View new posts | View your posts Bob's Prop Shop Shell

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VideoBob just decided that it was best for his business if he removed all the negative comments toward GBFans and myself. (Though he is still posting our copyrighted images without our consent.) I guess he had decided that if he wants to keep / attract customers he needs to make it look like he's not attacking GBFans and individuals. Probably a smart move.

I however am not going to shut up until Videobob stops recasting member's parts and selling them for his own profit. I'll address some of the things he said recently as they are relevant to this thread:



We GBFans are standing up against injustice. We are not here to bicker or slam people without reason. We are standing up against someone who took someone else's product... made an exact copy with no additional work done. And is now selling that product for profit. Removing money from this community that could be spent on other hard working individuals that make their items from scratch.

Of course Videobob wants it to stop. It only hurts his business, and his reputation. But when you recast, when you steal from another seller you are against this community... and as a community we need to stand up against this injustice until Videobob is stopped. We are not here to bicker. We are here to stop this and make sure everyone knows not to buy from Videobob.

And with that being said, he still misleading people into purchasing his shell. Its not anyone's fault for purchasing the shell by accident. Videobob deceived you into doing it.

Here is a direct quote from his post to TechDisaster:



Somehow we just skipped about 6 generations of recasts and went DIRECTLY to him claiming that the mold is the one they used to make the original Proton Packs. And that goes on with the claim that he somehow got a hold of the actual mold. No. He recast it from a Proton Pack shell he bought from someone and is selling copies of that to compete with that individual. (That other person also recast a shell.)



This is absolute bullshit. They are buying it because they are deceived into believing its the one that is seen in the film. Because its what Videobob tells them it is. They are buying it because its cheap and people don't understand any better (as evidenced by this thread, and recently in the chat room.)

And the fact that he uses this word usage:



"Production shell". He wants people to believe these are not only taken from the same mold as the real Proton Packs.... but were actually made for the production of the film. As if they are extras that Sony just had laying around.

With all the claims made by Videobob. I'm seriously surprised neither Universal or Sony have taken action against Videobob purely based on the claims he is making.

So what needs to happen? Videobob needs to change his wording and everything will be ok? No. Videobob has recast. He has stolen from members of this community and others. We will not, and should not rest until he is out of the Ghostbusters prop community for good. Once you recast, you are done for. When you recast, or support recasting through your purchasing.... you are showing a complete and utter disregard for this community, and any prop community or artist community.

And lets review this one last comment made by Videobob yesterday:



You sir are a Robin Hood!

Does he honestly think we booted him off of GBFans because we wanted the person he recast to make more money? No. The person he recasted the shell from has been banned from GBFans for several years now. He had absolutely no relationship to GBFans. You didn't break down any walls Videobob... you did not steal from the rich and give to the poor. You just stole.

What we have in bold is an admission to recasting. (As he has made several times prior.) That is the reason why he was banned from GBFans.... but lets not forget here. He was also banned from TheRPF for recasting, and numerous other sites. Its not just GBFans.

So what have you GBFans members? Do you want to stand up against this guy and his recast parts?

Here is what you can do:

-Find his auctions for his Pack shells. Report them to eBay as being a counterfeit item. After all... they are.
-If you purchased one. Leave Negative Feedback on eBay to prevent others from buying from him. If Videobob promises you special concessions to not leave negative feedback, do it anyways and report it to eBay (Feedback Extortion is against eBay's policy.) (But note.. do not buy the item specifically to leave negative feedback. That does not work.)
-If you received a shell, or haven't. File a PayPal dispute. Mark the item as not described and get your money back. (You will have to mail the shell back, as its the only way PayPal will allow... unless the item wasn't received.)

Everyone should do their part to make sure this thief does not get any more fan's hard earned money with his stolen product. We as a community should stand up against this... its not about money. Its about ethics and principle.... something Videobob lacks completely.

all of this is reasonable.

in fact i want to just say how easy it is for a seller to extort someone into giving them positive feed back, or harass them for positive feed back. i recently bought a horse bridle for a project im working on, and i received email to my personal email address not through ebay, telling me i have to leave positive feed back. that the seller does not recognize ebay or paypal receipts and in case my item was lost in the mail that he would not acknowledge either of those receipts but he most certainly will his own.

on that same token, while it's incredibly easy for them to poke and prod for positive feedback, you cannot leave any neutral feedback within the first couple of days of the auction. you have no choice but to leave positive. HOWEVER, you most certainly can report that seller and his store through the help/faq/search function on ebay. you may even call them and leave a report with an operator that will also walk you through a written report all you need is the item number or the seller id.

they dont want these scum bags selling on ebay, so they do everything they can to help any customer out. with enough warnings, things will escalate for these people making it even more difficult for them to sell on ebay in the future. if they think they can get around by making new accounts, you most certainly should call the ebay help line and talk with someone about it.

