User avatar
By cristovalc
#4931955
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Hey all, since completing my belt gizmo I've stepped up my game and moved on to the ghost trap! I figured this one would be a bit easier as it's mostly screwing together prefab materials I also have a bit of experience with painting metal products for the industrial industry, so I know what a banged up and janky piece of tech should look like. However, I was not prepared for the patience it takes in priming and sanding over 20 intricate 3D printed parts to make em look all smooth and proper. I got blistahs on me fingahs, as I believe The Monkeys once said.

I'm using countspatula's excellent kit that he was kind enough to print out for me (finding a place that would do this for me around here resulted in a very expensive order). The real bits are also from his delux trap kit on his Etsy store.

Teardrop knob was purchased from Nationwide Radio & Eq. Sales LLC along with the 1 1/8" knob for its skirt, which I lobbed off, painted black matte and glued on to the other.

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I began by giving everything a healthy dose of Rustoleum Primer/Filler, as recommended by mike_waclo. Once dry I worked my way up from 180, 250, 350, 450, 600 and 1200 grit sandpaper to the pieces nice and fresh. I only hit the pieces I knew would be outward facing to save some time and sanity. There were some areas I left with 3D print blemishes poking through that gave it kind of a nice, scrap-y look.

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Since I was planing on doing some realistic paint chipping on this (I don't really like the look of hitting stuff with the silver Sharpie) I then coated everything with Rustoleum aluminum primer. Thanks to the thorough sanding job it gave everything a nice sheen. Time to cover that all up with a final matt black finish though!

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After it was all dry I started to build it all together. I should have pre-threaded the screws at the beginning as recommended, but I just wanted to get right in to it! Really had to do some hard core twisting to get the screws all the way through the 3D material.

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Really proud with how smooth the knobs turned out. I'm going to print another set and utilize the giant tube of Plastidip I bought for the Belt Gizmo and see how they look with a little bit of rubber coating.

During the matte black paint phase I tested out a side panel utilizing Punished Props toothpaste method for paint chipping. I had planed to hit every piece like this but ultimately thought the results were a bit too extreme. I sanded it all down again and repeated the paint layering.

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What I ended up doing was using some extra bits of 3D printed material from the kit I wasn't utilizing and just rubbing and chipping away at the top layer of paint in the areas I wanted effected. This ended up giving a much more realistic effect that I was pleased with.

I used some Tamiya Weather Master colours (SAND, LIGHT SAND, ORANGE DUST) for scuffing.

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Somehow during the sanding/painting phase the top lid for the rear box became warped and no longer sat flush. This bugged me for quite a while until I figured I would embrace it and make it look as if that part of the trap took a good hit during some point of its life. This ended up giving the trap much more character and I started roughing it up a bit more in placed to age it up a bit.

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For the door detailing I went a bit off script and grabbed some 3M yellow micro prismatic reflective tape. Sean's instructions called for 1" thick tape but I think in reality the trap has 3/4" strips. I should have measured what was there on the template first but in the end I didn't mind the chunkier weight. The reflective texture gives it a much more interesting look imo as compared to a flat electrical style, movie accuracy be damned. Black Gorilla tape was used for the spacing, which had another nice texture to it I enjoyed.

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I noticed that some screen-used traps had a length of green wire running underneath the left side panel, probably for internal electronics and such, that didn't seem to be included on many other reproductions so I decided to put it in. I was going to originally run it up into the bashed up rear panel box, Kylo Ren style, but I didn't end up liking the look and kept it canon.

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Another problem I ran into, which I'm not sure was a result of me not pre-threading the holes or just the 3D ABS material not holding up, was when screwing the 1/8" screws into the back of the doors it ended up splitting the material apart with a very concerning cracking noise. I superglued the cracks together and put a couple globs of hot glue into the holes and re-threaded it using the smaller 5/8" socket head screws used for holding the side panels to the middle frame uprights (I didn't really need all of these since I wasn't filling the trap up with heavy electronics).

I bought the bar graph from Jupiter Electronics because I wanted a nice cheap n easy option that looked great, and while it is indeed all of those things, it's also a bit too small to fully fit into the GB2 style window. I kept going between whether I wanted to continue on with this set of LED's or just transfer the electronics over from my Spirit halloween trap which would require even less fuss, but ended up siding with Jupiter. I hadn't seen anyone else here retrofit the electronics from Spirit Halloween into a custom trap build, so I was hoping to be the first, but the cooler bar graph look ultimately won out over Spirits simple 3-LED solution. ALAS.

