View new posts | View your posts Constructing the E-Ticket Fiberglass Shell, MOLD COMPLETE!!!

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Hey there everyone! My name is Eric and I have been working on a new proton pack wooden master buck for about the last 3 months, or so. I also used to sing and play bass in a pop/punk band called The Adorkables, but that's beside the point...

Anyway, this whole project started with me drooling over finished packs on Ebay. Then, realizing that I could never afford to shell out upwards of $3000 for a finished pack, my in-laws suggested that I "just build my own." It all sounded WAY too imposing to actually happen, so I kind of brushed the suggestion aside... at first. Then, it started to gnaw at me, and I decided to actually do some research as to what it would take to actually make it happen. That's when I found gbfans.com and was introduced to the idea that it might actually be something I could pull off!

Being a plumber/pipefitter by trade, I have been known to be handy with a tool or two in my time, but never really anything that would apply to building a proton pack... After spending countless hours doing research and asking other members for input, I decided on using Stefan's plans to build a wooden master buck, and do the whole Vincenzo330 method (as seen in his masterful thread http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24754) of manufacturing a silicone mold to make fiberglass shells, just like the ones used in the movies! Sounds easy, right? Yeah... well, turns out it's not. If it was easy there'd be old women and children doing it!

I decided that I wasn't going to go out and spend a bunch of money where I didn't need to, so I thought it would be easiest to construct my buck out of wood because it's cheap... and it's something I've worked with before. Understandable, right? So, off to Home Depot I went, and I began to stock up on their cull wood (leftover wood that's already been cut for other projects, and sells for between $1 and $5 per piece, depending on the size). Overall, I would say that I've spent a total of under $20 on the actual wood. We're off to a good start!

Here's my garage work station. Small and quaint, but suitable.



As I got into actually constructing the project I was way too excited to stop and actually take any pictures of the progress. So today, when I finally finished the filling and sanding process on all of the individual pieces of the buck, I decided it was basically now or never as far as any progress pictures were concerned. So, let's get started:

The first piece that I began work on was the gearbox. I basically just made a hollow rectangle box and built up the two raised portions on the front with more pieces of wood, filed all of the edges, and bada-bing, here's what I ended up with!



Actually, there was a little more to it than that, but I think you kind of get the idea. Anyway, it felt amazing to think that I had made an actual piece that looked like an actual part of a proton pack! YAY!

Next I moved onto the EDA and PPD assembly. This was basically made in the same way, as were most pieces of my buck. Here's the front view:



and then from the back:



I had kind of a hard time trying to figure out a way to get that nice rounded seat for the EDA to sit in, but what I ended up doing was taking two 1" PVC couplings, gluing them together, sanding the stop out of the middle of the coupling, and then heating the piece up with a soldering tourch until it was plyable enough to form around an actual EDA, and letting it cool like that. Worked like a charm!



Then I started work on the gunmount.



Then, it was onto the power cell.



As I've seen in a few threads, and in numerous reference pics, I added a slight angle to the top of the power cell, as can be seen here:



and here:



In order to get that angle and still hold up to Stefan's overall measurements of the power cell I had to end up filing down part of the top section of the power cell, as can be seen here:



From there I moved onto the spacer. I made that by gluing together a bunch of layers of wood, laying out the spacer on the top piece and very tediously cutting it out on my table saw and my mitre saw. I basically did the cyclotron the same way. I drew a circle with my compass and had to figure out a method to lay out all of the angles where the plates go along the outside of the spacer. It took me 2 tries, but I think it turned out very nicely. It took me a full day to fix my first failed attempt, where I mistakenly layed out the plates as being directly on both the left and right side, instead of being between two plates on each side of the spacer, where the bumper attaches, but what can you do?

For the cyclotron I glued a bunch of pieces of wood together, drew my circle with my compass, and started to cut the circle out by using my mitre saw. Easy? No. Meticulous? YES! After I finished cutting it out, only a little sanding was required, and it's now a perfect circle!