This from someone in the BTTF community, the most insular, backstabbing, misleading, info-hording group out there. You think GBFans is "bad"? Try asking for Delorean reference pictures or part numbers from somone in the "community" some time. Notice how Blob's own "store" doens't give any info on the actual parts, just offers cast copies with the minimum of description and no actual part numbers or info.

Uh oh......VB will now try to recast MMM's gun kit. That and VB does not have a gun kit to sell......yet.

Nah, the last part Bob bought from Colin he supposedly had to take to a sand blasting, so when we do eventually see the recast show up, it will for sure be a mangled version on Colin's beautiful kit, or a resin cast of a bunch of foam core thrown together with some hot glue welds...

you know, his customers expect the best....


On a side note, I'm pretty sure Nick, Colin and TC all have Bob on their respective DO NOT SELL TO lists, lol

I'm not surprised that Videobob is trying to twist this to make sound like I'm telling you all to buy his shells just to leave negative feedback. Why would I ever recommend putting money in the hands of Videobob just to go through the dispute process?

He is a piece of work. Here is the bolded excerpt from my text:



We are not here to bully or harass. We are here to stop a thief who continues to dodge the main issue of him recasting with smoke and mirrors. He wants a truce. What does that get us? He is still recasting... he just wants to be able to do it without issue.

I just read his forum post, and I can't stop laughing. The guy can't even make a decent prop replica for a proton pack using information that is widely available on how to do it, what makes him think he could cross reference our GB accounts to our eBay ones??

Ive been ebaying a long time, and if theres one thing I know, they want to make the seller happy and go above and beyond to do that, hence the feedback system. If you purchase from him expecting a production made shell cast off an original pack and receive less, then yes, you should follow all of AJ's steps as outlined, you will not get in shit with ebay as long as you state your case. Sure $50 bucks or more to ship the carcass (that's right I won't even call it a shell) back to him hurts, but so does negative feedback. He says he will do everything to make it right, but how could he? Does he have another shell he can recast? Probably not, so you will never ever receive what he has listed in his auction. So yes ebay will be on your side.

While he banks on the so called "history" or "provenance" of his pack, or saying its a capitalist venture and therefore he has every right to do what he wants while flogging an inferior product, the rest of the community is moving on, getting better accuracy and by far better shells, in the last few years we've seen a surge in amazing pack shells including the bigi shell and the new ZR3. The community never needed Bob, There is absolutely nothing Bob will ever create that will add to it, that has not been done before and a million times better!

And this is not war, and Im not a minion of anyone on this site, I am an independent member of this community that hates recasters. Ive boughten great parts from many of the guys who have been recast and it makes me cringe everytime.

If Bob truly wants that truce, he needs to garbage the mould for that dead carcass of a shell, start from scratch and develop his own, stop his petty bullshit of blaming AJ for everything and show us that he's actually capable of creating props that are worthy of all the hype and self inflated ego he creates. He will always be known for recasting, but at least this would show he is capable of redemption of some sort.

If he wanted a piece of the ghostbuster cake, this was the community he needed, its his own damn fault its also the same community he scorned.

I just reported the shell (without buying it). I said something along the lines of it being "not as described, embellishes authenticity of item." and so forth.

Seriously though, when you watch his video of him explaining how he "obtained" the shell you can tell he's making stuff up with all of his long pauses and overall sweaty awkwardness. I would say he's a bad con artist but people are still buying from him. To quote Phil Connors, "People are morons." or I guess sometimes just horrifically misinformed.

I knew when I purchased Bob's shell that I would have to do some clean up, and that some of the dimensions would not be square or standard. Bob promises that his shells are quality goods made with quality materials. They are absolutely not. Here are some issues with my pack:

The bottom of the Booster and EDA was terribly warped and con-caved. This might be from what Bob calls "an issue from the original pack." As well as being warped, the texture was incredibly rough, kind of like the square rib in pic 2. When I started sanding the bottom of the booster to smooth it out, it appeared that a bondo like material was flaking off and separating from the fiber glass. After a couple passes with the sander, I tore a hole right through. The underside was incredibly thin, and it appeared to me that someone had done a dismal job trying to patch it. I used masking tape to cover the tear, and then purchased resin expoxy and fill it in from the inside. After it was patched, I had to bondo the con-caved area to make it straight.

