First Commissioned Proton Pack

Well folks, it's happened. I've been contacted by another HUGE Ghostbusters fan (and specifically a fan of the heart of the Ghostbusters, Ray Stanz himself) to create another miniature proton pack. My very first commissioned pack.  I've had offers but it's been more the type of "hey make me one." While this is truly a labor of love, it's a labor. As you can tell from the original build. They take a while, but the end product is something I'm very very proud of. And this time around I hope to improve on a few little tiny issues I had when making the first one.

So here is the build of version 2.0

First up the motherboard. I chose to cut this out of a sheet of plastic this time around to give the pack even more stability and to make it easier to create a cover for the batteries.  We'll see how that works out when we get to that step.  In the original pack there was a planned cover with fell to pieces in my hand. So this should fix the brittleness of wood.  One hopes.

Here is the cyclotron and possibly the biggest piece of the pack. It's made of several layers of wood in order to build it up high enough and allow me to fully carve out in the inside to make room for the electronics.

This is just a rough fit to see how spacing is lining up before priming and sanding. So far so good. Looks a big plain but that'll change soon enough.

This is after the first coat of primer and a little filler. I use Primer and gesso to fill in the wood. It helps to strengthen it and gives a nice base for the pain to stick to. Only down side of gesso is that I feel like halfway through each can it's such a thick substance that no more is willing to come out.  Anyone else use this and find they have this problem?

A couple close ups of the cover to the cyclotron in it's primed and filled stage.  Right before another coat of primer was shot onto it.

After a few more coats of primer and here is a side by side comparison to help me make sure I'm on the right track. I like to use different colors of primer to hilight sections and to help me see what needs to be done. Using one color tends make everything blend together.

And here is an un-primed gun mount box prior to detailing. There is some detailing that needs to be done to the top now that the basic shape is there and the edges have been rounded.

And that's where we are so far folks. It might not seem like a lot, but it is. There is so much sanding and cutting and priming and waiting for each section. And that gets repeated over and over again. More coming soon.  But this is an excellent start to another pack.

Flux Capacitor Part 1

Ladies and Gentlemen!

I've mentioned it, or hinted at it. Something. But now I'm actually taking on the challenge of building a mini Flux Capacitor. I mean who wouldn't want one of those just sitting there on their desk? You never know when you're going to need one. So I'm taking it upon myself to flood the world (or my desk) with the power of the the Delorean.

Reference photos have actually been difficult to find. Not because they're scarce, but because there are so many. They Flux Capacitor (from here on known as "FC") changed a little in each film and then of course again in all the replicas being built both privately and licensed.

But here is a pretty good photo just to get some basic ideas from:

This is one of the do it yourself kind. Love this kind! Doc Brown wouldn't have it any other way.

Now begins my attempt at making a smaller version of this amazing piece of technology.

Dimensions were taking from the actual electrical box that it's housed in and just shrunk down. As far as my projects go, this one is the easiest to get measurements for because the things actually exist.

Pretty straight forward rectangle with sides ready to be assembled

I cut out the viewing port and will eventually cover this with a thin piece of plastic. 

There are no innards yet.  There is no nothing yet. Just a frame. A weird picture frame.

PRIMER!

For now this is it. As of posting these pictures I've moved on to step two which is to the the actually working pieces of the FL lit and properly aligned.  If I can I'll try to get some pics ready for upload tomorrow just so you can all see the magic of the light. oooh. Ahhh.

I know there isn't much here, but it's a start. It's very boxy. Once the FL has more structure I can start to round out the corners. While it is an electric box, it's not a perfect rectangle. That baby's got curves!