[EnderWeggen]

Hi Everyone, I have been in the shadows of this board for to long watching and studying and building my first pack, the most disappointing day in the two year's it took to complete my pack was 2020 and all the event cancelations as I had just finished the two year endeavor to build a as close to humanly posable screen accurate pack, did I mention the pack is 90 percent EVA foam

This was my First workbench and yes that is a vintage Tupperware 1970's or 80's 10in cake carrier


I built the power cell first and yes it was not great


My progress was slow


The pack was starting to take shape believe me I know its not much to look at just trust me this gets better, I am using some junk parts if you are not familiar with that term its parts like using a prengles can as the N-filter and spray paint caps for the large washers on the cyclotron


So I have the base parts built and for the life of me I keep trying to build each one better and better and at this point I am almost wasting time but I want it to be as perfect as I can possibly build as you can see in this picture I was not building with just one type of material but I believe most Hero packs have a assortment of material's


Detailing with bondo helped but always adds weight to the build it was a pore chose to use it but it payed off with detail

Once more I had taken something light like EVA foam and twisted it to be something its not with bondo and help from the belt sander I mean I had to make the flats somehow


Came in at 2.545 lb


found a nordicware cake pan I was thinking of using for the cyclotron but instead I made a fiber glass pull of the inside instead


I had done something at this point that was still unclear in my eye's it had come together nicely but there was still so much to do, and yes those are still the spray can caps with a little bondo for the cyclotron washers


Stay Tuned More to come Tomorrow

[EnderWeggen]

Going back through the pictures I did take


I was trying to keep the weight down so I used dry erase board or Masonite board for the mother board, I am telling you it is hard to cut out your Mobo using Masonite wound up having to pre drill the outline and then after it was cut down sand the edges all L brackets are hand made from 25 to 30 thousands aircraft aluminum and have floating nut plates for all shell mounting bolts. The lower speaker was a in home surround system speaker its the only 4ohm speaker I could find to go with the smaller one. My Electronics as you can see are all spoungface's


This is always fun to show off the inside of my shell its the moment when a lot of builders fully realize that my shell is not a fiberglass purchased shell


So how do you mount a EVA shell to your Mobo without crushing the hard work of building it using real bolts? Spacers I used nylon spacer's at each point I needed a hard mount and yes I made my gun mount to hold my wand


not much to say about this one


My Messy Work space this is around the time I could tell I had made something really nice the hard work and long build time I could see and it was so cool.

[SP Productions]

This is amazing! Love the ingenuity!

Sean

[jonogunn]

Wow! You covered the entire thing in Bondo?

I plan on building another one out of foam but I don’t know if I wanna bother with the bondo. It’s not exactly meant to be tough when used in such a way right? It’s mostly for filling in gaps and dents and not really meant to be an outer surface that provides strength. Correct me if I’m wrong.

[MagicPrime]

Wow. Have you ever thought of refining this down to a template? Having a good template for EVA construction would be a very accessible option for people wanting to build a pack.

[jonogunn]

Wow. Have you ever thought of refining this down to a template? Having a good template for EVA construction would be a very accessible option for people wanting to build a pack.

Sorry I hope I’m not hijacking OP’s thread but what you are asking for was actually released just a few days ago by this guy

https://youtu.be/kbHYg0JAm3U

He has the templates for ever part of the pack that you can print and trace on EVA foam and his video is a guide to constructing it. This is great for beginners and low budget pack builders.

[MagicPrime]

I keep hitting the like button, but it only lets me like it once!

[l3w1sb159]

Amazing work, making a pack out of Eva that looks that accurate.
Dispense the crunch bars!

[EnderWeggen]

Wow! You covered the entire thing in Bondo?

I plan on building another one out of foam but I don’t know if I wanna bother with the bondo. It’s not exactly meant to be tough when used in such a way right? It’s mostly for filling in gaps and dents and not really meant to be an outer surface that provides strength. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Ok so not the entire thing is covered in bondo only the first part as I made the mistake of building my power cell with the EVA foam floor mats texture on the outside. Also it to make it last it is covered in a layer of plastic dip, So my first attempt to texture failed as the Orange Peel was to spread out so then it got a good layer of plastic dip and It was still not wright so I used a brush and gave it a layer of creature cast and that made it look the best. The plastic dip will help it hold its shape but if you want your finle product to last the creature cast is the best as it is a liquid neoprene or a Liquid Rubber

[EnderWeggen]

Wow. Have you ever thought of refining this down to a template? Having a good template for EVA construction would be a very accessible option for people wanting to build a pack.

Sorry I hope I’m not hijacking OP’s thread but what you are asking for was actually released just a few days ago by this guy

https://youtu.be/kbHYg0JAm3U

He has the templates for ever part of the pack that you can print and trace on EVA foam and his video is a guide to constructing it. This is great for beginners and low budget pack builders.

