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Building a Nick-A-Tron pack **PACK COMPLETE!**

Posted: March 2nd, 2013, 2:40 pm
by Alan Hawkins
So a friend has commissioned me to build his pack for him. I have really loved the shell that Nick made and when a kit with bumper and a thrower kit came up I suggested it.

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I was lucky enough to snag him the Largis Elbows from ramcuda's good karma thread (I passed them along for free and paid the shipping myself) and a ribbon cable from Nboucher2392. One of gEkX's full pack bolt kits and a LC-2 Alice frame round out the collection so far -

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The only downside is that UPS did us no favors when they shipped it -

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So this will be my first task, undoing the damage on the bottom. I told my friend I would make a build thread so he could watch the progress of his pack. He is also on the list for a Mighty light and sound kit. My goal is to have this done by Wizards World in August for him.

More to come.

PS - I am not taking commissions to build packs. This is a special deal for a local buddy. If you want someone to build you a REALLY nice pack please refer to this thread - http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... 31&t=31764:)

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: March 2nd, 2013, 2:48 pm
by Jonobiwan
Looking forward to seeing this being built :)

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: March 2nd, 2013, 3:18 pm
by nick-a-tron
Will be watching this thread! If you want one of my new, more accurate vac hose tube/plates free of charge just shoot me your address :)

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: March 2nd, 2013, 3:59 pm
by joviaaldreetje
I will be watching this thread, as a guide for building my own nick pack.. Good luck

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Ghostbusters Fans on Android

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: March 2nd, 2013, 4:23 pm
by Alan Hawkins
nick-a-tron wrote:Will be watching this thread! If you want one of my new, more accurate vac hose tube/plates free of charge just shoot me your address :)
That would be AWESOME Nick! I'll pm you.

PS - This shell is just great!

Sent from my DROID X2 using Ghostbusters Fans on Android

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: March 3rd, 2013, 6:23 am
by Darranged
Nice start so far bud. I'm also building from a Nick pack, so consider me subscribed. Love the shell so far.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: March 3rd, 2013, 10:28 am
by Kingpin
I shall be viewing this with great interest. Given the style of straps on the A.L.I.C.E. frame, I assume your friend is going to have a Ghostbusters II style Proton Pack?

Goodluck with the project, especially with repairing the UPS damage.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: March 3rd, 2013, 12:01 pm
by gEkX
I worked at UPS for many years and I can say this, Half the guys in the hub could break a bowling ball.. seriously the handling procedures there are a joke and your never moving fast enough for management.

I guess that's why they pay millions every year in compensation for damaged packages.

Good luck with the build, and if you guys need anything else from me just let me know.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: March 3rd, 2013, 6:49 pm
by Alan Hawkins
Kingpin wrote:I shall be viewing this with great interest. Given the style of straps on the A.L.I.C.E. frame, I assume your friend is going to have a Ghostbusters II style Proton Pack?

Goodluck with the project, especially with repairing the UPS damage.
Yep, GB2 but with a special request of a gray crank knob. He scored the LC2 on eBay for $26 shipped.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Ghostbusters Fans on Android

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: March 3rd, 2013, 8:47 pm
by lunchbox739
best of luck with this Nick does great work.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: April 17th, 2013, 10:08 am
by Alan Hawkins
As I wait for spring to arrive is Chicago so I can repair the shipping damage on the shell, I decided to do some prep work on it today. I know the original owner of the shell is a member of our community and I just want to get this out there first. You're going to see me undoing the work you did on this shell. This is not a statement in anyway about your work. I simply want to start this build with a shell that is as close as I can get to what Nick would send me. I hope that makes sense.

First off, cleaning the N-Filter up -

Before -

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After -

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Ion Arm (I forgot to take a before image)

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Next up I went over the whole shell to identify any spots I want to smooth out or fill.

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Now if Chicago can get some warm weather.... Yeesh.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: April 17th, 2013, 10:23 am
by nick-a-tron
Looking good! Im sure this is going to be a fantastic pack when finished :D

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: May 1st, 2013, 11:19 am
by Alan Hawkins
It's 80 degrees today and it won't be this warm again for over a week. So I bit the bullet and got some chop matt to fix this shell. Otherwise I am playing the waiting game again. And frankly, I'm over that. Here you see the small rectangles of chop matt I will use to make my patch. Using a technique Proton Charger taught me, I cut small rectangles and glued them in place with spray glue.

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Only the center section is busted, but I want this to be strong so I did the whole bottom. I also did the center of the Cyclotron and am TOTALLY redoing the Power Cell window. I had another plan for it that was MUCH more complicated. This will save me a lot of work and be more screen accurate when I am done.

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More to come! Thank goodness it's finally warm in Chicago!

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: May 2nd, 2013, 1:12 am
by Martinus
Watching this one with interest.

Nick's work is excellent. :)

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: May 7th, 2013, 10:56 am
by Alan Hawkins
Made great progress with the body work (will post pictures later) this morning I laid out the N filter holes and went to drill them out and half of them shattered. Looks like I will be splicing in a new one... Sad face.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: June 6th, 2013, 4:24 pm
by Alan Hawkins
Update! I managed to fix the N-Filter with a lot of Milputt and a lot of very slow drilling. Now just mounting the various greebles before I paint.

