#4899550
Batfly wrote:
Venkman's Swagger wrote:Amazing work again dude!

Dat sub tho.......... it's bigger than the boot in my R53 Mini [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

Thanks! Yeah, that's a hand made sub enclosure at 4.7 cu ft tuned to 27 hz. It's 36" wide, 18" tall, and 16" deep using 3/4" mdf. It's my first 15" woofer. Always had 12"ers previously. I hear low notes in songs now I've never heard before and with authority! I could never go back lol.
That's some serious spec dude. Fair play!!
#4899751
Oh man, I'm so behind on posts. Worked a bunch on the pack over a three day weekend and haven't posted any of it. So, let's start on Friday the 13th.

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One of the n-filter screw holes stripped so I decided to remake one. I was going to make another hole anyway for the vent light so it works out. I wanted more material there for more threads since this point pulls it flush to the synchronous. I cut a new piece out, glued it on and set it aside.

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Before removing the tape that was holding the reflectors bracket risers, I traced their positions. Removed the tape and risers and drilled them out, tapped, and glued them in place.

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I cut out the powercell lens retention rails and drilled them. Held them in place and transferred the hole positions to the risers with a bit.

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I wrapped some aluminium tape around the bit for a depth guide, drilled the risers, and tapped them. Man, I say that a lot: drilled and tapped. Widened the holes on the rails and test fitted them successfully.

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While I had the bit out, I widened the reflector bracket and screwed it down into the risers I glued in earlier. Yay it all lines up.

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I screwed the power cell board into the lens and inserted it in place. Then I placed the rails with the screws in them already on the risers under the board. I had the screws sticking out the undersides a tiny bit to aid in finding the riser holes. Then screwed them down. I tried putting the rails in first before the board, but the nylon standoffs were being a pain. The rails in last was a littler cumbersome, but not too bad.

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I removed the front injector tube screw and cut it down with as hack saw blade. It was hitting the board. Now its all clear.

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I drilled and tapped the n-filter and screwed it down. Test fitted the vent LED. All good

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I removed the black caps off the reflectors. Then measured the inside diameter of the back of the flectors. I scribbed four circles in some styrene with the calipers using half the diameter (radius). Then I scored the circles a few times with a blade and "snapped" them out. In reality it was more liked ripping them out due to their small size lol. Widdled the flashing and cleaned them up a bit. They didn't need to be perfect, just to fit in the lens recesses. Which they did.

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I drilled holes in each disc and then cut out slots from the center to the side. Put the bit in a drill and moved the center out some. Otherwise the LEDs would not be center. Took the reflector caps and drilled out the backinga and fed the LEDs through the holes and center posts in the caps. I wedged the LED wires in the slotted discs and their shrink wrap held them snuggly in place. Upon test fitting, the caps wouldn't screw all the way down. So I removed everything and cut the center post down. Then it all fit.

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I drilled out some "T- channels" for the cyclotron ribbon cable. Worked great.

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Lastly, I placed a ruler across the bottom edges of the synchronous and measured the distance from the caps to the bottom of the shell. This was for speaker fitting reference.

That was all as we had a Windy City Ghostbusters event to go to at Hell's Gate haunted house.

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After which we took some cool group photos which I need to Photoshop streams onto.

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And then some of my lady and I.

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We're ready to believe you!

Stay tuned for more.
twmedford23 liked this
#4899779
Saturday, October 14th, was Alice pack frame day. Here we go.

I read many a post of people's vertical bar on their newer Alice pack frames braking or just being flimsy. I figured it'd be a good idea to go ahead and replace that from the get go.

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Using my metal file, I started to go at the muddle cross member rivet. About half way through I thought, "what the hell am I doing?". I have a handheld power dry demon cat tongue paper wearer downer. So I grabbed that and things went faster. Wore down both rivets.

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The cross member rivet came out easy with some pressure separating the bars apart. The second rivet I had to poke through. I used the end of the metal file and hit it with a rubber mallet. It didn't like that and got the hell out of there.

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Drilled out the top rivet. Sucks this is 1/4" off center. I'll make it work. We have the tools. We have the talent. The holes were tight on the rivets so I bored them out to a proper 3/16".

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I used my vice, a rubber mallet, and a big a$$ drill bit and bent the aluminium bar with a ton off whacks. I checked its curvature to the top Alice bar periodically throughout bending. This took a lot more effort than I had thought it would. Provably mostly due to me not having a proper work bench to secure to vice to. I just kind of held it with one hands and my feet. In only socks no less lol. Whatever, I got it done

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I then put the slight bend in the upper portion of the bar by hand using the old one for reference. I lined them up together and traced where the old bar ended onto the aluminium. I then cut it with a hack saw blade.

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I hooked the bar onto the top of the frame and tucked the bottom into position. Then I lined it up on the to the unpainted area left by the old bar. Drilled the center hole using the existing horizontal brace hole. I placed a rivet in the hole to keep its positron while drilling the bottom out.

The rivets I had that came with the rivet gun were only 1/4" long. That only left 1/16" of rivet material to secure it. So I decided to counter sink flanges of the middle and top rivets.

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I used clamps to hold the bar down tight and popped those rivets, pop popped those rivets.

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Since the rivets were so short I just used a 1/4-20 screw and nut for the bottom hole. Not screen accurate whatever I know. I dare someone to notice while I'm wearing it!

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In my excited haste I had forgotten to trim the excess aluminum at the top part the wrapped curve. I did so with the hack saw blade and filed down the sharp edges.

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Stephan Otto's plans had the measurements for the bottom two mount holes based off the synchronous and cyclotron center point. So I reattached the shell onto the mother board, screws and all, and traced between the cosmetic plates that are around the center on both sides. Removed the shell and marked center of the traced lines. Then I connected the markings using leftover aluminium stock as a straight edge. I measured and marked the center of this line.

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I found center of the bottom synchronous nub plate and marked it. I then lined up the aluminum stock with both center marks and drew a vertical center line across the whole length of the motherboard.

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Next I made marks 1/2" out from the vertical line at two different locations. Then I connected said markings. I "wrapped" the markings around to the opposite side of the motherboard. This is so I can line up the center Alice pack bar.