Then, last but not least, I started on the cosmetic plating! I made pretty quick work of that, then it was on to the filling and sanding stage. Since I used wood (mostly plywood with a nicer finish on it) I decided to just give the whole buck a shot of wood filler and sand it down to smooth, just like it sits right now. Each piece is still individually on their own, until next week, when I begin to marry them together and fill the gaps to turn it into what will be the final buck. I'm going to do the rounded angles between pieces, where applicable, much like bigi71 in his 2nd build thread. (http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21988)

Anyway, here are all the pieces of the buck laid out on my MMM motherboard, just so you can see how they fit on the board:







And, here are some shots of the whole thing put together, finally!





And, last but not least :



And... finally:



I know the cyclotron rings aren't right, but I just wanted to throw some that I had on there so I could see what it was going to look like. Oh, and I still have to attach the n-filter and finish that up.

I'm happy with how it lies right now, aside from the filling and sanding between pieces that still needs to be done, but I'm also open to any suggestion for improvements or additions as well. Since I plan on making these shells available for sale I wanted the community to have as much input on what they wanted to see in a new shell as possible. Thanks for your time guys, and I hope you're as excited about this as I am!

Awesome work so far!

-Mark

Damn. Someone got an A in wood shop! Looking good!

Very nice!

Looking good so far Eric. You should also pay close attention to bigi71's build to fill in the blanks as to the changes since Stefan's plans were originally made

That's what I was trying to do - from memory... so since you mentioned it, I'm reading back through the thread right now

Also, thanks guys! This whole process has been a blast so far! Also, I forgot to mention that most of the detail work I accomplished is thanks to a set of $10 files from Home Depot that I bought especially for this project. They have a lifetime warranty. I've had to exchange them for new ones twice now...

that's just too pretty! i made a pack out of half inch plywood that didnt come out near as beautiful as that!

Okay, so far I'm noticing a few things where I differ from bigi71's build, which are all reasonably easy to fix.

First, I see there's supposed to be an angle on the front left corner of the EDA box, like this?



Next, is there really an angle to the top of the Gunmount box like this?



I thought I noticed something like that on the lobby pack, but wasn't sure if it was a camera trick, or what, since I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere else.

So far, the biggest difference I see is with the fins on the power cell. Bigi71 left his top fin at a 90 degree angle and then angled the rest of the fins slightly down, like this:



That gives the desired effect that I ended up with, making the top look like it has an angle, but leaves the base of the power cell at an angle as well, making it difficult for someone trying to attach their filler tubes and get a perfect 90 degree angle on them.

On mine, however, I left the fins on the side at a 90 degree angle, except for the top one, which angles slightly up, like this:



This method leaves the bottom of the power cell at a 90 degree angle, where it can easily mate up with the side of the PPD body, and also makes it easier on someone installing their injectors with a top plate to get them at the proper 90 degree angle. What do you guys think?

Yeah, the bottom of the powercell is angled, that's why a shim is needed before installing the injector tubes.

By the way, this is looking awesome so far!

That's actually what about 95% of this is! The rest is some sort of 3/16 composite board stuff from Home Depot. It looks kinda like the nicer plywood, and once you get through the outer layer it can be pretty easily filed down into submission

Great stuff man!

That is some nice work!

Brings back a loooooooooooot of memories.

What have I been working on this week, you ask? Well, here's the lowdown:

I started out the week by cutting the piece of plywood my buck will be married to for the remainder of its life. I then traced the outline of my MMM motherboard onto the plywood and laid all of my pieces inside the lines to start the process of making several pieces into one.

First, based upon the feedback I got in this thread, I decided to go back and upgrade a few pieces. I started with the power cell.

As you hopefully remember, when I first built the box for my power cell I had the bottom at a flat 90 degree angle, and the top was at about an 1/8" pitch, like I thought I'd seen in a few reference photos. Well, turns out the top is actually at the 90 degree angle, and the bottom is the part with the pitch to it. The fins on the side also match the angle of the bottom pitch. So, I set out to fix it and make it right.

I ended up taking all of the fins off, adding a little bit to the top and bottom of the power cell to even the overall measurement back out, cutting my angle on the bottom, and re-attaching the fins.

Here's what it used to look like:


And, here's what it looks like now:

Much better!