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To fill the gap I simply cut up some spare plastic bits I had and glued them tight against the bar graph LED.

To wire it to the flip switch at the back of the trap I simply extended the 9V battery cables to reach and secured the battery itself in back of electronics box with velcro to be easily accessible via the magnetic cover.

EDIT: Photo

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Jupiter Electronics bar graph also snaps quite snuggly into the inside lip of the LED window too, which I appreciated! It should also be noted however that the graph cannot sit in the centre of the window as it's small mobo hits up against the top of bezel of the box, even with some thorough chipping away with a dremel (as much as I was comfortable with anyway). Oh well, doesn't bother me too much.

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Jupiter unfortunately doesn't include the small yellow LED that sits right of the bargraph unless you opt for the more expensive kit, but I made a simple LED circuit with switch. I probably could have figured out a way to wire it into the existing electronics but I ain't too smart when it comes to that stuff.

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I hot glued the switch under the right trap door and it fits nicely on the underside of the door bezel. Good 'n janky like a real Holywood prop!

The last issue I brought upon myself was with the metal vector plate. I used the included 3D print vector plate as a template by placing them back-to-back and drilling through the pre-cut holes without realizing this ended up mirroring the holes for where the resistor should sit! Don't try to build anything past 1 AM people! I filled the holes with bondo and sculpted the sides and structure back up as best I could, then sanded it down and hit the entire thing with aluminum spray. Good as new!

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And that's the trap done! Just have to finish some weather detail on the handle and other bits and add the stickers. The pedal is up next!

Shout out to my partner in building RHansen for letting me use his workshop for all this! I would be but huffing paint fumes in my small family basement without his aide.
Last edited by cristovalc on March 3rd, 2020, 9:50 am, edited 3 times in total.
ccv66, mike_waclo, DJVinx liked this
#4932070
Thanks all!

The next step while I wait to get started on the pedal is something that is wholly within my realm: graphic design bay-be! None of that rookie business here folks!

I've noticed that dry rub decals are hard to come by these days, so I said eff it and decided to make my own. Thanks to the new high-res promotional stills of the Spengler Wand I was able to suss out in better detail what these should look like. What I ended up designing was a cross between the old and new, referencing the Hasbro decals against the screen used props, as I can see there are some inconsistencies even on the new wand that go against what we know.

With my Proton Pack being held up in shipping (thanks Coronavirus) I didn't have anything on my end to measure against except for the Spongeface's Bargraph Bezel that I picked up a few months back, so using that as a jumping off point I designed the circular pie graph (??) decals to the right of it to scale, and then started referencing other decals to that and so on and so fourth. I cited Sean Bishop's amazing prop measurements as well to make sure the sizing was kosher to everything as well.

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The ghost trap front knob decals were first measured from countspatula's faux metal plates for placement, and then I used this Ghostbuster Prop Archive photo as my main reference, against what is seen on the Matty Trap and worked out what was missing, since some of the letters are in rough shape. Hoping to find a place to print 'em up for me and see how they look when applied. :)
By RHansen
#4932084
Great job on the labels! Our packs being held up gives me time to catch up on the trap.

I spent some time last night looking for a print shop for them, no success yet. If anyone has a lead on a printer that does dry rub, let us know!
#4932886
Aawwwlllright, decals came in today! Got a few quotes from all over but ended up going with ReproGraphx, as they had the best price and a really good turnaround time, even considering everything currently going on.

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Turned out pretty clean with accurate sizing.

BEFORE:

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AFTER:

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I thought the front decals would be a cinch as I sized 'em to go on together as one sheet, but ended up having to slice 'em up and put on sections individually as getting around the knobs was a pain. The arrow knob decals were the worst part as I didn't get the sizing quite right (my fault) but they look fine nonetheless. Really adds a lot! Now just awaiting the stickers and I can grime it on up!

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RHansen, BRD 527, ccv66 and 3 others liked this
#4933214
Temporarily off work at the moment so finding more time on my hands to work away on the pedal.

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Literally watching paint dry these days.

The main body of the pedal is from Countspatula, but I opted not to get the "real" side boxes from his delux kit since I didn't want to do a bunch of drilling of holes, which backfired because it didn't come with the 3D printed versions. Luckily RHansen DID opt for the real bits, which left me to steal the printed parts from his BenofKentProps pedal--so it's a nice little mashup! Ben's boxes are spot on, but the placement and size of the holes were off from what was on Sean's, so I started by dremeling sockets a bit wider, and patching and re-drilling everything else---the very thing I tried to avoid!

