[NeutronStarPilot]

Call it fait, call it....okay I'm not doing the whole bit,
it was basically time to get this pack started!

Six years of part sourcing and research, not as long as some but long enough for me.
I feel I've gathered enough information and confidence from all of you lovely people over the years so let's begin.

But just quickly,
Not to get too personal I had originally planned to start this build much sooner but IRL medical issues occurred and I ended up cancelling several parts orders and returning others to focus on the situation.
Anyone who helped during this time you know who you are and the help was so very much appreciated.


While not quite finished with IRL stuff i am in a position where i am able to proceed.
As the title states this pack is comprised of elements I like about the proton pack from the three mentioned movies (nothing against Frozen Empire but that pack has many unique elements that would likely require their own build)

Repeating myself, the plan is a sort of Hybrid pack with its roots as a spengler 84/ superhero but with things changed for preference.


I started with a shell mounted to a motherboard courtesy of Ben of Kent,

The shell is lovely, it has brilliant crisp lines and detail, it's also super sturdy which helps.
No nerves about drilling



And speaking of drilling that's the next step, careful examination of reference photos I marked out the areas on the pack and with a steady hand and the help of an inherited Drill that's seen a thing or two and a Dremel (other rotary tools are available)
We got to it





So the BOK shell has it's own way of including the vacuum line, it has the base moulded as part of the shell and you simply insert an aluminium cylinder in,
However I had already acquired a vacuum line from the gbfans store,
Now you can simply put the vacuum line in place or you can sand down the lip of the packs moulded vacuum line base,
The additional height honestly isn't that noticeable, unless you were really really looking, but I opted for sanding down the pack.


More holes drilled




It's worth pointing out, I've taken a lot of inspiration from many different build threads on here, if you see something that looks like so and so's method it probably is
Feel free to comment and link to their thread.
I'm just happy to put the knowledge to good use but credit should go to those that deserve it.
If I'm confident my solution is mine alone I'll say so.

Some templates I made from aluminium foil for quick hole placement,
They're good and quick to make, they mold to the shape of the part great, but be careful not to bend them or the accuracy is off.




The Spengler switch

As part of the Afterlife aspects I love one Is definitely the Spengler switch, I was given this one as a gift (alongside some other parts we'll get to)

This switch is made By Ben Millen who designed this part for the movies, which is just amazing
Ben's etsy store is punk rocket props for anyone interested


So got the switch, got my aluminium Ion Arm from Gbfans, and I got a Dremel,
Now I know there are better tools for the job, but this is what I got


Safety goggles and a mask kids, aluminium dust not recommended for eyes or breathing in!


So far this is where we are

[OnEdge]

Ooooh I’m sure this will be a nice build! I’ll watch this

[NeutronStarPilot]

Thank you for the kind words, a little more progress made and more posts to come.

To be ambitious I'll aim to be done before Christmas, but I'm not going to rush anything, if I can great if not it gets done in the time it takes,

I've got 98 percent of the parts, in that I have the two final parts en route,
I mean I'm pretty sure that's not how percentages work, but you know what I mean.

[NeutronStarPilot]

This required patience but slow and steady and all that and success!







Now the Eagle eyed among you will have spotted a couple of things in that last image one is the Bob Ross inspired happy little accident of being a few mm off in hole placement and miliput repair

The second is the rough rectangular hole, the reason for that is my spengler switch will be functional and I need the hole to get the wires in to the Ion arm,

When we get to it the spengler switch will power the smoke machines, yes that was correct, smoke machines plural, why two?

Well I'm glad you asked, and we will go in to that when we get to it, hopefully that has offered some intrigue for anyone following,
I promise it's something a little different to what I've seen others do, but patience friends


And some other hole placement I left out of my last post



I'm a big fan of the Rubber Grommet in the ribbon cable hole, I feel it suits the pack well and feels like it's always been there


Part Placement



Checking the fit and placement of the pieces, so far so good,

And now a little of the epitome of working with what I've got


The L bracket is not screen accurate and is part of a lot the reclaimed or recovered hardware I'm using in my build,
It just looked so knarly and beat up I love it and couldn't not use it.

More pics because why not.




