#4794524
Last month, I had finished my first ever proton pack build. It was an amazing accomplishment for me and an absolute blast to finish. It came out better than I anticipated and figured it would look amazing hanging on my office wall.

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Like most first time builders (I'd have to assume anyway), after you build your first you see everything you did wrong and everything that could be improved. I have a laundry list of things I would do differently or not 'rush', as I did build the pack rather quickly. I had a lot of help through the original process but a lot of people WAY more talented than myself and I cannot thank them enough for all of the help. The pack was built as a "semi-hero" GB1 pack as I didn't have the funds for a full hero. I used Crix's awesome resin cast 'hero' parts as well as ThrowingChickens V3 wand. All of which, I cannot give enough praise. I also used foil-backed sticker paper for the labels. While nice, it doesn't give the same feel as aluminum or vinyl. So I thought to myself, "I can make this better as it sits and upgrade it.". SO I started pricing options out to upgrade to metals parts and such and I came to a realization -- just build another pack! O_O

Only problem with that theory is I don't have the funds to build my dream hero GB1 pack. So I dwelled on it for a while and ultimately decided once I priced what a full hero would cost with all the fixings and how much I "might" be able to sell my pack for, I decided I could totally make up the difference! So, with my wife's (reluctant) blessing, I embarked to sell my semi-hero and build the full hero prop.

The pack was sold last month to a member here and now resides with them peacefully. Once everything was safely in its new home, I started planning and buying parts. I wanted accurate Legris elbows, and as many people know, those are next to impossible to find. After some digging and asking around, a member here sold me his Nick-a-Tron replicas. (Shout out to noslltt!) I am stoked to finally have these and cannot wait to get these on the pack!

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Also, wanting to make this as accurate as possible, I wanted an XLR jack. I knew a few people on here made them, so I found a few and ultimately decided on nstevic's awesome deluxe bundle. Its an awesome piece and, again, am excited to use it!

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*Almost* all the parts have so far been ordered for the new pack so I am just waiting for them to show up and for a few others to become available. So here is the breakdown of what I am using:

ejgunth87 - Full aluminum hero parts as well as gun track, shell mount, and GB1 ribbon cable
AJ/GBFans - All the odds and ends. ALICE LC-1, Shell, mobo, arcoelectric lights, legris straights and banjos, real R-701, hat lights, full pack light and sound kit(s).
jackdoud - Real Clippard R-331
MMM - Pacific, Sage M-50, and Dale RH-25 resistors, Ion Arm
order_thru_the_phoenix - eBay, tubing, colored lenses, ribbon cable clamps and clippard fittings
Nick-a-Tron - Bumper, booster frame, crank knob, ALICE mounts

I am also waiting for Freeky Geeky to get his thrower kits back in stock and I'll be ordering the full sha-bang from him. Updates will come as they happen! Super stoked for this build!!!

Also... need to decided what type of barrel extension system I want... spring loaded or 'lever push'. Any insight is helpful :-)

Oh... and forgive the photos... I am trying to figure out my wife's canon DSLR I got her for mothers day... so bare with me :-)
Last edited by thebigone2087 on July 19th, 2017, 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ashura001 liked this
#4794537
Photos look fine to me, bro, Canon user myself here... So, what's a "Super Hero" pack? I've heard the term a couple of times...
#4794538
I use the term "super hero" just as my fantasy pack. The super hero in the movie had all the fixings. It's the pack they show on the rooftop for "heat em' up!" and had the orange hat light on the top of the gun versus a white hate light and the clippard valves were reversed (701 on pack and 331 on gun) which is what I am going to do. There was a thread I think julz started specifically detailing the super hero pack... It's around here somewhere...

Ah yes, here: http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... =2&t=36529
#4794859
UPDATE :-)

So I received a few boxes in the mail today. Two small ones and one big one :-D

First up is one of the little ones sent to me by jackdoud. He had a spare Clippard R-331, so I bought it from him. Came to me NIB and it looks great. It's kinda neat to have a REAL Clippard vale in hand as I have only ever handled the resin copies. These things are nice and hefty!

