up I'll use some clear silicone to fix them in place!



I'm not really a fan of the fully transparent lenses in packs, and I also think that by frosting the inner lens more of the light will be reflected back in to the pack, then back out of the lens (due to the torch reflectors I got from poundland) giving a much more even glow to the cyclotron... so I had a go at frosting them and this is the result (with an unfrosted lens for comparison) Whaddya reckon?



The last little job I did was to add a couple of barbs to the synchronous generator to accommodate the red and blue tube from the injectors:



Job is a good un. She's ready for painting now! (Finally!)

My mate will be seeing the painter-dude on Sunday so he's going to get it all squared up with him and she'll in in for paint as soon as he can do it!

Speaking of my mate, his pack (my old one) is progressing VERY nicely so kudos to him for that!

Check it out!!!



He's decided to take the time to make a few modifications before he gets his painted up, all of which he's hoping to get done next thrusday. One of the things he's decided to do is replace the clippard spacer with a resin one from Nick-a-tron. Another thing he wants to do is add the thicker part of the cosmetic plating. This has been completely missed form his pack (as you might be able to see from the above photo) so he's goign to add that next week.

One ofther thing we only just noticed tonight is that the gun mount appears to have been mounted upside down!



He knows he never going to be able to get this super accurate, but he has decided that extending the bottom of the gun mount will make it look a lot better so that's yet another project for him for next week!

They arent vastly different from eachother and I really dont think it will be too much of a problem. Here's a side-by-side of mine and his:



Worlds apart from what it was like eh? Mine looked bigger because it's sitting on the ALICE frame, his is flat on the floor!

Anyway, that's all for now... so I'll leave you with a better pic of the Cheex-pack™ with a few of the bits dropped in place!

[4505marcel]

Looking good mate Jons packs are wicked hey. Im just about done with my 2 packs, looking forward to seeing yours done bro

[Pdred1985]

Nice work so far. What do you do with the SMC elbows and straights, cut off the orange part? Never used those before.

[Tyger Cheex]

Looking good mate Jons packs are wicked hey. Im just about done with my 2 packs, looking forward to seeing yours done bro

Yeah, they are excellent, really they are. My biggest worry about gettign it finished is... what's next? lol

Nice work so far. What do you do with the SMC elbows and straights, cut off the orange part? Never used those before.

To be honest, I dunno. I was gonna leave them on, I know it's not completely accurate but then neither are the elbows in the first place. I just like they way it grips the tube properly when they are in place!

Once it's painted I might make a decision then!

[RedSpecial]

i left most of the orange bit on but cut off the lip part then painted what was left with some bumbrol enamel to make it look a bit closer to the originals.
its not really something that would easily be noticed though unless you're looking for it.

[Pdred1985]

What'd you use to cut it off with? I tried my Xacto knife and it snapped off more than the lip.

[RedSpecial]

I used a grinding bit on my dremel to cut them off.

[4505marcel]

I left mine on, and painted them the same colour as the bodies, they cant really be seen now to be honest

[Tyger Cheex]

Well since my last update the pack has been painted and I've started to put it all together. Here are a bunch of progress photos:

This is it, straight out of the box from the painter's!


The first job I did was to stick the mesh red was kind enough to send me inside the N-Filter. Sevv's N-filters are a little thick at the top so it made it rather difficult to fit the mesh. If the resin wasnt quite so thick I'd have just been able to drop a nice coil of it in the end, add the white cotton behind it and BOOM! Job done, but in the end I opted for cutting each piece of mesh out and hot-gluing it in place as required.


I also hot-glued the lenses in place:



And I'm really REALLY glad I took the time to thin the resin to make the lenses sit flat as it looks so much better from the outside:


Also, I like the effect of frosting them, but until the light kit is fitted I cant really comment just how well it works!


Another part I'm really pleased with is the PPD. I'm glad I shortened it and I'm also pleased with how the boots look now that I have counter-sunk the holes. The sit really well and look very neat and tidy (Much better than trying to cut the boot on the angle and hope it fits right:



Since I had decided to fill my other parts (HGA, Ion Arm and booster tube) with resin to allow me to glue fixing bolts inside them (so i could attach them to the pack) I was also able to add them to my pack without much bother:




I also added a bunch of the tubes and elbows/barbs etc so I could see some progress, so this is the pack as it stands at the end of the day today:






So that was it for my first night of assembly... or so I thought! I decided to do a bit more before going to bed:

I put the straps on the ALICE frame and mounted the frame to the mobo!



Quite pleased with how those rubber door-stops looked too!


And since the mobo was all mounted I thought I'd drop the bumper in place... and a few stickers!




I also put the clippard barbs on the synchronous generator ready for the red/blue tubes from the injectors:


and finally I thought I'd see how one of the filler plugs looked in place! (The one with the clippard elbow!) But this isn't fixed yet, it's just dropped on!

[Tyger Cheex]

Yesterday I have added:

The Crank Knob
The filler plugs

and this:



Just three jobs to do now:

Ion Arm Cap
Drill and tap the holes for the Ion Arm Cap. Just waiting for some shorter screws to arrive as my tap isn't long enough. (If a jobs worth doing, it's worth doing right! Right?)

Injectors:
I need to rectify a mistake I made on the injectors. For added stability I have pinned the injectors together prior to fitting them to the pack, but stupidly I tried to glue the pins with hot-glue. The glue cooled too fast and I wasnt able to push them completely together. I need to drill out the glue and use epoxy as it doesn't set so fast!

Fit the Clippard Valve:
I had intended to use a resin clippard (one of Nick-a-Tron's). It was bought, painted, stickered up and ready to go... then Father Christmas bought me a set of REAL clippards so obviously I'm going to use them. The real valves have some sort of "locating" peg on the bottom. I had considered cutting this off but thought it would be "nicer" to drill a hole in the shell and keep the clippard unmodified.

The above jobs need me to have some time in Dad's garage (everything else so far this week has been done in my lounge!!!) also, most of my tools are there too so I'm limited in what I can do!

FAST progress this week, and I'm really pleased! I also weighed the pack and it's currently 22lbs (10KG)

[Dr. Stantz 24]

Dude this pack is rocking, Nice work !