Proton Pack

I made the labels based on the measurements taken from the reference I had and the references on this great site. They were made to fit my pack specifically, sense mine is a mixture of Norms, Stefans and my own plans. I also weathered them to match the hero pack. These were printed from a commercial grade color copier on plain paper. I sanded the backside to get the paper as thin as possible and adhered it the pack and gun using 3M Spray Adhesive. The gun is made completely of wood with PVC pipe used for the handle tubes. The grips were costume made and cast in resin. There is a metal tube for the front barrel. The "gun hook" and mount was custom made from aluminum for this gun as well. It was weathered using Krylon Workable Fixative, silver Rub and Buff and an exacto knife. The scratches were made using Rub and Buff and the edge of a piece of poster board. The frame around the "yellow light bar" was made from 1/16" styrene. The light caps and the orange cap on the gun barrel were custom made using a mini vacuuform table, (about 6 x 8") and a plastic milk jug heated with a small torch. The welds around the front handle and the knob on top of the gun were made using wood putty forced through a large syringe. Some of the switches are missing, they will be installed when the lights and sound package is ready. Like the gun, the pack is also made from scratch primarily of wood. The type wood we used varied from section to section. It's primarily pine with some parts made from birch and different thickness' of wood venire. As you can see from the pic, we were very organized!! ; ) All of the parts were glue and screwed to the motherboard and then coated using a thick "brush on" primer. It's made by Sherwin Williams and was tinted gray. This works extremely well to cover and conceal the wood grain and any seams that might be showing. NOTE: I can't stress enough during this point to... TAKE YOUR TIME!!! That's the reason I didn't have this done LAST Halloween, I wanted this to be done right! I can't even begin to say how many hours I spent with wood putty, sanding, more wood putty, a LOT more sanding then primer. Then MORE sanding and priming and ... well, you get the idea! ; ) My goal was to make the pack look like all of the reference I had, which showed the base parts of the pack as one solid molded "shell". The labels, like the gun, were custom made to fit this pack and preped the same way to attach it to the pack and make it look as close to the hero pack as possible. They were also weathered and distressed to match the reference. The "add-on" parts such as the elbows, ribbon cable, clippards and such were provided by fellow GB board members to whom I owe a HUGE "THANKS!!!" to! Brent "Viper", for the resin elbows and gearbox crank, Jose "Got Maul", for the ribbon cable, resistors and clippards, Ken "Volguus", for the "ladder" do-hickey. In the pics shown here the bumper and power cell tubes have not yet been added. They will be attached when the electronics are installed. The painting, detailing and weathering is my favorite part! I used Krylon Semi Flat black paint and Krylon workable fixative and a very fine grit sanding sponge to achieve the finish. The black is 3 to four coats thick. Being that the Hero pack was molded in fiberglass, when the paint chipped off the gray fiberglass was exposed. So, I did the same thing on mine using an exacto knife. I chipped away the paint to expose the gray primer and it seemed to match my reference pics perfectly. Every scratch and chip you see was intentional in my attempt to match the reference pics. Pics of the completed and finished pack and gun with lights and sounds to come in the next couple of weeks. Update: 10/31 My pack and uniform are completed! The pack features the start-up sound when the pack is switched on. The pack features cycling red lights in the cyclotron and surging blue lights in the power cell. The gun features a cycling yellow lightbar, flash white light on top right corner, a light on the lower left corner, a red light towards the back handle and a bright "face lamp" on the top center. The "face lamp" can be switched on and off independently from the rest of the lights. Thanks for looking!