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Using Stephan's plans I measured the locations for the mount hole centers. I lined up the Alice pack to the center brace lines and transferred the mount hole horizontal locations to the bottom Alice plate. I used a washer to make sure I didn't mark too low and made a few marks on the mounting plate. I chose the top mark I made and in hind sight should have chosen the middle marking. It still worked out (spoiler lol) but had a little difficulty getting mounting screws past the v bar support thingy.

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I transferred the location to the other side of the plate, made a pilot dimple, and drilled the holes.

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Did the same for the corresponding motherboard holes.

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I lined up the vertical center bar to the motherboard (looks offset due to offset top rivet from manufacturer defect/neglect) and drilled a pilot hole through the aluminium and motherboard at the same time. Then drilled each out separately.

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I put the Alice frame and motherboard together with 1/4-20 2" screws and nylon lock nuts.

And that's it for Saturday!
#4899784
I suggest that this build thread be stickied. There is enough reference material in here to help any pack builder, not just those that build theirs from scratch using styrene.
twmedford23, nastynoah liked this
#4899786
TK5759 wrote:I suggest that this build thread be stickied. There is enough reference material in here to help any pack builder, not just those that build theirs from scratch using styrene.
Holy crap that's a huge compliment. Thanks! I'm just being really thorough and documenting my thought process. Glad that's helpful.
#4899835
Sunday, October 15th, I started by figuring out the pack electrical and speaker situation.

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Trying to settle on its location, I placed the soundboard all around like a teenage orphan. I had to find a spot easily accessible that was not hindering speaker placement or access to greeble mounting screws. I picked the outer ling straight side of the synchronous. I needed it to be a little lower for the cable connector to clear. So I used a scrap piece of 1" aluminum stock and traced its 1" height onto the synchronous side braces to allow a lower board height. I scored then on these marks and broke them off with pliers.

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I cut out a shelf about a half inch longer and wider than the soundboard from some styrene. Cut the original volume potentiometer from the board with some tin snips. Held the board to the shelf and marked the centers of the four mounting holes onto the shelf. Then I drilled and tapped the holes. I removed a section on the front for access clearance to the lower clipboard valve base screw.

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I made a support post with its own support as well. Support-ception! Bwoooooown! Then glued it all in place. I waited 10 minutes for the glue to set some and then screwed the board down to it.

Then I went to Play It Again Sports and Lowe's to get...

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Hockey pucks for Alice frame spacers
Longer mounting screws for which the reason will be revealed later and,

dun dun dun...

A Dremel 3000 series. My hands have been killing me for far too long. A lot of simple things were just taking too long with to much manual effort so I gave in and bought a Dremel.


Next up was the speakers. I originally was going to use the 40 watt 8 ohm 4" (3.5" cone area) guy from the gbfans shop. It sounds decent enough but I wanted more low end. I have four 5.25" 4 ohm speakers laying around from when I replaced the car's sound system. These are low wattage at max 15-25 watts.

I hooked up the sound board to the blue brick battery to test the speakers wired in series. This sacrificed the highs a tiny bit but gained a lot on the low end. It's also louder by a large degree too to more cone surface area more efficient drivers, Hence their low wattage rating. These will be firing into my back through grills drilled out of the motherboard. So the highs will be beyond off axis and will still sound as decent as the other speaker.

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Using the new Dremel, I cut the integrated stock speaker risers/harnesses. This made the speakers 5 15/16" wide.

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I'm putting one speaker in the crank generator area with a littler overlap into the area behind the booster tube. The second speaker will be in the upper synchronous generator offset a little to be further away from the sound board.

I measured a speaker and put it in the crank gen area and marked its center points on the styrene surrounding it. I wrapped the measurement around to the sides so I can easily mark the motherboard with the shell attached. I also marked the outer limits of the speaker.

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Next up was battery placement. I decided on between the two bottom mobo mounting screws. This is where I'm using the new 3" screws I got at Lowe's. I'm going to glue mdf side rails to the motherboard to align the battery. Then make a styrene cap that'll have screw holes to bolt down the battery using the mounting screws. It'll go mobo, washer, nut, battery, styrene shelf, washer, nut.

The pictures are pretty self explanatory. I just placed it, traced it, and noted measurements for you folks watching at home.

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I made some speaker quick connect wires and dremeled retention channels in the styrene for cable management. Then hooked the wires to the board just to test length and placement.

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I curry off the battery's plug and sockets ends. Spliced both battery cords open and crimped on color coded quick connects to one set of positive and negative wires. Red is positive, blue is negative. The other set of leads I shrink wrapped them to their own shielding to prevent shorts and whatnot. I could have removed the switch but I like that I can kill it to connect or disconnect wires safely. It didn't matter which set of leads I used as all positive leads run straight to the battery and negatives are both on the same switch post.

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I then placed, measured, marked, made pilot divots, and drilled out the switch and charge port holes.

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I made a small hole 1/8" deep with a 1/8" bit for the potentiometer's anti spin tab to go in. The threading on it was too short to go all the way through the mobo. Placing the potentiometer face up next to where I wanted it, I drew its rough shape of the inner raised portion slightly larger around the its hole. I used the new Dremel to lower the surface 1/16" inside the drawing. This worked great, I was able to thread the nut on tightly.

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I started messing around with wires and connected them to the parts just to run it through in my head. Then I inserted the switch and charge port into their holes and secured their nuts. Lol.

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Messing around with wires turned into making harnesses. I made a 2 into one ground. Power connectors. And speaker connections to wire it in series. All in a quick connect fashion. Only four connections to detach if I wanted to remove the shell from the motherboard when its complete.

That's when I thought about pc Molex connectors. I looked and found one. I got excited that I could now turn 4 connections into one. I also got angry with myself for not thinking of it sooner and wasting so many quick connectors.

It was after 10pm and I had to eat still and be at work at 6am. So I ended the day with a personal cliff hanger. I feel asleep thinking of the soldering I was to do the next day.

Stay tuned for the wiring overhaul.
#4899925
Monday, October 16th, electrical part duex: heat shrink overkill.

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Knowing I had to redo the electrical because I wanted to incorporate the pc Molex connector, I started with something different for some variety.

I got the vinyl hose into the splitless loom. This was a slower process than anticipated. Those ribs were a pain, but not too bad.

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I found a prefect piece of scrap pvc for a loom anchor inside the pack. Screwed and tapped two holes on opposite sides.