The Motherboard

Much like Ray Stanz we could almost call this the Heart and soul of the pack build an integral and unsung hero of the Proton pack,
Where the majority of my electronics will be mounted and where the A.L.I.C.E Frame attaches,
By Gozer let's not mess this part up,
The pack will bondo/ Miliput minor oopsies, I'm not sure how you un-whoops aluminium?!

Measure 30 times drill once will be our philosophy here.




Now if you're not entirely sure what all of those lines are for, don't worry I'm not sure I am either, measured, checked, rechecked and in the end I'm confident to say these are correctly placed, phew!

Back To The Pack

For the split loom


For an easier life I probably would recommend the mouse hole approach, pack goes on pack goes off,
This is definitely more of an extra step in sliding the pack along the loom once it's in place with the ribbon cable for the wand electronics (and some other additions of mine)

But I just like the aesthetics of this, and it's an extra step I will take.


Electronics Mounting

Let's start with the Cyclotron lights, I know many builders love the flashlight reflector cones and I totally get why.
However an aspect of the original props I love is how the lights were mounted in them, it's simple, elegant and if you look carefully you can just about make out the components under the lenses,

I've aimed for a similar arrangement, not quite the perf board with either functional or mock components

But the Gbfans cyclotron lights come on circuit boards, and once mounted and arranged in the correct position as far as I can tell it should provide my pack with a similar look and effect of the screen props



I put my lights on 3mm PCS sheets lovingly cut and shaped with my Dremel, and mounted the lights on electronics spacers.

A fair amount of placing the shell checking and rechecking was involved but worth it in the end






Being winter, I'm not exactly blessed with dry days, so I really do want to get a move on with the painting,

So the next steps will be finishing the holes to mount the electronics on the motherboard so the motherboard can be painted along with the Pack parts and the shell,

And painting is certainly a step that needs doing especially for the 24 hour minimum wait for curing.

I feel I've got a fair amount done so far and more to come, and I'll tease the two smoke machines once again for an upcoming post....

[OnEdge]

Thank you for the kind words, a little more progress made and more posts to come.

To be ambitious I'll aim to be done before Christmas, but I'm not going to rush anything, if I can great if not it gets done in the time it takes,

That is indeed ambitious haha, sometimes there may be unexpected problems that can happen! Its interesting that the gbfans cyclotron lights look like that. I saw on older kits that they used to be led bulbs, but now they have the circuit board look. I’m interested to see how the lights look in action with the new circuit board setup.

[tobycj]

Part Placement

The BoK PPD is unfortunately a bit larger than the accurate part that GBFans and other vendors sell, so you might want to look at resculpting the shell where it sits. If you find my build thread from a few years ago I covered it in there

[NeutronStarPilot]

Thank you for the reply
Awesome build thread I must say, you know I was thinking that about the PPD,
Though I think I can live with the PPD, now I've bolted it in, it looks fine for me.

I totally understand your process, but I don't mind some of the wonkyness, reminds me of the screen packs where not everything is as flush or aligned as you might think on closer inspection,
But thank you again for the advice.

I'm weighing up my vibes on the pack in what I like aesthetically and what doesn't sit right (no pun intended) this one I'm cool with.

I don't think the BOK is perfectly screen accurate where sizes are concerned in all areas, but six years ago Mack's Factory weren't making shells,
Not to say I'm not happy with the shell, it
Looks like a proton pack.
And for fine detail and sharp lines It's a quality pack,
But yes I would say for anyone who needs precise accuracy, other shells would be worth looking at.

Again thanks for pointing out your build thread, there are so many great builds on here, and I've seen a lot of them, but I always wonder which ones I'm missing out on?

Anyway more posts to come.

[NeutronStarPilot]

Electronics

Or much ado about Electronics,

I am much more in my element when the pack build is on bolting, measuring, painting and the likes
As these skills are transferable from other model and prop builds.

That being said despite some effort to learn and a heap of help from Nathan Stevic, Doug of Ghostlab42 and others
I was able to get my head around this part

And for anyone starting out a pack build a lot of the Electronics for proton packs and Neutrona wands are plug and play for lights and sound.
Follow a few steps and you got this,
It only get somewhat tricky when you decide to be difficult and insist on some additional features

So I decided on a few additional features

Starting with the batteries.