Next, I added the small bevel onto the left hand side of the EDA box. While I was there, I also added the rounded edge that connects the EDA to the PPD.

Here's what it looks like now:


Next, I started slapping pieces together, filling gaps, and sanding like a madman!

I decided to round out the inside corners on the body of the gearbox, where the vaccuum tube connects, and round out basically where every piece comes together:






Cool "Star Wars-ish" shot of the beveled edges between the gunmount and gearbox:




Here is where I ended the day. Just started filling:


While I was waiting on some wood filler to dry I also drilled some reference holes for a few items, like the crank knob, Clippard valve, and the vaccuum tube.

While I was fixing things, I noticed that the edge part of my spacer didn't come out far enough, so I cut, glued, and added a couple of pieces to extend it out closer to the edge of the motherboard.

Here's what it looks like now:


So, now I basically have the top 1/2 of the buck done! Here's what it looks like all together:


For most of the day today I was on the phone calling suppliers and trying to get my silicone and fiberglass materials ordered. When I got tired of doing that, I decided to go out and get my cyclotron rings figured out.

I knew I was going to go with a more accurate dimension than on Stefan's original plans, so after looking around on the board for those correct dimensions, I came up with the final numbers of:

2 /38" OD x 1 1/4 ID and
2 1/4" OD x 1 1/4" ID

Okay, so I'll just go run out and grab those at the first plumbing supply shop I find, right? Wrong! Turns out they don't make 2 3/8" OD washers with an ID of 1 1/4". The closest they make is 2 1/2 OD, which means that I would have to have them trimmed down somehow. So, now what? Well, the guys at the 2nd place I went to told me to go over to a close by machine shop and ask them to cut the OD 2 1/2" washers I bought down to the more desireable 2 3/8". No problem. That'll be cheap, right? YOU WANT $50 TO DO WHAT?!?! Okay,let me go home and think about this some more...

So, when I got home I remembered those washers I temporarily placed on my cyclotron for the picture in my first post. So, I measured those. Guess what?! They were 2 3/8" OD x 1 3/8" ID. I can work with that! So I grabbed my dremel and routed out the holes so they matched the steel ones I got at the store.

That's when I ran into a slightly different problem... The washers I made were only 1/16" thick. Okay, I had 4 of those, so I just doubled them up, glued them together, and tested out the height of my new stacked washers next to the store bought ones.

New problem: The store bought washers were still about 1/16th taller than my home made ones. That'll never do! So, I decided to take a popsicle stick (yes, I'm that high tech) and sand it down to the proper thickness, cut it into pieces, and glue them to the bottom of my home made washers to make up the difference. Worked like a charm!


Here they are laid on the cyclotron:


Still on the list of things to do:
- I still need to make a 3" n-filter, to replace the 2 3/4" one I made. Speaking of which, does anyone want to buy a not quite finished 2 3/4" ABS n-filter?
- Finish filling and sanding the bottom half of the buck.
- Make sure there are no gaps and seal around the bottom edge, where the buck meets the plywood base.
- Seal it all with some primer and sand it smooth!

I'm also planning on adding some hammered metal paint to the appropriate areas of the buck, so it'll be included in the mold. Thoughts?

Anyway, here's what I have finished, as of today:


Thanks for looking guys!

Lookin' good so far, E-Dub

Two small things:

First, this bevel should run all the way down the shell


And this angle needs to be a bit less pronounced


Like this!

This is all very impressive work Eric, another great scratch build to add to the Pack build topic that was recently created. Some lovely curve work going on there with the upper assembly.

nice wood work

Thanks guys! It's very flattering to hear genuinely positive things being said by people who's builds I've been so impressed with. I honestly do appreciate every word.

Decision making time! Okay, so I think I've decided to go with a 2 7/8" OD n-filter on the buck. I originally had a 2 3/4" OD one made up, but found out through asking around that the n-filters on the original packs were 3" OD. However, as most of you probably already know, when you go by Stefan's plans and use a 3" OD filter, you get the edge of your filter hanging over the edge of the spacer... which I don't like. Also, since I've heard tell that Stefan's plans are slightly undersized, it would make sense that if you went with the authentic 3" OD filter, you would have overhang issues. So, as a meet-in-the-middle sort of compromise, I made another filter that was 2 7/8" OD and fit it up to the buck. It looks bigger and better than the 2 3/4" OD one, but only has a minor ammount of overhang, therefore making it more astetically appealing in my eyes.