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Then I split the hose and loom with two approximately 2" long cuts. Drilled the vinyl and loom and inserted washers and screws from the inside. I then put the pvc anchor on the hose and loom and bent the split ends over the edges. Screwed the screws into the tapped holes.

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Measured center and drew a line down the cosmetic plate the loom shall enter into. Decided on center of hole position to be a little down from center on the cosmetic plate (up in the pic). Measured the loom OD and marked a circle using the radius as a guide. Scored and broke off part of an internal support that was in the way. Cleaned up the residual glue crust.

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I used a stepper bit to make the hole for the thrower loom. I didn't want to go the full 1" size on the bit as it'd leave a gap aground the loom. So I stopped at 7/8" and ground out the rest of the way with the Dremel for a good fit. Test fitted the loom and anchor. Looks good.

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Removed the pvc anchor from the loom and hose. Scored a bunch of lines in different directions on the outside of it that'll be adjacent to the inside wall of the synchronous. Scored lines to the inside synchronous wall too. Glued the pvc in place and shoved some apoxie sculpt on there for extra strength. The scratches help it adhere to the pvc. Its so non porous that I've had expoxie pop off pvc with little force applied. Much stronger roughed up first.

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With that loom stuff out of the way, I overhauled the electronics I had done the night before. My goal was one connection between the pack and motherboard. I didn't take too many progress pics as I was hurrying to get to bed for an early 4am wake up time.

The charge port cable stayed the same but got some major strain relief augmentation. I love shrink wrap tubing! It quenches my OCD with its protection, strain relief, and cable management abilities.

Soldered the quick connects I made the day before directly and permanently to the speaker terminals.

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These two pics show the mobo power electronics and the pack junction point. I tinned the hooks that go in the switch screws to make them much stronger. I was having the wires break off just arranging the switch the day prior. I also built up shrink wrapping above the tinned hooks so I can heat shrink the larger heat shrink to it and the screw terminals after final assembly. Without building it up, the diameter needed to go around the switch's Screw terminals wouldn't shrink enough to hug the wires. This way with the built up areas will provide adequate support and strain relief for my OCD needs.

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Here's a crude wiring diagram of how it all hooks up. All grounds are common to the blue brick battery. Positive is separated at the switch into three isolated legs. Two separate legs in the on position (up). One going to the GBFans soundboard, the other going to the plasma tube in the thrower. The third leg is for the charge port in the charge position (down). Middle switch position is all off.

Ground is split to charge port and Molex connector. The Molex run splits again just before the connector just because I had the wires available. Soundboard power runs from switch to the red wire on the Molex, and plasma tube runs the same except goes to the yellow wire on the Molex.

I failed just shy of my one connector to rule them all goal as I'll need a 3 pin connector for the volume potentiometer to connect to the soundboard. Perhaps I need a third electrical revision with a higher pin count connector. Hmmmm.

That's all for Sunday. Stay tuned as I'm continuing progress after work throughout this week!
#4899934
Tuesday, October 17th was all about speaker placement.

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I laid a ruler (I think I accidentally rented that on VHS once) across the middle of the 5th cosmetic plates from the bottom nubby one. This is my reference point where the bottom edge of the lower speaker occupies. I was finding coordinates to transfer placement to the motherboard.

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I went to put the shell onto the mobo and it would not sit flush. I peeked underneath and saw the upper mount screw nut was hitting a styrene wall. Noted the spot and removed the offending styrene. Got the shell secured to the mobo and traced the reference 5th-out-from-center cosmetic plates onto the motherboard. Then I transferred the upper speaker center points I made a few days prior to the mobo.

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Measured and marked center of the traced plates. Connected said center marks. As you can see this line interferes with the battery's placement. I also noticed it overlapped the wide bottom metal bracing of the Alice frame. This would block some audio output from the grill. I moved the speaker center up and closer to the middle of the mobo to clear the battery, wide metal brace, and outer wall of the synchronous generator. I then drew lines up and across the diameter of the speaker and marked the boundary limits.

Continued out the top speaker center markings. Marked the width of the speaker out from center on the top speaker with its boundary limits as well.

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Measured the width of the cone and its surround and gave an extra 1/16" all around for clearance and peace of mind. Transferred half the measurement/radius to a compass and drew circles on both speaker locations. Did the same for the inner diameter of the outer plastic housing wall. Took its radius to the compass and circled both spots again.

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Marked lines every centimeter on one of the four radius cross lines for both speaker locations. I then made concentric circles with the compass based on these marks.

I gazed at these rings for some time coming up with a game plan and decided on lines every 30° as guides. Plotted this out for only the lower speaker figuring if I mucked it up it'd be the most hidden of the two grills.

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These pictures are rather self explanatory. I didn't take many shots of the process as I was racing dinner. The next day I did document plotting out the upper speaker grill in detail as I already had this one prototyped and kinks worked out. Main kink being mdf blows out on the exit end when being drilled. I started drilling from the inside out without pilot holes at first. This was really messy and resulted with an uneven surface after cleanup. I switched to pilot holes so I could see and drill the pattern from the outside. I also started drilling in reverse to start the holes cleanly, then forward all the way through. This majorly helped in preventing sloppy holes. Time and place for everything, including sloppy holes. What?

Anyway, dinner won the race so the bottom grill was left to be finished the next day.
#4899943
I've posted 3 days worth in a single day to catch up. This post being the 3rd day, one post per each day's progress. So scroll up if you're just now checking in. You might have missed a lot. Or not. You can momento this ish if you want. Mystery can be fun!

Ok, Wednesday, October 18th: Migraine Work. As the lead in implies, I started getting a severe weather headache as I was walking up to our apartment from the El stop after work. I took an ibuprofen thinking that would help and started working anyway.

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Finished the grill from the previous day. Not going to explain too much in detail as that's coming up next. I will say though that I tried chamfering the holes with a larger bit as I've seen done on aluminum motherboards. I didn't think it looked or worked as good on mdf. So I didn't do it on the upper grill. Grill rivalry! You can also see the uneven surface around the inner three rings from the drilling blowout I was talking about in the previous post.

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I noticed the night before that the 30° lines measured an almost perfect 5/8" distance from one another at the cone surround boundary ring. So I set my calipers to 5/8" and "walked" it along that ring. I pressed into the mdf at every "step" to make a clear indentation mark.