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The next small box was something I didn't think I was going to be able to get my hands on until much further down the line, but thanks to Darthdono74 I was able to get my hands on a set of his aluminum labels!!

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These babies are amazing! They look absolutely fantastic!! (sorry for the glare!)

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Now for my big box.... I decided to go with Ejgunth87's aluminum parts for my build. I used Eric's V-hook, mounting brackets, and GB1 ribbon cable on my last build and knew I was going to use his stuff on my next build. I could not be happier! These parts seriously exceeded my expectations, they are beautiful.

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As far as PACK parts, I got the works from Eric: Booster Tube and Plug, Injectors, Beam Line and Filler Tubes, Vac Tube, PPD, N-Filter, HGA, V-hook, Shell Mounting Set, and GB1 Ribbon cable.
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I also picked up one of his gun tracks as it is made for his V-hooks.
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...and I couldn't help myself. I had to see how they fit... and in a word, perfectly.

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So that is it for tonight. My stuff from order_thru_the_phoenix has shipped and should be here Friday, as well as Spongface's 3D printed barograph bezel. Still need to pick up the paint and a few odds and ends like the mourning aluminum for the power cell lights and cyclotron lights as those will be mounted on the motherboard this time instead of in the shell.

Updates coming as they happen!!
Kingpin, alphabeta001 liked this
#4794860
Super jealous... Still several months till I start building mine, and it will be near winter... which means I will have to wait for the painting, even if I get all the parts... I at least can start test fitting everything and cleaning everything up, so all that I will have left is priming and painting...

Looking good, will definitely be watching this, as the Super Hero pack is one I'd really like to build...
#4794861
You know, I am a bit north of you and I painted my pack during the winter... turned out fine. haha, I even primed my thrower in the snow! (yeah, don't do that btw). Thanks for looking bud, hopefully I can get this REALLY rolling in the next few weeks.
#4794863
thebigone2087 wrote:I even primed my thrower in the snow! (yeah, don't do that btw).
LOL! =D
#4795706
Less of and update, more of a questions for those who have more experience than myself. I was bored today and am still waiting for a bunch of parts so I was looking for something to work on. I grabbed the two cleanest pieces I have and decided to paint them. I grabbed the aluminum PPD and gun track. These were the results with one light coat of Rustoleum Satin Black:

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It is about 80 degrees are so here in Maryland right now, so I let them sit about an hour on my deck to dry (per the cans instructions before second coat). So this is what happened after the second coat:

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Why is the paint chipping/peeling/give me a weird texture on these parts???
#4795754
Mike Witt wrote:It helps to also wash the parts with soap and water before paint to remove any oils.
I thought about that too. Could I also use a degreaser like acetone, or stick to the soapy water?
#4795853
So I took peoples advice and decided to degrease my aluminum parts prior to painting. Luckily I had a bottle of Birchwood Casey Cleaner/degreaser sitting at home from a barrel re-blueing I did over a year ago. So I went with that.
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Then I decided to give a go at a few more parts. This time I hit the Beam Line and Filler Tubes, HGA, and Vac Tube. Degreased them both and these photos are after a THIRD coat of Rustoleum Satin Black.

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Its a little over 80 outside here in Maryland so I let those bake outside for a bit then bring them into my office to cure over night. So far I don't see any of the flaking I had with the PPD and Gun Track... there is a TINY bit I think on top of the HGA, but I can sand that off and repaint is since I'll have to do that with the PPD and Gun Track anyway.

I was thinking about sanding and polishing the metal with 220 and 320 sandpaper before finishing... but with the these I didn't touch them. I'll see how they turn out and if I decided to strip them down and polish I might. So we will see.

UPDATE 5:20pm:

So I let them bake a bit and took them in. I really like how they have turned out. The top of the HGA and the Filler Tube need to be sanded and repainted as they cracked a little bit, but otherwise they came out very nice.

