For users in: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, & West Virginia.
By Lexington Slime
#4817361
Hey I'm looking for any local guru's to bounce ideas and questions off of. I'll probably go foam first, I'm not sure.

Main goal- pack and thrower ready to go for LexiCon in March.
Hopes and Dreams- (highly unlikely because I have no idea how) lights, sounds, vibe
By LandoSystem
#4817414
Pack, shell, mobo, alice pack and most greeblies can be purchased from the gbfans shop when it reopens.

Pack lights, wand lights, rumble motor, battery and sound can also be purchased from there. The gbfans kits are the best I've used or seen used.

Best bet for a wand is throwing chicken. His kit is very sturdy and well made and comes with nearly everything you need for a finished wand.
By Lexington Slime
#4817417
So this is in fact the best, no shit, place for props? I'm home! I'm also thinking about doing a foam pack. Maybe a nice starter project.
By LandoSystem
#4817429
I've ordered things from different vendors and gbfans has always been the best quality with the fastest shipping.

A big part of my initial build was waiting for stuff to arrive from canada or wherever. It's excruciating. The gbfans shop is fast and reliable and sells high quality parts made by members of the community.

The light kits are simple plug & play and have really neat extra light effects. Spongeface also offers upgrades like color changing cyclotron lights, brighter wand tip lights and vent smoke/light support boards. There are other upgrades from other members that are primarily compatible with the gbfans boards.

I bought a budget wand kit for my initial build and it was ... not good. I had to clip and re-solder most if not all the leds, the help & support left a lot to be desired and it was a total pain to get it to fit. Without Tk-fett tackling it and posting pictures and videos I would have pitched it in the trash

The gbfans kit, on the other hand, took about 20 minutes to install, it worked flawlessly and it looks great.

The gbfans sound kit doesn't require an amp, which is a plus. The amp for my other kit was a little sketchy, drained the batteries like mad and wasn't as loud as the gbfans kit. It also died after only 2 years of intermittent use.

The throwing chicken wand is far and away the best kit available. It's very accurate and a nice, thick, strong resin cast offered at a bafflingly low price. If you were to buy all the "extra" parts he offers separately (clippard valve, barbs, tubing, banjos, heat sink, gun track, hat lights, accurate screws, grips) it would be about the cost if his entire kit. You can't beat it.
By tk-fett
#4817508
Holy cow, my posts actually helped you out Lando?

I found the Crix light and sound kits to be pretty simple once you figured out what parts of the sound board made what sounds. At the time it was the easiest kit for me because it required no solder work.

I hear nothing but good things about the GBfans shop and the sound and light kits found there. Like Lando said they are becoming the standard and people are making accessories and upgrades for them.

If you really want to be a buster by LexCon don't stress the small stuff. I still barely have anything hanging off my belt, no leg tube and missing the shock mount on my bumper but nobody ever notices. They just see another ghostbuster.

The WKGB's will be in full force at the con and we will be putting on the biggest show we can. We also have lots of members in Lexington if you ever need help on the build.


PS: Lando your Mando is an inspiration brother, I can't wait to see it's return.
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By travisccook
#4817516
Think Lando hit it all on the head! If you can swing the investment, a good shell will serve you very well for a long time. You can custom build something out of wood/foam/silly putty but it takes a lot of pre-existing skills to make it look good :). If your tight on money, though, there are a lot of budget/scratchbuilds on the forums to make every degree of pack imaginable. Read a lot of builds and find something your comfortable with. After having built two and a half of these things (one 'budget' build with foam and electrical boxes, one unfinished wood scratchbuild, and one fiberglass shell) I can't recommend the shell enough. Getting TC's gun kit first is a low-cost way to start building almost immediately (he ships pretty quick!) and allow the itch scratching to commence.

Best advice I can give someone is to find access to a drill press for the build (one of the little hand-drill jigs should suffice in a pinch!). It makes everything a little 'better' unless you have a supernatural ability to drill straight holes by hand (I had a supernatural force prevent me from drilling ANYTHING straight...).

I'm a little out of the area - up just northeast of Louisville - but happy to help if I can! I need to get in contact with the WKGBs myself - they seem to be knocking it out of the park :).
By LandoSystem
#4817633
tk-fett wrote:Holy cow, my posts actually helped you out Lando?

I found the Crix light and sound kits to be pretty simple once you figured out what parts of the sound board made what sounds. At the time it was the easiest kit for me because it required no solder work.

I hear nothing but good things about the GBfans shop and the sound and light kits found there. Like Lando said they are becoming the standard and people are making accessories and upgrades for them.

If you really want to be a buster by LexCon don't stress the small stuff. I still barely have anything hanging off my belt, no leg tube and missing the shock mount on my bumper but nobody ever notices. They just see another ghostbuster.

The WKGB's will be in full force at the con and we will be putting on the biggest show we can. We also have lots of members in Lexington if you ever need help on the build.


PS: Lando your Mando is an inspiration brother, I can't wait to see it's return.
Yeah man, you helped a lot. We were building our stuff at the same time and you were all over the Crix kits. I would have never thought to flip the positive and negative on those wand lights without your help and your posts about the sound board made installation easy.

Unfortunately my experience as a whole with that particular kit wasn't pleasant. Being a noob to the whole thing, that Crix was MIA at the time was frustrating and it was a little frightening to cut and re-solder those wand led's.
The gbfans kit, on the other hand, was just so easy. Spongeface is the nicest guy ever, the support is fantastic and I'm still discovering little extra tricks and effects.

How's your Mando coming? I really, really liked what I saw a while back. The color scheme was great and it had a top notch paint job too.
I think my Mando is retired, probably for good. Internal drama and frustration with the club... I'll probably be sticking exclusively with the loner hillbilly 'buster thing for a good long time. And I've finally talked the girlfriend into building a Ghostbuster. She's a magician with foam and she's mentioned building a pack out of it. I've been trying to get her to build custom gear or a slime blower but she ain't having it.

If you guys aren't aware of it, Jarrod and Brandon from LexCon have a new show called Geek Galaxy Comic Con in Evansville, IN the 15th & 16th of this month.
By Lewis Tully
#4823568
I am a member of the WKGB. Send us a message on Facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/TheRealWKGB

if you haven't already and we can talk. We will have a table at LexCon in March (with Ernie nearby, we hope.) We have several seasoned builders and would love the opportunity to talk more and help in any way we can with your uniform/ pack build. Looking forward to hearing from you!

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