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After experimenting with some practice materials, I was able to get all the L-brackets attached to the motherboard using large-head rivets. This was all done using Ejgunth87's excellent 'L Bracket Mounting Set' and, of course, kind2311's fantastic shell/motherboard mounting tutorial. Also, a big THANK YOU to all of you who wisely told me to keep the brackets in their proven locations

Here is a shot of the "top"...


You can see that I placed the bracket that will be near the wire loom clamp in its ideal position, and will just modify the clamp to fit.

Here is a shot of the "bottom", showing the lovely large-head rivets...


The shells has a nice, snug fit, so the next step will be marking the 4 holes to drill and tap. I believe I will have to be most careful with the hole placed near the gun mount, since I don't want to two to interfere. Now, I'm off to look at hold placement reference photos!

EXCELLENT! This has been my favorite progress while building my pack. You know what it means? You can wear your pack once you tap the holes

Looks great. Can't wait to see that shell attached!

Carefully evaluate your gun mount attachment plan. I hastily mounted mine and then later decided to add a reinforcement plate. After I did that, the L-bracket interfered and I had to cut 1/4-inch off the top. I did double up my L-bracket thread walls and that added a bit of height... certainly contributed to my problem.

Grimmy GB wrote:EXCELLENT! This has been my favorite progress while building my pack. You know what it means? You can wear your pack once you tap the holes

Thanks, Grim! Really looking forward to getting to that point. So close...

bishopdonmiguel wrote:Looks great. Can't wait to see that shell attached!.

Thank you, Bishop! I'll be adding an update with pics here very soon

bishopdonmiguel wrote:Carefully evaluate your gun mount attachment plan. I hastily mounted mine and then later decided to add a reinforcement plate. After I did that, the L-bracket interfered and I had to cut 1/4-inch off the top. I did double up my L-bracket thread walls and that added a bit of height... certainly contributed to my problem.

Appreciate the heads up. I think I'm in good shape with my bracket, but my vhook gun mount is by CPU64 and didn't come with a reinforcment plate... so I might have to make one like you did. Seems like it would be worth the effort.

Happy New Year, everyone! I decided it was time to get back to my build after a long holiday break. Too much longer and I was worried I would lose some momentum...

Anyway, let's get back to it!

Since, I was a bit nervous to drill and tap the shell and brackets, I brought some (1 inch?) aluminum bar from HD to practice with. I also used the material to practice riveting and ended up with these two "demo" pieces...


I highly recommend trying your skills on practice material when you are trying something new. Definitely makes the actual work on the pack more fun and less stressful

I basically just stuck to the advice in kind2311's shell/motherboard mounting tutorial, drilling and tapping both the shell and motherboard together. Using the "drill in reverse" technique worked great for getting past the gel coat. Once I clearly got to the fiberglass layer, I drilled "normally" and slowly. The result was 4 clean holes in need of tapping. I found using a little 3-in-1 oil really helped the tap turn easier. After ensuring the newly tapped holes were clear of debris, I had this...







I'm very happy with the placement and feel a lot more confident with working with the shell. Looking forward to the next step - mounting the LC-1 Alice frame!

The most challenging step is now behind you. Nice work.

So good to see you back, bro! Nice work on the mount job. Looks spot on.

Well done buddy. Looks great

bishopdonmiguel wrote:The most challenging step is now behind you. Nice work.

Thanks, Bish. I'll do my best to not make things more difficult than they need be

Grimmy GB wrote:So good to see you back, bro! Nice work on the mount job. Looks spot on.

Venkman's Swagger wrote:Well done buddy. Looks great

Thank you, both! It's great to be back.

I've got most everything figured out for attaching the motherboard to the ALICE frame and drew a little diagram (based on an aluminum spacer version here)...


As long as that is correct, then the only other things I need to figure out is...

* the length of the 1/4-20 philips round head bolt
* size of the washer

Any recommendations there? For the bolt, I was thinking 1.5 or 2in. Not so sure about the washers.

I didn't draw a diagram for the ALICE vertical bar mount point, the only differences being a hole needs drilling at the proper point and a half-moon spacer is used.

Looking forward to wearing it soon and fear I'm already making things more complicated then they need to be.. LOL

I bought the 2" bolts and there's about 3/4" left over for thread bite. And for washers, I bought the 5/8" outer diameter. They are the most common at The Home Depot.

Grimmy GB wrote:I bought the 2" bolts and there's about 3/4" left over for thread bite. And for washers, I bought the 5/8" outer diameter. They are the most common at The Home Depot.

Thanks, Grim! Gonna try to make it there today to pick some up.