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While I was waiting for that to dry I decided to patch up my LifeGard II while in Rome. I got the molded resin version from GBFans, and while it's super nice and solid, the bottom is a little swiss cheese lookin from air bubbles. Used bondo/super glue to fill the holes and sanded down. Drilled out the air holes on the front and sides as well.

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I'll get back to that sometime later.

I went back and fourth between putting electronics in the pedal, as I wasn't planning on wearing it around too much on the costume and it would serve mainly as a display piece, but couldn't resist in the end! Didn't care with fussing with threading wires through the cable, so kept everything within the trap itself. I needed a switch accessible for flipping it on so drilled a little hole on the bottom of the box to push it through.

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Many 9V batteries died in the making of this costume.

I had trouble fitting the relay into the sockets. I couldn't get the pints to quite line up with the holes despite trying to bend them around with pliers, so I just decided to rip them all out and hot glue the sucker in. Turned out fine!

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Dry rub down.

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And that's where this stands. Like all good puzzles I'm annoyingly missing the very last piece! The small screw that holds down the banjo. Lost it somewhere along the way, and don't have a decent replacement kicking around. Need to gather the screws for the box caps as well.

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Weathering up next. I'm always hesitant with starting that process but it becomes pretty fun and methodical once I'm into it.

VIDEO:
https://flic.kr/p/2iL3ecR
#4933384
PSA: Don't spray guilded aerosol paint in the same room as your other gear, unless you want your stuff to look as if you lent it to Ke$ha for the night...

That aside, this is finally "done" (a Ghostbusting build is never done). Had to improvise on a few screws and such and hot glue is a true friend, but here it is. Little banjo turned out to be a real pain in the d, requiring multiple coats to make it look good (hence the gold flakes er'rywurr from guilded brass). Had to go a bit larger on some screws as smaller ones didn't fully latch the lid together, but I needed all those electronics and battery to stay tight n put.

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EDIT: WeAtHeRiNg

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The Lifegard Pass Alarm turned out OK so far. Managed to cut and bend a coat hanger into shape so pretty proud of that. Paint doesn't take too well to the resin though, so had to do multiple coats and trying not to get it looking too globby. Doing some weathering on it will probably hide the crimes. The bottom is still a little dirty but as least most of the holes have been filled.

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Will hit the screws with a silver sharpie at some point later (Edit: Now is later). Was thinking of grinding them down and replacing with real screws but I've already invested more time into this little guy than necessary. I'm pretty happy with it though!

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RHansen, mike_waclo, tobycj and 2 others liked this
#4935441
Scratched away a bit more at this. At this point it's probably safe to say my stickers ain't coming any time soon so I went ahead and grunged up the whole thing. This part was a bit trying as oil paint doesn't take to the faux-aluminum panels well, so getting it to take without look too fake was a process. In the end I just dabbed on some paint and dry brushed it around randomly, scrubbed it off with a rag, then repeated 3 times so it seemed like it went out on active duty a bunch and had to be cleaned after. For all it's faults I do like the paint job they went for on the Hollywood Collectibles trap so I tried to strike a balance between that and how greasy it looks in the Afterlife trailer, since I was aiming for making my trap look like it was dug out of storage 30 years later.

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Also decided to go a bit more realistic on the top LED using the ridged edge of a CD case for that lenticular look, as others here have recommended. Had to really dig for an old CD case as I haven't bought any sort of physical media in years, but managed to snag a few. I carefully sliced away with a very sharp exacto knife, popped it out, then spent an hour or so carefully sanding down the edges until it just fit inside the window. Cut out a piece of thin dark filter (the same that Spongeface sends out with this bargraph bezel kits) and placed it underneath. The bargraph was a nice tight fit, so I didn't even have to glue it down or anything. Looks good!

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RHansen, Kingpin liked this
User avatar
By cristovalc
#4938380
One whole quarantine later and I can finally put this project to pasture. The stickers finally arrived!

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The real life dust this thing collected in the meantime really helps sell the look...

Thanks again to Sean Charlesworth and BenofKent Props for all the bits and bobs, as well as all the great builds here on the forums that helped inspire me with this project!
Couture, Kingpin, tobycj liked this
User avatar
By EctoLabs
#4938381
It looks amazing mate, really brilliant work. Yeah, mine is a dust magnet too but that does make it resemble some of the auction photos of the screen used props that have been in storage for years. Must update my build thread soon!

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