I then connected the marks across the circle to make all the diameter "spokes". It helped using the mechanical pencil lead as a fulcrum in the center dimple made by the compass. I could swing the ruler aground it with ease and just draw out from center once in place and then down past center to connect the opposite side for efficiency.

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I then used the compass spike and made pilot divots. The center two rings are different though. The inner most ring got a mark every 3rd spoke. The second ring was every 1.5 spokes. After that it was just every spoke on the rings. Drilled all the pilot holes. Cleaned up the inside. Then flipped the mobo over and cleaned up the blown out back side.

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With the bit spinning in reverse (counter clockwise) , I made starting counter sunk style divots. This reduces the initial bit bite I was getting on the first grill the day before.

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I then drilled all the way through with the bit drilling in the forward direction (clockwise). The counter sunk starters also made this process go super fast as the bit found its position easily and quickly. Blew away the mess, snapped a pic, and cleaned up the surface. Took a shot from the inside surface but didn't clean it up yet.

Center hole and inner 3 rings are 3/16" holes.

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Outer 3 rings are 1/4" holes.

Did the same for the outer holes but with a 1/4" bit. After all holes were finished and cleaned up, I flipped the motherboard over and cleaned up the inner side. Lastly I did a final reaming by hand with the corresponding bits to further clean up the grills.

So, did you spot my one mistake?

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There's Waldo! My headache was surging and I lost concentration. I reamed out a single 3/16" hole with the 1/4" bit by accident. I thought about alternating hole sizes on the 4th ring on both grills to correct it, but I didn't do it.

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Using the speaker inner and outer radius measurements from before, I scribbed circles onto a new piece of 1/4" thick mdf. I then ran the mechanical pencil lead in the circle troughs to make them more visible. The smaller circle in the left group was from when I was going to use the single smaller 8ohm speaker from the gbfans shop. I cut out around the circles with the Dremel to make two separate squares for easier cutting. No pic of this.

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Drilled a 1/4" hole well inside the inner circles and then fed the scroll saw blade through it. Reconnected the blade to the arm and tightened it down. Then tightened down the foot thingy and cut away both inner circles.

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Cut out the outer portions and test fit them. The first one I cut fit perfect. The second ring, my headache was raging so bad to the point of nauseousness that I rushed it. It just needs to be cleaned up some on the outer edge and it'll fit fine.

I called it quits at this point due to my banging head.

And now we're caught up. More updates to follow soon for sure as progress continues!
Kingpin liked this
#4899969
I cont8nue to be amazed by this. Just amazing, detailed work.
#4899970
Thursday, October 19th: Hobby-ception


Ok, firstly, I want to make a commentary on speakers in proton packs. I notice a lot of people, easily the majority, use simple risers and screws for their speakers with large air gaps between it and the shell. This method of installation goes against how most speakers are designed to be used. It results in muddy sound with muted volume and clarity.

What's needed is to separate the front and back waveforms so they don't cancel out/ merge phases. Essentially, what is an upstroke for the front of the cone is a downstroke for the back. This creates sound waves with opposing wave patterns. When allowed to be in a free air environment, the waves interact and try to cancel each other out. It essentially can be thought of as two cones out of phase.

That is why I made rings as risers: to make an airtight barrier between the front and back sides of the cone while giving clearance for cone and surround movement. A lot of people would greatly increase the volume and tonal quality of their speakers if they did this.

I understand most are just winging it and don't have the car/home audio, audio visual experience, or speaker design knowledge to know this. I'm an A/V tech by profession since 2000 and car and home audio is an OG hobby of mine since the mid 90s. Perhaps I'll make a tutorial.

To go a step further, ideally, one would want to completely seal the pack to the motherboard for a proper speaker enclosure type environment. But that's hard to do with gaps and so many holes drilled for greebles and such. It's just not practical, and the waveform separation is of much higher importance. An enclosure could be made around the speaker inside the shell, but room is at a premium and these speakers fire into the backs of the wearers, so audiophile sound is not needed. If these were larger woofers moving lots of air at high sound pressured levels (SPL) then you'd want airtight seals and possibly a tuned vent. Being small midrange speakers, the barrier is sufficient and in my opinion a must.

With that out of the way, onwards we go!

I got out of work a bit late at 6pm after an 11 hour day, so I was petty tired. I persevered though and got something done. Felt like I was merging hobbies; Prop making, cosplay, and car audio. Cool!

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Continuing where I left off the night before, I put the second cut ring on the speaker and marked what needed to be worn down to fit. Rubbed the offending areas and fit it did. I worked on the other ring as well since it was now the tighter fitting of the two.

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I'm attaching the speakers to the rings simply with short screws. I needed to drill 6 screw holes. First, I had to cut away some material on the backside of the baskets for screw head clearance in two spots per speaker. I made two vertical incisions and then scored horizontally as low as I could. Had to be real careful to not slip and puncture the cones or theirs surrounds. After scoring, I bent and ripped the sections out with some pliers. Then scraped away anything left.

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Holding the ring tightly to the basket I drilled the first hole through the basket and ring. Screwed the first screw in. Then went to the opposite end of the basket and drilled and screwed while squeezing the ring to the basket. Again, being careful not to puncture anything. Wasn't careful enough and punctured the surround of one speaker around the 4th drilling or so. Doh! I just applied some Elmer's glue to the front and back of the torn area as it was only a 2mm flap. Should hold up fine. It sucked though. Screwed the screws in as I drilled the holes to help hold the ring in place. Got all twelve holes between the two done without puncturing my fingers. Screwed all screws in.

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You can see at the top of the surround the puncture site with glue applied.

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Cleaned up the drill bit blow out.

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Ran a bead of wood glue around the ring and spread it out evenly. Then applied them to the inside surface of the motherboard using the edge boundary hash markings as guides.

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Looks kinda like a hoverboard.
"Everybody knows hoverboards don't work on water... unless you got POWER!"

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Test fit the shell on the motherboard over the speakers. I wanted to do this while the glue was still fresh and wet in case it didn't line up. But it totally did perfectly! Booyeah! Measure a thousand times, drill even more than that, cut once.