No your good I reposted that same video to my groups facebook page. Its a pretty good templet to use.

[EnderWeggen]

I am excited to show off this pack its been well worth the two years and to be able to say I scratch built a good 90% of my pack is vary rewording. Do I wish I had a fiberglass shell sure do but for now I am enjoying the heck out of my build I know it wont last forever one day I will have to move on and get or make a shell. and Yes the pringles can made it to the end of the build it's hard to tell just what it was. I have a lot more I have not shared of this build and I will in time Like how my shock mount is PVC pipe copper crush washers and fore washers.

[EnderWeggen]

Oh one more just so you can believe me, my spacers and clamping L-bracket really do hold my wand on the pack

[jonogunn]

Do you by any chance have anymore pictures or can explain in a bit more detail on how you utilized the spacers for the vhook? Also did you use those spacers for all the l bracket holes on the pack?

In short I have to do a lot of repairs or rebuilding some parts of my Eva foam/foamcore pack after being severely damaged. after seeing the video with the template I may just rebuild it from scratch. Right now my gun box is all foamcore with a wooden block epoxied on the inside to support the stress of the wand having off the vhook. However I’m not quite sure if that method would hold up if I decide to make the gun box out of Eva foam (it may be more prone to bending?).


Also that looks fantastic!

[jonogunn]

Sorry for all the questions. I would also love to know what all those small tabs are on the inside of the foam shell are. Also could you tell me how you connected the ion arm and booster tube? Are those some sort of soft washers used?

[EnderWeggen]

Sorry for all the questions. I would also love to know what all those small tabs are on the inside of the foam shell are. Also could you tell me how you connected the ion arm and booster tube? Are those some sort of soft washers used?

I can answer this one with out taking more pictures .

The small tabs are braces for holding the corner's of the Synchronous Generator in place. If you look around on the inside of the shell you can see other braces and support's that it needed for building each part, you can also see the the areas I had to cut away for the electronics and speakers to fit.

The washers on the booster tube are just plastic washers like you find on automotive interiors. The washers help spread out the load of the booster tube, I believe you could use any hard plastic with button or flat headed screws.

[EnderWeggen]

Do you by any chance have anymore pictures or can explain in a bit more detail on how you utilized the spacers for the vhook? Also did you use those spacers for all the l bracket holes on the pack?

In short I have to do a lot of repairs or rebuilding some parts of my Eva foam/foamcore pack after being severely damaged. after seeing the video with the template I may just rebuild it from scratch. Right now my gun box is all foamcore with a wooden block epoxied on the inside to support the stress of the wand having off the vhook. However I’m not quite sure if that method would hold up if I decide to make the gun box out of Eva foam (it may be more prone to bending?).


Also that looks fantastic!

Ok so yes I used the spacers for all the bracket holes on the pack and a the washer under the bolt head to hold the pack on and yes the spacers are glued to the EVA foam. The Thrower Mount has its own bracket or rather a clamp made out of three aluminum plates and one that's the same size as the L bracket to make it clamp and hold it on the clamp sits agents the MoBo and keeps it in one place or from twisting from the weight of the thrower.

As you can see the L-Bracket has no nut or threads on it and the floating nut plat is on the thrower mount clamp

[EnderWeggen]

Now for the wand I did not do a screen accurate pop maybe when I get a mettle wand but I did do a custom lever action barrel. As far as I know I have never seen a lever in a wand that is only on one side of the wand do let me know if any one has ever built something like this.
I may have spent way to long just making this work

(Give it a minute to load)

[Petzrick]

This is amazing! The way you're approaching this blows my mind.

[Dr.D]

Yeah I could watch that gif for hours. I'd love to hear how that was done...

[EnderWeggen]

Well I have to give credit to member c.fago post viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25285&start=30 the thrower barrel extender / retractor lever action was quite inspiring for me It's disappointing that the video is no longer available, Good Thing I'm kind of a Archiver of awesome builds and I would Like to Point out that this is not my Build I believe its c.fago thrower pop build

c.fago's Lever Action Pop {GIF LET IT LOAD}

This Post Contains Spoilers

Needless to say I had this in my head for the whole two years I was building my Shell but for some reason I had the crazy notion to try and have it take up only one side of the thrower body "Like that was going to save me any room adding the electronics"
It also is the only other build I have seen ware you can use the lever to pull the barrel back in.
Also I may have over complicated it in the process But the outcome was well worth it

[Petzrick]

Nice! Thanks for posting that. I’ve looked at c.fago’s build before. The pictures are down (I hope he can update that in the future) but the comments make his thrower sound legendary. Your mech turned out fantastic. You may have over complicated it but I bet you learned a ton in the process. Being able to retract the tube is really cool. I’m jealous.