- August 6th, 2016, 12:03 am#4875757
Hello all! It's so weird to me that this community is so warm and welcoming. It's rare on the internet, but you guys are awesome! Beyond the pleasantries, a few months ago, I got to wondering: what does a proton pack cost? I was born in 85 and, as a result, loved Ghostbusters. I got the proton pack and ghost trap toys as a kid. I loved them. They were fun and cool. A few years back, I went to a wedding that had a Halloween theme. The groom was dressed up as a Ghostbuster. He had the whole 9 yards. EVERY man in that room was jealous. So to a few months ago- what would a proton pack cost? I found that many people actually *build* their own stuff. You can get the good stuff, but I'm not exactly the richest person on the planet, so building would be better. I have a bit of model building skills, so this would put me up to the task of scratch building stuff. So I decided: I'm going to do this. PERIOD.
I have the uniform (mostly) complete. And yes, before anyone asks, I did change the position of the hose (pee tube) connector (what was I thinking?).
The uniform, patches, belt, etc., were from the gbfans store. I found the boots at a local antique mall. They're not 100% accurate as they don't have the zipper sides, but they're Carolina and they fit. I'm usually a stickler for details, but these will do for now. The only problem I have is with the pockets on the flight suit: I think that I'm going to cut them off to make them more comfortable while tucked in my boots.
I also wanted to get a shot of me with my original Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man that I've had since I can remember:
Beyond the suit, I wanted a proton pack! I decided that the fiberglass and aluminum parts weren't for me as this time. I wanted to utilize stuff that I had and stuff that's easy to work with. I decided that wood, PVC pipe, and styrene sheets were going to be the main stuff I would use (outside of resin parts and other stuff like tubing). So I got started. The power cell was my favorite part of the pack, so I wanted to start that first. Here it is in the early stages:
Box somewhat built and pipes cut to length. I didn't compensate for the extra piece of styrene for the caps, but...
Here are the two parts all painted up and ready to go:
A few things: I utilized hot glue as a "weld joint". I also used thin sheet styrene as a covering for the power cell to give it a cleaner look. A few problems: "Goop" glue, to my horror, actually melted the styrene, and can be seen in some of the pictures. It's not *bad*, but it really did anger me. But- "nothing ventured, nothing gained". Also, my clear blue acrylic paint peeled! It didn't do that the first time I removed the mask, but it did the second time. For those of you familiar with airbrushing you'll know that just re-coating it doesn't make it go away. We'll see after I get lights installed as to whether or not I'll have to strip and repaint.
Moving on, I think that the people at Kinkos thought that I was messing with them. They didn't print the motherboard and cyclotron motor blueprints very well. But this was the result of printing and cutting:
Oh, and my uncle got a good shot at the Ecto-1 (-A?) in California!
Moving on, the ion arm was next. This was two wood pieces, sandwiched with thin styrene. I got the resistors from eBay. This was for two reasons: 1. the real stuff is expensive, and 2. I would rather have the people building the really good stuff get the original stuff than me. It still needs some parts, but here it is:
Here's my current progress:
I committed a cardinal sin here: I was trying to fit parts around a motherboard when I should have cut the motherboard around the parts. Oh well- I'll get the stuff build and cut my motherboard around them. It will probably work out better in the long run since I'm only 5'6" and it'll look better on me.
I have the uniform (mostly) complete. And yes, before anyone asks, I did change the position of the hose (pee tube) connector (what was I thinking?).
The uniform, patches, belt, etc., were from the gbfans store. I found the boots at a local antique mall. They're not 100% accurate as they don't have the zipper sides, but they're Carolina and they fit. I'm usually a stickler for details, but these will do for now. The only problem I have is with the pockets on the flight suit: I think that I'm going to cut them off to make them more comfortable while tucked in my boots.
I also wanted to get a shot of me with my original Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man that I've had since I can remember:
Beyond the suit, I wanted a proton pack! I decided that the fiberglass and aluminum parts weren't for me as this time. I wanted to utilize stuff that I had and stuff that's easy to work with. I decided that wood, PVC pipe, and styrene sheets were going to be the main stuff I would use (outside of resin parts and other stuff like tubing). So I got started. The power cell was my favorite part of the pack, so I wanted to start that first. Here it is in the early stages:
Box somewhat built and pipes cut to length. I didn't compensate for the extra piece of styrene for the caps, but...
Here are the two parts all painted up and ready to go:
A few things: I utilized hot glue as a "weld joint". I also used thin sheet styrene as a covering for the power cell to give it a cleaner look. A few problems: "Goop" glue, to my horror, actually melted the styrene, and can be seen in some of the pictures. It's not *bad*, but it really did anger me. But- "nothing ventured, nothing gained". Also, my clear blue acrylic paint peeled! It didn't do that the first time I removed the mask, but it did the second time. For those of you familiar with airbrushing you'll know that just re-coating it doesn't make it go away. We'll see after I get lights installed as to whether or not I'll have to strip and repaint.
Moving on, I think that the people at Kinkos thought that I was messing with them. They didn't print the motherboard and cyclotron motor blueprints very well. But this was the result of printing and cutting:
Oh, and my uncle got a good shot at the Ecto-1 (-A?) in California!
Moving on, the ion arm was next. This was two wood pieces, sandwiched with thin styrene. I got the resistors from eBay. This was for two reasons: 1. the real stuff is expensive, and 2. I would rather have the people building the really good stuff get the original stuff than me. It still needs some parts, but here it is:
Here's my current progress:
I committed a cardinal sin here: I was trying to fit parts around a motherboard when I should have cut the motherboard around the parts. Oh well- I'll get the stuff build and cut my motherboard around them. It will probably work out better in the long run since I'm only 5'6" and it'll look better on me.
Last edited by Kingpin on September 28th, 2016, 5:09 am, edited 1 time in total.Reason: Added image coding