I got a little paranoid 15 minutes later that perhaps some of the glue squished out on the inside of the rings and was adhering to the cone surrounds. So I unscrewed them and checked. Nope, all good! Now I could sleep easy.

That was all for the evening.
Last edited by Batfly on October 20th, 2017, 10:37 am, edited 6 times in total.
#4899971
thebigone2087 wrote:I cont8nue to be amazed by this. Just amazing, detailed work.
Thanks Thebigone! Much appreciated.

Is your name a prophetic reference to a future earthquake?
#4899974
Batfly wrote:
thebigone2087 wrote:I cont8nue to be amazed by this. Just amazing, detailed work.
Thanks Thebigone! Much appreciated.

Is your name a prophetic reference to a future earthquake?
Lol no no, nothing that sinister :cool:
#4900018
Last night, October 20th, was a strange one. I got home from work and noticed it was in the low 70's outside. Woo that's above 68° so I could paint. So I changed out of my work clothes and started stripping the pack and thrower. Was thinking I could wash everything and get in a primer coat.

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Well damn there were a lot of parts to remove!

Then I realized I never implemented something I wanted to be on the pack.

Nipples!

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Yep, eda nipples. Used a rounded grinder bit with the Dremel to rough in the shape. Then used a small piece of tiny rock wafer paper on the tip on my index finger and made about a thousand circular motions pet nip. I really like how the shape came out.

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For a final touch I incorporated the rivet post holes. Eyeballed center and pilot poked it with the compass spike. Then twirled out some shallow holes with a 3/16" bit by hand. I rubbed the area a final time to smooth the hole entrance edges.

By this time in the evening the temperature had dropped back below 68°f. Damn.

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So I worked on the final electrical of the plasma tube for the thrower. Soldered all new wires with quick connect terminals and strain relief. Got it sort of working but the rippling electric effect wouldn't happen unless I touched a large piece of ferris metal to the positive lead out to the tube. Otherwise it was just a glowing plasma cloud. Not sure what this means. Are my positive and negative wires too close together? To small a gauge? It worked before I replaced the wires from the board (the re literally fell off from the crappy Chinese soldering). Do I need to have separate wires instead of the nice connectors?

I was so frustrated that I called it a night.
twmedford23 liked this
#4900090
Saturday, October 21st: prime time!

I had off Saturday and the weather was going to be warm-ish again. So I got up at 7:50am with excitement. Took the doggo out, made breakfast, and realized I had to wait for it to warm up. I started tinkering with the plasmas tube transformer board again and wouldn't you know it, poof (literal poof with a tiny puff of white smoke) , I shorted it out by accident and blew it up! Son of a mother! So I ordered another one for $17.50 off the bay. This time I'm going to try and reinforce the existing wire solders and use them to see if I can retain the electric ripple in the thrower.

With that depressing event, I needed to clear my mental pallet.

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So I grabbed some left over 1/4" mdf and the scroll saw and cut a narrow strip from a machined outer edge. I cut it into six 1 inch-ish long pieces. I roughed up the surfaces too be glued. Then I placed the battery in position and glued the mdf pieces in place around it with the machined edges towards the battery. This is to hold the battery in position. I still need to make the styrene cap that'll be secured down on top of the battery with nuts on the Alice frame screws to hold it.

It still wasn't warm enough outside so I decided to take the train to ace hardware in Evanston to get another can of metallic silver paint. Did that and returned home. Also got a set of separate Allen wrenches since my all in one kit is too bulky and annoying in tight spaces. Screwing things 1/16 turn at a time is very frustrating to say the least.

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It was time to wash the pack and parts. Welcome to my bathroom! This was both easier and took longer than I thought. I just used dish soap and a new scothbrite pad and washed everything piece by piece in the sink. Dried each piece off immediately after washing and into a plastic bag it went so I wouldn't loose anything.

Guess what, I lost the second smallest piece. It was the disc that holds the s hook on the gun track. What the hell?! Looked everywhere and couldn't find it. I can easily make another one, but GRRRR! Mostly ticked that I'll have to prime and paint a single and tiny piece after I've already done everything else.

The pack shell I rinsed in the shower. That was weird lol. I also wore gloves to prevent finger oil getting on the parts post washing.

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I had our balcony draped off the night before when I thought I was going to have time to do a primer coat. So that saved some time. I started hanging and laying out the parts to prime them. I rolled tape and secured parts that had a hidden side to a board with the tape. I put the screws to some of the parts in Styrofoam I had lying around just to keep track of them and labeled them, sloppily lol. I then went to hang the larger parts that needed paint on all sides or had large undercuts/overhangs. I was maximizing the few wire hangers I had by having two on a single hanger. One on each end balancing out.

That's when it happened...

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I was on the last hanger and put the n-filter on one side/hook and started to put the gun track on the other when the filter FELL TO THE GROUND! "Omg, calm down, don't panic" I thought.

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Remaining calm I decided to try to glue the fake weld pieces back on. I was actuality rather successful to my surprise. There were a few chips that broke off too small to glue back on. But hey, the packs first natural weathering, right? Yeah, that's what it'll be! Battle damage! Character. I still wish it didn't happen. But it turned out ok.

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Laid out the shell and cyclotron last. These shots shows everything on my makeshift balcony spray booth laid out and hung up.

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Then I shook the living crap out of a can of primer. This is the first time I've used rattle can primer so I don't know if this is normal, but it'd spray out in globs sometimes. I kept having to wipe the nozel to try and prevent it from splattering instead of spraying. Yes I was shaking the can all while spraying.

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After it dried some I sprayed a second coat with the second can. I still had to wipe its nozel but for some reason unknown to me it didn't splatter as much.

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I let them dry some and wiped it all down with a towel. Everything had this gritty primer dust layer all over. After wiping I could see where it splattered. I decided to wet wear (almost said the word I said I wasn't going to say again in this thread, lol) the areas I wanted smooth with 1200 grit rub away paper. After I smoothed over the cyclotron rings, eda discs and face, powercell face, crank gen face, and all fins/ribs, I took a look at the other pieces. Had to wipe the weird dust off them too and they also had the speckleness.

I started wet wearing all the other parts down too when I messaged my "pack mentor", the great and knowledgeable Alan Hawkins. His sage words were "You do that anyway. Always sand primer."

Geez! I felt dumb, liked I should have known this. In hindsight, I probably should have wet rubbed between primer coats too. Oh well, everything looks decent.