I was able to get to HD and pick up the hardware based on my diagram and Grimmy's suggestions. After trying everything out, I thought I might have something wrong. I expected the head of the bolt to be larger, like the carriage bolts some people have used. So I did a little more research and re-discovered a couple of excellent posts by Julz concerning this topic...

http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... 0#p4786838
http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... 0#p4783805
Thanks a lot, Julz, for figuring out all this GB1 spacer stuff and sharing the information is such a clear and clean manner!

Now that I've properly researched the topic (what a concept!), I was really ready to tackle this. Here is what I used to attach the vintage LC-1 ALICE frame to the GBfans motherboard...

3x 2" 1/4-20 round head philips bolts/screws (Home Depot)
5x 5/8" OD, 1/4" ID washers (Home Depot)
3x 1/4" wingnuts or 1/4" nylon lock nuts (Home Depot)
GB1 rubber spacers (Nick-A-Tron)

To find the spot to drill the top/third mounting hole in the vertical ALICE frame bar, I bolted the motherboard directly (no spacers) to the frame using the two bottom slots. Then I marked the spot to drill using the center of the pre-drilled hole in the motherboard. After drilling the 1/4" hole, I starting assembling everything.

Bottom two slots...
bolt --> washer --> alice frame slot --> rectangular rubber spacer --> motherboard --> washer --> wing nut

Top connection...
bolt --> alice frame vertical bar --> half-moon rubber spacer --> motherboard --> washer --> wing nut

Now that I've way over-explained that, here are some pictures of the results...


Bottom two connection points


Top connection point


Side view - Bottom two connection points


Side view - Top connection point


Back of pack with shell attached (ignore the obscenely large LC-2 type kidney pad... I plan to replace it)


Front of pack with shell attached

And of course, now that I've reached this milestone...

HAPPY DAY!!!

I'm considering giving the LC-1 a fresh coat of flat black, so I haven't added the pipe insulation and tape to the top of the frame yet.

For my next step, I'm thinking I will install the Wire Loop Clamp that I fussed about so much in the beginning of this thread. Lots of good example of installing the clamp in various build threads, so I better start re-reading them now

That's a beautiful thing!

Over-explaining is always appreciated. Everything looks fantastic. I'd wager you walked around with the pack on for 30 minutes grinning ear-to-ear... or am I the only one who did that?

Grimmy GB wrote:That's a beautiful thing!

Thanks! And the ProtonPack ain't too bad either.

bishopdonmiguel wrote:Over-explaining is always appreciated.

I try to shed light on the areas that were mysterious or unclear to me at the various stages of the project. The process of turning those areas into something that is fully understood is a rewarding one.

bishopdonmiguel wrote:Everything looks fantastic. I'd wager you walked around with the pack on for 30 minutes grinning ear-to-ear... or am I the only one who did that?

Thanks, Bishop. Thirty minutes at least... it was really inspiring. I've got a ways to go with finishing this pack, but I feel confident I can handle each challenge, hoop and hurdle by being patient and asking for help when I need it

Yes dude!! Rocking it

I love that you have an Ashley Sscheffer license plate frame.

Looks great! You got the height just right.

The foundation is solid....the rest should go great!

Venkman's Swagger wrote:Yes dude!! Rocking it

Thanks, VS! Rocking it old school, for sure.

Looking good

thelegendofvix wrote:I love that you have an Ashley Sscheffer license plate frame.

Ha ha ha! Good eye! I was wondering if someone was going to notice that thing. Unfortunely, it's not compatible with the OR license plates becuase of the renewal sticker location. Now it just sits in our garage and amuses us.

nick-a-tron wrote:Looks great! You got the height just right.

Thanks, Nick! The GBFans motherboard with the pre-drilled ALICE frame holes helped quite a bit.

Hammer wrote:The foundation is solid....the rest should go great!

Thanks, Hammer! Appreciate your confidence and that is exactly what I'm going for... a good starting foundation

ecto85 wrote:Looking good

Thanks, Dr. Frisby. Always great to hear from another Portland Ghostbuster!

I performed my first "dado" (gotta love that word) and my Wiz Loom Clamp is now L-bracket friendly. Thanks for the suggestion, Bishop!

I started by marking off the area I wanted remove from the clamp and then placed in the vice...


The dremel worked really well with removing the material. It was the first time I used one, but it was quite easy.

Below is the dadoed clamp, alone with some templates I made out of card stock to mark off the area of the shell to remove...


My plan is to cut out the mouse hole, then attach the clamp properly aligned with the shell. Looking forward to a nicely installed, removable wire loom attachment solution!