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Injector tubes are next!

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: June 6th, 2013, 8:36 pm
by giric thren
Amazing work, I will be sure to keep an eye on this.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: June 14th, 2013, 6:20 pm
by Alan Hawkins
Thanks!

OK, so a pretty big update here -

Made the Injector tubes
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Mounted the motherboard to the shell -
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Then mounted it to the Alice Frame -

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Then moved on to paint -

(Plastikote T8 is AWESOME btw)
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BLACK!!

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And where it stands now with some of the parts on it -
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Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: June 14th, 2013, 6:24 pm
by Vee
My goodness, Alan. This is looking really great! Are you gonna weather it yourself a little or let your buddy do it on his own?

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: June 14th, 2013, 7:07 pm
by Alan Hawkins
Nonagon wrote:My goodness, Alan. This is looking really great! Are you gonna weather it yourself a little or let your buddy do it on his own?

I'm more of a fan of letting them get messed up and dirty on their own.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: June 14th, 2013, 7:14 pm
by Alan Hawkins
And thank you!

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: June 15th, 2013, 2:24 am
by nick-a-tron
Looks great! You done ma shell proud :)

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: June 19th, 2013, 7:47 pm
by Alan Hawkins
nick-a-tron wrote:Looks great! You done ma shell proud :)
YAY!

Some more updates -

Added more greebles to the shell. The bumper and Clippard are just sitting for now until I get the light kit from the guy I'm building this for.

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Thrower time! I looked through the forum and could not find a good build thread. That and the fact that the previous owner of the kit had already done some work left me scratching my head looking for the best way to build it. Here is what I came up with over the last two days.

Made a port so that the wires can pass though -
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Then sanded down a section for the front handle -
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Front handle fits, just need to saw it down by about 3" (blech!) -
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Did the same for the tube that goes in the front handle -
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Fits great!
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Nice and level. Handles are attached!
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Added the welds (I sanded them down a bit -
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More greebles attached. This thing is a BEAST! -
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Almost there. Now just need the light kit so I can figure out how best to do the gun ears and the tip.
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Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: July 3rd, 2013, 9:17 am
by Alan Hawkins
The pack is coming along nicely and I expect it to be done for my buddy for Wizards World without a problem. I added some copper paint to the bellows since I think it's a nicer look -

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Got the aluminum labels from Joe Luna which look AWESOME!

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Everything was going swimmingly until I got the bar graph for the thrower and found that the last owner had cut the window JUST A BIT TOO BIG...

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So I made a frame for it -

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Just need to dab a bit of bondo top and bottom -

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Honestly, this thing is a BEAST! Makes me want to redo mine...

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More to come.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: July 3rd, 2013, 9:36 am
by Durstlimpbizkit
Nice work! I'm wondering if I should paint my handles brown first on my TC thrower and then come back with the black paint afterward.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: July 4th, 2013, 2:32 pm
by KyleS
Durstlimpbizkit wrote:Nice work! I'm wondering if I should paint my handles brown first on my TC thrower and then come back with the black paint afterward.
I really like the look of weathered black painted brown grips, so I'll be doing that to my TC kit for sure!

This build is looking great, keep it up! It's really inspiring to see you working out all those problems.

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: July 9th, 2013, 7:47 pm
by Alan Hawkins
Time for an update!

This pack will have the Mighty kit in it. Sadly I had suggested to my friend before the whole deal went south. My hope is that GhostGuy will square up with everyone he still owes. But in this thread you will see me installing it. I already have some gripes about the battery he suggested. But we will get to that later.

I made a mount for the vibrating motor out of a 1" PVC fitting that holds it in place and its mounted right under the rear handle so it transfers the vibration well.

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Painted the thrower silver (Not the handles, so those can be weathered.)

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Now black -

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And a fine steel brush and some Turtle Wax -

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Painted some greebles while I was at it.

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One of Nick's great cast Clippards -

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And now getting the motherboard set up. Sadly, I didn't take notice that GhostGuy had suggested two 6" speakers. When you combine those with the battery he suggested suddenly there is not any room left in the shell for anything else. My own pack runs a 4" and a 3 1/2" on the GBfans sound board and is PLENTY loud. I digress... First I set up my speaker grill template in photoshop.

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Then drilled that out -

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Until I got this set up -

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The amp and the battery I decided (reluctantly) to mount on the back of the motherboard. It's not ideal but after reading about these batteries and how they can catch fire I would prefer my buddy not charge it in the house. So now its set up where he can grab it and charge it in a safe place.

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More to come...

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: July 10th, 2013, 11:17 am
by nick-a-tron
This is looking really nice!

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: July 10th, 2013, 12:33 pm
by wardarkfox
Looking awesome man!

Soon I will have to deal with the mighty issue of fitting things in the pack. Hopefully picking my own speakers and power source will pay off...

Re: Building a Nick-A-Tron pack

Posted: July 10th, 2013, 12:50 pm
by Alan Hawkins
Trust me it will. Think small...