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I work with a lot of painted metal equipment. None of it is super smooth. Sure it's probably anodized, but still. I'm fine with how its turning out. Apparently you always wear down primer, who knew? *rolls eyes at himself*

Can anyone else with primer experience tell me if this splattering is normal or if I should have went with a different brand?

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It was getting dark but the temp was still in painting range so I figured, "metallic silver time, why not?! I got the cans, the time, and the temps. Everything is set up." So I got two coats on everything with one can!

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This Ace store brand metallic silver is wonderful! I'm sold for life. It went on smooth, even, and with good coverage. The nozel never threatened to clog. Looks like friggin metal. Especially in person. I broke out the second can for two coats on the motherboard.

And that was that. A couple hours later I moved the parts inside still on the board and hangers. The temp had, a day later, dropped into the high 50's for the next week. Boooo. I don't know when I'll get to paint again. I have to texture the pack and that'll be a week itself to cure. Grrr. I don't think I'm hitting my Halloween deadline unless it warms up again and soon. Who knows with Chicago weather though!

I saw a few threads about how a cast iron pack shouldn't weather with shiny silvery metal underneath. That it should look rusted. This is incorrect.

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I present to you real cast iron lighting bases that have their paint scratched. With and without flash. I obviously took these in person and can confirm it was shiny metal not rusted. So, unless you are going for real old and rusted, shiny metal weathering on cast iron is a realistic option for newer standard issue proton packs. And these lighting bases are several years old too.

That is all. Stay tuned.
Last edited by Batfly on October 23rd, 2017, 12:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.
#4900095
twmedford23 wrote:Definitely one of the best builds on here - those EDA discs...incredible!
Thanks man! Yeah, I'm glad they came out as nice as they did considering I was halfway rushing.
#4900239
Got my new plasma tube in yesterday. Was weird because I got an email from USPS that the mailman couldn't find a suitable place to deliver it. I was at work so I scheduled for me to pick it up instead of redelivery. I get home and its in the mailbox area of our apartment entrance like usual. Wtf?!

Anyway, took it out of the box, ripped open the blister pack, tore the wires off the test battery box cause they were dead, and hooked it up to the blue brick. It worked, yay.

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Got out my pliers and just started yanking pieces of plastic off. This thing is just as explosively brittle as the last one.

I took out the transformer board and was pleasantly surprised with much better solder points, bigger gauge wires with beefier insulation, and bigger better whatever square thing it has.

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New one is on the left, old on right.

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The back of the new one is actually labeled where the switch leads are. Cool.

That's it. Got a three day weekend after a long week. Should get the hockey pucks cut and some other stuff. Wish I could PAINT! But weather says no!
#4900244
twmedford23 wrote:I would forego the texture and just paint lol. I painted a part last night and it was 48 degrees out. Was dry to touch after 15 minutes. I think you'll be okay!
Funny you mention that. I was just reading on the train ride home that you can let the can sit in hot water, take the object to be sprayed outside, shoot it quick, take it to bathroom to dry. Going to do this. It's 60° out right now so I'm going to mask off the pack and I have the bed liner pre shook and sitting in hot water along with a can of satin black as I type this. Lol.

Let's see how this goes. I must have the texture!
twmedford23 liked this
#4900274
Alright alright alright! Big day Thursday, October 26th. Refusing to let outside temps dictate my pack life, I researched low temperature spray painting on the train ride home from work as stated in a reply before this post. I read about people placing their rattle cans in a bucket of warm to slightly hot water. They also said to keep the parts to be painted warm indoors until the very moment it was time to paint. Then to bring the parts inside to dry/cure in better temperatures. I decided this was my game plan.

I get home and change clothes to something I didn't mind getting paint on. I drew up a bucket of hot tap water, shook up the can of dupli-color truck bed coating and a can of krylon satin black (non fusion) paint and placed them in the hot water bucket.

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Then I grabbed the primed pack shell and started to mask off areas that I don't want textured. Firstly, I highly recommend not cheaping out and spend the money on good masking tape. This blue painters stuff is thicker and rips better without ripping in strange detections as you're trying to get it off the roll like the cheap stuff. You can also tear long pieces in half length wise with relative ease. It's the perfect amount of tacky to stay on but not lift paint or leave residue when removed.

Endorsement aside, for the cyclotron rings, I started by putting masking tape on the sides of the rings. I got it as flat to the cyclotron surface as possible and made sure it didn't go too far and crinkle or bend onto the cyclotron face at all. Then I wrapped it around the sides being careful to keep it level/flat. Once I got completely around the ring I tore it off the roll leaving about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch of overlap.

I then just simply pressed the raised edges down over the top of the rings one spot at a time. Once all the tape was pressed down I ripped off a couple pieces to fill the gap in the center. Lather, rinse, repeat for all the rings.

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Did the same for the eda discs.

Since part of the powercell face is covered with tape in that pic also, I'll talk now about masking for straight edges and corners. The name of the game is go slow and pay attention to positioning. I used a continuous piece for the long uninterrupted straight edges. I tried to rip the tape at slight acute angles inwards when at the corners so I could meet up the next piece of tape 90° to the first without messy overlap past where I wanted it masked off. I didn't want to have to make any razor cuts. If the tape doesn't rip in an acute inwards angle, I rip it off before the corner and use a separate smaller piece with the desired tear. When laying it down I make sure the edge remains straight with the long piece of tape it's extending.

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For in between ribs I ripped small pieces eyeballed to the width of the gap. I laid them down slowly being careful to keep the straight tape edge level to the edge I was masking.

For the powercell ribs I ripped off a piece a little longer than the rib. Then I'd rip it in half length wise. I laid one half of it onto a side first like the rings, putting the straight side to the powercell surface.

Being vertical makes this a little trickier to get it to stay put at first. Once I would get it to stay in position I used a ruler to press it to the edge of the rib. Then I'd fold the rest over onto the face of the rib. Repeated the process with the other half of the tape.

The top part of the rib is easy for the powercell and crank gen. Since the whole face surface was to be masked off, I just took the excess part of the tape and folded it over the top bending it a bit to the the outside of the rib top and its side. I didn't have to worry about it being clean, just needed the the top and edges masked. At the bottom of the ribs I just wrapped the tape under and into the inside of the shell. Then I used a mix of long and tiny pieces to fill in the rest of the powercell face. Outside first then insides is the cleanest and easiest way I find to mask things.