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Then I got to use my new 1/8NPT tap :-) Chased out the paint in the HGA and Beam Line and then screwed in the legris elbow and clippard elbows just to see them.... so happy :-)

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#4795877
Ugh... so jealous right now, I so want to get started on mine... October is so far away...
#4795903
The parts look great! Just know that it is just not a degreasing thing. I had this happen on my first pack I built. So you wouldn't have an issue like that on a fiberglass shell, and it didn't happen till my second coat. So just be sure to hit the parts lightly to be sure. Again, awesome work on these so far! :-)
#4795908
Ejgunth87 wrote:I would also recommend using self etching primer prior to paint for aluminum parts. It gives the paint something somewhat rough to hold onto.
Looks like a trip to Home Depot tomorrow :-)
#4795924
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http://www.wattyl.co.nz/en/find-the-rig ... rimer.html

I use a black version of that in a spray can, it's an etching primer, and i've found you don't need to apply any top coats of other paints as it turns out to be a nice black and there is no worries about having a grey under primer.

I was all my parts with acetone and rince/dry before spraying the paint. And always use cloves when handling your parts to avoid greasy handsies
#4795926
Wait, I remember you saying that you used black etching primer, but does that mean you used no black paint at all in your build, Julz?
#4795975
I realized I moved the photos from my main library to a separate album in photo bucket which changed the link's. Here are those original photos:

These are the photos of the PPD and Gun Track during the original paining and after the first bake with the chipping:

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Here are the peeling photos:

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As I stated above, I had some remaining Birchwood Casey cleaner/degreaser from a rifle blueing project a year or two ago, so I used the for the other parts.

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…and these are the last photos after the third coat of paint

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So I picked up some Self Etching primer this morning before work so at lunch I will spray down at least the N-Filter, Booster Tube, and Injectors. I might have to to sand down the PPD and Guntrack and primer those, but we will see. I have to eat too after all ;-)
#4796014
SO I decided on my lunch break to do a bit more work considering it'll be not until next week that I can do any more work on this pack. With Eric suggestion I picked up some Self Etching Primer before work. I took some 150 grit sandpaper to the gun track and PPD to smooth out the grossness that transpired. For the hour I had for lunch I got three nice light coats of primer on the parts that hadn't been painted thus far with the exception of the gun track and PPD.

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The other thing I did really quick was wire up the DC Panel jack from my XLR plate so I can run those to the GBFans soundboard when it gets here tomorrow. Instead of re-wiring the blue brick right now, I just decided to wire the DC jack up to plug the blue brick into until I button everything down in the actual pack. Hopefully I will have a bit of a light show for you tomorrow afternoon ;-)

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I did have a question for the electronic guru's here regard the blue brick. I am taking the switch and LED out of the batter as well as the DC leads. The wires look REALLY small… around 28 gauge or smaller. I have some 22 gauge SOLID wire that I used for the DC jack you just saw… will that be a problem soldering those two wire types together?
#4796076
pyhasanon wrote:Wait, I remember you saying that you used black etching primer, but does that mean you used no black paint at all in your build, Julz?
Correct, you can buy black etching primer so if you scratch your parts you don't get grey showing through. I found every time I put paint on top of that it never looked as good so I just used a few coat of black etching primer on all my metal parts and left it at that.
#4796198
An amazing thing happened today. When I got home from lunch I had a nice box waiting for me. Inside was, all that I can describe, as pure awesomeness. Inside was the new GBFans light and sound kit(s)! As anyone would, I quickly ripped open the box and then *carefully* took all the components out and got them all wired up. Everything worked like a charm. One of the things that was added (and mentioned by both AJ and Spongface) was the new power-up via standby feature. The new kits allow the pack to do a full power up with sound when you flip the 'vent light' switch on the thrower which would normally just active the thrower lights. Of course, just like the old ones, you can switch between two standby modes: one with just the slow blow and top light on with the top light blinking OR with the barograph going, slow blow, and clippard hat light solid on… that way you can recreate the roof top scene when you flip the power up switch. It is an AMAZING set of electronics. One thing I noted that I liked a lot was the standby feature. I don't know if it did this before, but when you switch between the two standby animation, which ever you chose will stay that way each time you power up the pack. I am REALLY impressed with this kit.