To mount the batteries, it's actually a draw tray rail that was the right size to fit both batteries under, I just removed the sliders from the rail.

It works like a charm.

Now, why two batteries? If you are incorporating a smoke machine (or two) in to your build it is recommended to use one battery for light and sound and the other to power the smoke machines

Here is a rough placement of the internal Electronics



And some more pictures showing the placement of everything.








In the last image you can see one of the smoke machines on the left hand side of the cyclotron light holder stand.
But that placement wasn't ideal and it and the space inside the shell had other ideas so I simply moved it from the outside wall of the stand to the inside where it sits with the speaker.
The smoke machine is mounted on a plate to the side of the lights holder.

Now why two smoke machines?......

Gather round and I'll tell you a story, of a man named Fincher, Charles Fincher to be precise...many moons ago...okay I'm done with the cowboy folksy approach I'll tell it more normally (or as normally as I can. but I'm keeping the moons)

Many moons ago Charles Fincher of Fincher technologies did a demonstration of a pack where you had the good old N-filter Ghostbusters game effect after an overheat but on this particular pack the grill in the Neutrona wand body also vented like the N-filter, and on top of that the volume control was in the wand.

These were features I absolutely loved and will be creating with my build.

But the functionality will be further down the road.

First......

Painting

Not wanting to waste a dry day I got to the painting.

I first covered the holes on the inside of the motherboard and used tape to roughly Shape the overspray,
As the film packs have some of this and I was looking for something roughly similar.



Now the paint,
I will assume many have seen the photos of the screen used pack with the blue paint on the edges of the motherboard

The big inspiration here was seeing Halliwax do this on his pack,
He used a blue, painted over black and allowed for some of the blue to come through a little and it looks great.

and I decided to just be extra in being inspired but to also go my own way on this one. I used a rustoleum cosmic colour shifting spray paint, just to zuhuzh (jugsh, how to spell it?!) To juhzh Up the pack,



And hot damn!, I'm glad I did, I love this!
It gives that sort of galaxy deep space image, star filled night sky effect and for me some extra personality to my motherboard.
And like it is subtle but when the light catches it right, it looks cool, my phone camera really isn't doing it justice.

More tape.....

The pack shell,
First was to mask of areas to remain untextured

[NeutronStarPilot]

I then applied spray texture with this product.



Here is how it was looking




Then it had to dry for around three hours minimum.

While waiting I got on with the pack parts. To do this I hung the parts from wire, wrapped the wire around a washing line and was able to spray around all sides of the parts,
I would recommend this if this option is available to you.
For whatever reason I was so caught up in my spraying I didn't actually take a picture of the parts hanging on the wire, Doh!

But here are the painted parts


You can see the wire I used in the box, so there's at least that.





Decent progression so far, just waiting on paint to settle before more cam be done.

[NeutronStarPilot]

I can't explain the excitement in finally getting the shell painted!

In the next few pictures I sprayed the textured shell and let the paint settle for a full 24 hours to check for any missed spots and to see how the paint looked after being allowed to 'relax' I then gave the shell another full coat, let the paint settle for a few hours
Before giving the pack a final light 3rd coat, almost 2 1/2 coats really.
Here are the results,

[NeutronStarPilot]

Here is a closer look at the texture



And more from coats and settling periods








I was aiming for a look between whats been describedas 'legacy' and 'idealised'
And I am pleased with the results, honestly I went to the effort to learn correct spray paint techniques,
It's up/down across/across for anyone curious, and while obvious to others, I just really didn't want to mess this part up.

Then came time to to arrange the electronics before their placement on the motherboard







After a while of deliberation, checking re-checking and after the sell was dry enough to touch making sure nothing was obstructing the shell from fitting snugly (which did take more adjustment)

I finally arrived at this



And after a bit of tidying up (emphasis on 'bit')
Here it is



In an earlier post I had mentioned the ambition to be done before Christmas,
But I would say I have a fairly leisurely pace when assembling my pack, and while not impossible, I don't plan on rushing,
But it will be nice to see where this is up to around Christmas time.