Didn't document the crank generator as it's close to the same process as the power cell.


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The gun mount was a bit different since I didn't want the face masked, just the ribs. I started with the top/front side of the ribs. Ripped shorter lengths of tape in half and started at the tips of the ribs. I positioned the starting edge of the tape slightly past the middle of the tip and bent it around the corner. I ripped it off before it made the curve to the side of the gun mount.

I used a ruler to press it to the side. Then I folded the tape onto the rib face starting at the tip then the side. Repeated for the other half of the tape and rib side starting with overlapping the first piece at the tip midway point.

At the sides, I basically did the same as the powercell ribs with the exception of when I got to the top. Instead of bending the tape slightly outwards, I pulled inwards since I already had covered the sides of the tops and needed to keep it as clean as possible.

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Then I took care of the crank gen box. Not much different than anything else. Just more decisions to be made of what to mask or not.

Advice for masking, again, go slow, take your time, pay attention, reposition pieces as many times as needed to get clean lines. Think it through. This whole process took me about 65 minutes. But I didn't need to make any trim cuts or use blades which can easily make cut lines or accidental scrapes.

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By the time I was done masking it dropped 4° outside from 59° at 3:30pm to 55° at 5:15pm. I thought, holy crap, please don't go lower. I knew the truck bed coating wanted temps between 68° to 90° according to its label. So I grabbed the can of krylon satin black and read it. Waddaya know, it says 40° to 80°. I decided to spray the parts black last and texture the pack first due to this newly gleaned knowledge.

I removed the truck bed coating can from the bucket of now warm water and left the satin black in there. Dried the can off and shook the crap out of it for two minutes before taking it and the pack shell to the balcony. Got the first coat on.

I really had to spray the bed coating on in sweeping movements. It's not forgiving at all if you stall in the slightest or change directing mid sweep. You can see where I did just that next to the gun mount and right under it on the cosmetic spacer. It was a smooth pooled glob of material. I tried wiping it off with a gloved finger. It sort of streaked out. I just tried to level it off, spot sprayed it, and hoped for the best on the next few coats.

In the last two pics up there, if you look closely, you can see where the plastic tarp blew onto the nubby bottom synchronous plate, the one to the left of it, and the edge of the angled injector line entrance block. I removed the tarp from it carefully trying not to freak out. Placed some more scrap mdf on it to weigh it down, and tried to pat the stuff down nicely. It looked worse and more predominant in person. E gahd!

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I really like that you only have to wait 5 minutes between coats with the bed coating. I placed the can back into the warm water bucket and used the time to spread out some Harbor Freight ads onto the bathroom floor. Then dried the can off again and went back to the balcony shaking it like a mofo.

Second coat went on great. The stalled areas showed promise as did the bottom two synchronous plates. The injector line block still had the slight wrinkle towards the edge but nothing horrible.

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5 minutes of waiting again. Into the warm bucket of water the can went. Used the time to place two 2x4 sections on top of the previously placed Harbor Freight ads. This was so I could easily lay down the shell while only touching it from underneath/the inside. It also was to prevent the newspaper from sticking or crinkling onto the coating.

Got the third and final coat on. The stalled areas are now imperceptible to any mishaps. Excellent! The two bottom plates were much better but not perfect. Only I will notice it especially with them being on the bottom of the pack. There was still the slight weirdness on the injector line block, but not too bad. Not worried about it. Very happy with the results!

I brought the shell inside being very careful where I touched it and to not bump into anything. Laid it onto the 2x4s in the bathroom.

The label has no information of total curing time which is annoying. So I'm just going to wait a week and monitor it for takiness before I spray it with metallic silver.

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I was really happy to see the temps were holding out at 55°. I removed the can of satin black from the bucket and dried it off. Then I dumped out the water and replaced it with new hot water and put the second can I had of satin black in there. While shaking the can I took out the long board of metallic silver parts outside. Started spraying and realised I was about to paint the v-hook and cable clamps black. Caught myself just in time. The v-hook barely got some overspray but it actually makes it look nice and slightly grimey. Brought them inside and continued painting the board of parts.

Then I got a hanger of parts and brought it outside while shaking the can. Hung it on the conduit pole and sprayed. Brought out another hanger while shaking, sprayed, repeat. Once the last hanger of parts was out and sprayed, I did another pass of paint starting from the board of parts and moving to the first hanger on down. So two coats of satin black, boom, done. Some silver was still shinning through so I went inside to give it time to dry a little before the next coats.

Then I noticed I forgot the grips and took them outside. You can see them sitting there unpainted lol.

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So in the interim I removed the masking tape from the textured shell. I wanted to do this before it got too tacky which would risk pulling up the surrounding material. Nothing too special with this process. Just rubbed my finger on some tape until an edge would roll up. Then I'd grab it and peel at a medium pace. Not too fast as this stuff tends to string out when stretched quickly. It all came up pretty well with slight exceptions around the bottom two ribs of the gun mount. It slightly wrinkled around the edges of those ribs. I patted it down with my fingernail a little in a random pattern. I might be able to scrape some away later when it cures, but it's barely noticeable in person.

Loving this! Neat contrasting look with the smooth primer and textured black. Getting realty excited, but how am I going to wait a week? Ahhhhh! Not going to make Halloween, so next deadline is the Chicago thanksgiving parade! That should be doable.

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The demasking only took 15 minutes so I chilled for another 15 or so. Then back to the urban balcony spray booth.

The first can of black was empty so I removed and dried off the second can. Then sprayed starting with the grips, then the board, and lastly the hanger parts. By then the grips were dry to the touch so I repeated the pattern.

Tip: spray underhangs first to avoid buildup and drips. This worked out great except the rear cylinder for the thrower still had unpainted underhangs upon close inspection. So I waited until it was dry to the touch and flipped it over to spray its missed undersides. I got them and waited some more.

While waiting I used the remainder of the second can to spray the motherboard. I forgot to get pics as the fiancee came home and I was distracted showing her the progress made. I went to flip the rear cylinder back over and it was sticking to the board. Damn it! Should have put it on a hanger as it peeled up paint. So I patted/smoothed the paint down with a gloved finger and spot sprayed it with what little was left of the paint. Just enough to get the job done! Not enough for a second coat on the motherboard.