Blasphemy or innovation? You be the judge!

Okay, brief update today... I've spent most of the last couple of days on the phone trying to get my materials ordered for when I finally get around to pouring this baby, but I've still found a few hours here and there to sneek out to the garage to get some things done

First, let's leave off where we ended last time:


Here's the top corner between the gun mount and the gearbox all sanded down and pretty.

Next, I made an N-Filter. As you remember, I decided to go with a 2 7/8" OD filter. I think it fits very well, and isn't too big, or too small, but with just enough size to make it look right. Going with the slightly larger filter also gives it a bit of an overhang, but not enough to be really noticeable, or to look out of place. The outside edge of the filter wound up being completely flush with the outside of the plates around the spacer, which is nice It still needs to be attached, have the gaps filled, and have the fake weld added, but here's basically what it's going to look like:




Then, I ran into a problem.... Nobody mentioned it in this thread before, but I noticed it tonight, and I know it can't be right....

It looks as though I made my gun mount too high. I looked around at some other shells and I noticed that their gun mounts are cut down to around the same height as the gearbox, and the spacer between is set at a different elevation than I have mine... Not good!
Does anyone have any dimensions for this fix, or any reference pictures to go by, at the very least? I looked around, but didn't see anything like that. I know I'm not the first person to notice this minor flaw in Stefan's plans. I mean, the way it sits right now, you couldn't even get the vaccuum hose connected to the gearbox! I know that can't be right...

There are 2 step downs.

1) The upper half of the GearBox should be 1/8" taller than the lower half.

2) The Gunmount should be 1/8" lower than the lower half of the GearBox.

Like Pchrisbosh1 did... viewtopic.php?f=2&t=28742

Fantastic woodworking Eric, very clean and I hope your not feeling as much frustration with your build as I am right now with my build. . Getting measurements has been a pain for me as well since nothing is really consistent but I'll shed some light and hopefully help you out a bit with your problemo.

As Vince correctly mentioned above the gunmount box is about 1/8 shorter then the bottom crank gen box. Here's a closer photo to illustrate what I did with all three boxes.


On the screen packs the gunmount is roughly 4 inches tall and the bottom crank gen box is 4 1/8 inches tall. Hope that helps you out a bit your build is coming out great.

Yeah most of the pictures I have been looking at show the gun mount being around 4" although I had one
photo where all my reference points were matching up but the gun mouth was almost 4.5", and the exact same
pack in another picture was 4"! Gotta love trying to figure sizes and angles from old pics.

Looking great!

Alright, thanks for the info guys. Although, I wish I'd known that a few days ago, where it would've been easier to fix... but at least everything's not all in one piece and not a TOTAL nightmare to take back apart. I'll start pulling things back apart today and post more pics of the fixes when they're done

Oh, one more thing that didn't get answered: What are the fixed dimensions of the spacer part between the gearbox and the gun mount?

Glad to help the spacer inbetween the gunmount and spacer is 3/4 of an inch on the screen shells, a tad shorter then the 1inch that's in current plans.

Helpful, but what I was mainly asking about was the step down to the spacer from the gearbox

Oh I apologize I thought you were asking for the face width of the piece. That was a hard measurement to get right I went with 3 3/16 tall for the spacer and it's as close as I could get that's going with the measurements I gave you for the bottom crankgen box and gunmount height. You could go with a nice even 3 1/4 and still be pretty good. I wouldn't go any higher or lower then those two measurements though.

edit. To answer your question more precisely, once again using the measurements I gave you for the bottom crankgen box the step would roughly be about 1inch down for the surface level of the box.

Just so I don't have any more suprises, and while I still have everything torn apart, are there any other measurements that have been revised since Stefan's plans or are more accurate to the screen used packs that I might not know about?

Alright... About a month and a half of re-work done. Buck is now primered and ready for texture. I'll post more pics and a full update on what I've been up to as soon as I can