Pic 1.


Pic 2 shows one of the really rough square ribs. It is a bubbled mess. I haven't cleaned this one up yet. The welding on the N-Filter has chipped off in several places, and you can see where I have patched it a few times with bondo.

Pic 2.


Pic 3 shows what happens when I drilled between the ribs and the fiberglass shattered. Fortunately, the bumper will hide this. You can also see another hole on another rib.

Pic3.



Pic 4 really gives you an idea about how pitted and dented the pack is. The whole pack is full of holes along all the edges, and this has been where 99% of my work has been. A lot of these pits are between the ribs where it is really hard to fill and sand smooth.

Pic 4


The last two images give you and idea of what it is like to fit standard community parts to his pack. In the next pic, I have a MMM booster tube sitting on his EDA. His EDA is not at the same angle as Stephan's plans and left a huge gap. I would have to fix this by filling it in with a lot of bondo and putty.




The last picture shows a gap between his pack and a Nick-a-tron bumper. You can kind of get an idea of how much smaller his pack is.




As of this writing, I am looking for a new pack. I'm sending out some requests to sellers here and find out who has what available. The VideoBob pack is going in the garbage as soon as I purchase a new pack.*

*Edit for clarity.

Too bad there's no way to post all of that on Ebay's Feedback for him

when you do find a new pack, it's standard to smash a recasted item. which really sucks considering how much prop replicas are.

it might be a relief for you.

Well. At least you got that certificate of authenticity....

Forward that Certificate of Authenticity to Sony. I'm sure Sony won't like an unlicensed third party authenticating something that Sony did not endorse. Let's see what happens.....

As nice as it would be to see Sony shut Bob down, we really don't want to be making waves like that in the community. That could have effects on the legitimate GB replica part sellers, GBFans, etc.

It would be interesting to see this "certificate of authenticity"...

Its signed with crayons and you get two whole gold stars!

Wow, I know everyone was saying how bad the shell was, but that looks worse than I imagined. What a piece of junk!

Narcing to any studio is taboo in any prop replica community. It's almost as bad as recasting because it puts a bad mark on you and your integrity.

I thought bob had claimed improvements. Maybe the box squares were made more uniform? It doesn't look like any changes were made, and frankly worse than the descriptions I've read so far. I wonder how many of the imperfections were carried over from the bowelrock shell, but I read the one bob recast was already flawed.

So when's pchrisbosh1 gonna cast himself a shell and post in the FS section? Then this will all become a distant memory.

OK. OK. Just looking for a quick way to shut VB down. I guess we wait for VB to start selling complete proton packs on his own.

If he does cast the shell he purchased from bowelrock, he will be outed as a recaster the same way Videobob was. There would be absolutely no difference. The main difference is... Videobob recasts stuff because he can't make items from scratch... and pchrisbosh1 is an upstanding member of the community who does not, and would not recast.

(Though pchrisbosh1 has an awesome scratch built pack that would be great to cast and sell copies of. I just assumed you were talking about the pack he had gotten from bowelrock.)

The verbiage used:



Spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors are all Bob's.

I don't see any gold stars...

I see another admission to recasting.

And still using Sean Bishop's name, which he was asked not to do... unless I'm very much mistaken.

So he was told to stop name dropping Sean's name in his videos and on ebay, but apparently it's okay to put it on a "certificate" and send it to anybody who buys a shell??

I was speaking of his scratchbuild. It's an amazing preservation of original details and he said he would be posting a FS thread after he made himself a shell.

This certificate is from December 2011. I couldn't tell you if he has changed it.

VD Slob is an arrogant child. I'd wonder what his reaction would be if someone recast his props, or acquired one of his Deloreans and tried to sell it claiming it was their own build. It's capitalism in his twisted mind, right?

Then again, why would anyone want to recast VD Slob's proton pack parts? They look more like gall stones than an ion arm, or a PPD ...

He was told to stop long before then. I think back in September around the time he got banned. Although it doesn't surprise me he would still put his name on a certificate. Shame there has to be people like vb.

Many here have posted detailed, thought out, and coherent opinions that are very hard to to argue against- any rational person, when presented with both sides, would not. Although I agree 100% with AJ and the rest of the ''prop mafia'' I find their.statements rather long. So here is my boiled down, to the point, version-
VIDYUH BUB IS A SCUMBAG RECASTER P.O.S.!