Then I went inside to clean up and get Thai food for us. This is when I noticed a hanger containing the booster frame and ppd left in the living room. DOH! I new I forgot something. Well, I need to get more krylon satin black paint anyway. Crazy that the temp was still 55° at this time with the sun fully down.

That was all. Before bed parts were brought inside and shell with 2x4s were moved onto our kitchen table.

Staaaaaaaaay tuned!
#4900349
Ecto46 wrote:OK .....I took the time to read all th way from the start and you got me inspired! Need to order up some styrene over the next couple of weeks and get on with my first pack build!
Awesome man! You can do it! Advice I wish someone told me when I started with styrene, sand every edge after cutting. It straightens and cleans it up.

Can't wait for a build thread of your own if you do one.
#4900356
Venkman's Swagger wrote:Down the home straight dude. Such an awesome build
Thank Swag man. Painting is definitely the most stressful part of the entire build! Will be glad when its done.
#4900384
Batfly wrote:
Ecto46 wrote:OK .....I took the time to read all th way from the start and you got me inspired! Need to order up some styrene over the next couple of weeks and get on with my first pack build!
Awesome man! You can do it! Advice I wish someone told me when I started with styrene, sand every edge after cutting. It straightens and cleans it up.

Can't wait for a build thread of your own if you do one.

Oh yes......but I have table saws, a band saw, drill press and belt sanders in various sizes at my disposal........a dedicated model building shop!

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I did this prop for this years costume, the flintlock is all styrene, with a pvc barrel and mounted on a wood stock......
#4900385
Ecto46 wrote:
Batfly wrote:Awesome man! You can do it! Advice I wish someone told me when I started with styrene, sand every edge after cutting. It straightens and cleans it up.

Can't wait for a build thread of your own if you do one.

Oh yes......but I have table saws, a band saw, drill press and belt sanders in various sizes at my disposal........a dedicated model building shop!

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I did this prop for this years costume, the flintlock is all styrene, with a pvc barrel and mounted on a wood stock......
That looks great! Very impressive. You'll have no trouble making a pack. Just keep strength in mind
#4900485
Firstly, I hope everyone had a great and happy Halloween! My lady had to work until 7pm but I had the day off. So, here's some progress from Tuesday, October 31st, a little known day called Halloween.

Make sure to check out our costumes from a Halloween event on Saturday and a video of our dog and I on Halloween night at the end of this post.

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I didn't like how rushed the paint job on the motherboard (and several other parts for that matter) was. It had a bunch of dog hairs and dust under the top layers of black. So I started by knocking it down a bit with a synthetic rock sponge. Took quick care of those pesky hairs. It'll get a new coat of black at a later date.

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I went on to cut out the motherboard spacers. I'm using the idea and measurements from PssdffJay. He used hockey pucks for the spacers.

For reference, he used 2 1/2"w x 1 1/2"h x 1"d for the two rectangular blocks and 1" x 3"w x 1"h x 1/16"d for the half moon. The only difference with mine will be no vertical center grove on the half moon face since I replaced my vertical brace bar.

Take heed, these are not screen accurate measurements! If you want you can dig through the thread linked below to find what was discussed and researched to be conducted accurate. viewtopic.php?t=34646

I drew out the measurements onto the pucks using a ruler and pencil. Then cut them out slowly on a scroll saw. This worked pretty well. The rubber dust is strange and heavy. It's messy and not at the same time. I did have black boogers for a day though lol.

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The rectangles fit great. The half moon was only touching on the top/front edge. I drew a line of the angle the venticle bar was at on the puck. Then made more black booger dust until it was at an angel parallel too the drawn line. I wore down the bottom/back side as well to level it out. Test fit and it was near perfect.

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Using the existing middle lines from when I drew the cutting measurements, I positioned the rectangles and marked the center of the Alice frame holes on the line. Did the same for the half moon but it didn't have a center line.

Made pilot divots and then drilled them out with a 1/4" bit. Placed them on the Alice frame and ran the bolts through.

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Placed the motherboard on top and checked spacer alignment and bolt clearances. Looks good to me!

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With everything all mocked up I decided to finally tackle the battery retention plate. I placed the blue brick battery in its spot and a ruler on top of it. I put the ruler up against the bolts and placed washers onto the bolts resting on top of the ruler. Then took the measurements at the outer edge of the washers and added a little till it was at a nice rounded number. That number betting 6.5". Then I measured the width of the blue brick.

Transferred that to some styrene, scored and snapped it out. I placed the styrene up to the bolts and marked center of them to the bottom edge of the styrene where they met. Did the same for the side position and connected the side marks to make a horizontal line. I marked the line at the same spots the first marks were made on the bottom edge.

Made pilot divots and then drilled 1/4" holes. Placed it over the bolts onto little brick blue. All was good. Next I removed some excess material from the corners cause I thought it'd be an interesting shape.

Tada! There's my solution to keeping the battery in place.

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The weather said it was gong to be somewhat above 40° the next day and I was getting out of work at 3pm then. So I prepped the pack for a few coats of metallic silver. The bed liner texture coating was fully cured at this point but had sandy loose grains. I scrubbed it not too roughly and then rinsed it for about 20 minutes. Took care of those tiny bastards!


That's all for pack progress. It was about 5:30pm and the street we live on in Chicago is the designated safe trick-or-treat street. They block off traffic from 6pm to 8pm every Halloween. I like to get dressed up and walk our dog up and down the street saying happy Halloween. Many of the neighbors deck their places out for the trick-or-treaters. Last 2 years I did this in my GB gear.

The prior Saturday my fiancee and I went out to a Halloween event and last minute wanted to be something different. So we stopped in a costume shop and came up with this:

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Got to square off against Batfleck. My fiancee met Wile E Coyote. The guy in the skeleton suit is none other than cofounder and leader of The Windy City Ghostbusters, Chris Biddle. He was the M.C. of the burlesque and talent show at the event which was at Headquarters Beercade.

Anyway, back to Halloween night, I threw on this same costume and put our puggle in his pirate costume from a few years ago as my first mate and we strolled the streets. Here's a quick video for your viewing pleasure.



HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
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