I will try and take photos and maybe even some video tonight if I get the opportunity to wire up some speakers to it (I only have two 4 ohms so I would need to wire them together first). I also painted the parts I had primed yesterday with great results :-)

Stay Tuned!
#4796200
Hopefully Charles and Jim Fincher will figure out how to reconfigure the venting mechanism to work with the new boards! Looking forward to your pack! =D
#4796326
Hey BigE! Please tell me you didn't order the PH 25 yet. I bought some in a lot of 3 and will be only using 2. If you need my extra one it will save you 8 bucks. Let me kno and ill mail it out ASAP. Hope all is well buddy.
#4796755
OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY!!! UPS was kind enough to drop of a nice box sent by AJ :-D This is the first of two GBFans orders that have shipped to me, the bigger one gets here tomorrow :-D So what was in the box? Well... I'll show you...

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OoOoOo a Clippard Valve....

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Now I have both accurate Clippards with the addition of this 701. It is still cool actually handling the REAL valves as they feel so much different as far as heft than the resin copies.

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Little greeblees. Hat lights, arcolectrics, and legris straights & banjos.

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"Wait... the guns should have two WHITE hat lights!" well... usually, yes. But I am going for the 'super hero' gun with this build just to be different. Two orange hats, one white. The R-701 will be on the pack instead of the thrower as well.

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Close up of the Legris replicas. These are beautiful pieces, AJ (or whomever made these) did a bang up job on these. I think its also impressive that the banjos come with real banjo screws. Nice little touch :cool:

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..and finally my ALICE LC-1 frame and straps. I wasn't expecting theses to be already black, so thats a relief not having to really take these apart.


So that is it for today. Tomorrow UPS will deliver my GBFans shell and motherboard! Once those are here I can get started mounting electronics and wiring to the motherboard as well as shell mounting. Still waiting on my order from Nick-a-tron for a few resin pieces and MMM for my Ion Arm end cap and resistors. Hopefully they arrive shortly. Can't wait to get this guy built!!!
#4796777
Great pics! Hope that package arrives as scheduled... eagerly awaiting your build updates!
#4796956
For all of you folks out there that have seen the movie, "The Jerk", you'll recognize this:

OH BOY! HE NEW PHONE BOOK IS HERE! THE NEW PHONE BOOK IS HERE!!!

ok ok , so it isn't actually the new phone book, but it IS my GBFans shell and mobo!!!

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Lets get it out of that bubble wrap!

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Oh look... an aluminum motherboard too :-)

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...and their first pairing

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Everything seems to line up PRETTY well....

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This isn't my first GBFans shell or mobo, and as with last time, I am very happy with them. This one did have a few nicks on it. Most noticeably on the N-filter and one up on the power cell. I am removing the N-filter for one of EJGunth87s aluminum ones so that doesn't bother me, and any others I find I'll just fill in with bondo, so no big deal there. As far as the gap between the shell and mobo... well... I'll figure something out.

As much as I would have loved to get my hands on one of Venky's shells when he was making them or even Vinny's Bigi shells, I am very happy with the GBFans shell!!! I probably wont have much to show until next week. I'll wet sand the shell body as I did my first one, then remove the N-filter, prime the shell, texture the shell, top coat the texture, and prime again before I hit it with a number of coats of Satin Black. First order of business I think though, is to mount the shell to the mobo and, well, everything ELSE to the mobo.

Stay Tuned!
#4796958
Thank you Craig, that is very humbling. Hopefully I wont let you down ;-)
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