Thats coming together nicely. If you want i have a machined battery cap if u want that i can send to ya just pay the shipping and thats it.

Thanks for the offer, but I should be sorted with the resin ones I got with the thumbscrews.

okay cool. cant wait to see these done.

Initially this wasn't even going to count as a “Part” as this update was going to be so brief, but as things turned out I ended up making a few extra leaps toward completion. It also allows me to post the new, snazzier banner.

Tuesday's work was limited to one item of business, getting some Ecto Goggle stickers printed. The sticker in question is the side label I redesigned last October, which I decided to get printed up for my first (mostly) screen-accurate set. Staples was my only option these days, but the quality seemed to come out nicely:



They're cheaply made so they're not going to be waterproof, but I'm not planning to take them out in the rain.

More work was done today, starting with some brainstorming with my Dad, brother Jon and my Mum about how to attach the lenses. I didn't want to drill the faceplate because I'd already installed it, and I didn't want to add any visible screws or bolts that aren't visible on the real prop.

However, I knew that hotglue wouldn't be enough, and the size of the holes for the lenses in retrospect to the size of the lenses themselves presented a problem as there was a gap separating the two.

It was this morning that a simple, but brilliant idea was struck upon: pad parts of the lense bases with tape so that the gap would be closed up.

A few lengths of black duct tape later, and we were in business:


(Pictured here with the original genuine PVS-5 frame which started this whole shebang)

Proof that duct tape does hold the world together. The lenses are able to hold in the faceplate by themselves, however I will give them a little bit of hotglue anyway for extra rigidity.

They're now rigid enough for me to be able to ‘wear’ the Goggles without holding the lenses in place:



With that obstacle beaten, I turned my attention to the silver end of the longer lense, where I manufactured a block for the thumbscrew from a length of dowling, and all three pieces were glued together with Uhu for added strength.



As I waited for that to dry, I hotglued the thumbscrews into place on the shorter lense. Once dry, I'll paint over the globs of hotglue with black paint to make them less obvious.



The final bit of work for the evening involved drilling the scrap of wood from the Center Plate to give it four more holes so I could paint the heads of the four cap head bolts black, but keep the threading clean for installation in the faceplate.



With the Uhu on hand, I also took the opportunity to rectify an accident from last Summer, where one of the lenses from the Ecto Goggles I'd inherited from Mark Lloyd was knocked off.



And that's today's short update.

Saturday, and Friday especially have really had their bum moments. around 11:30 in the morning on Friday, I got a call from my bank informing me that some rat-bastard in the US had been trying to use my debit card to buy either £400 or $400 worth of weight-loss equipment.

Thankfully they caught it, and are currently watching to see what happens next, but it means I'm gonna have to wait through the process of getting a replacement card and getting things straightened out, hopefully… this won't take too long.

Then on top of that, I get word from Parcel Force that my Proton Gun kit has arrived at their depot in Oxford, the reason why they didn't deliver it was because they decided to lump on nearly £40 worth of charges, over 20 quid for V.A.T. and around 12 quid for “handling services”.

So the last 48 hours have not been quite as enjoyable as I'd have liked…

…however, this didn't dampen my mood in regards to the Ecto Goggles, I think I'm in a better frame of mine thanks to it, and the Birthday gift my brother gave me yesterday.

Sadly it isn't documented here, but on the 18th I was able to get the silver end of the longer lense primed, although only after a unplanned trip into town in order to stock up on Primer. Once dry, I gave it a course of silver and left it to dry overnight.



Friday afternoon, after I'd gotten the news from my Bank, I ended up in the garage in order to help my Mum get some items into the Freezer, where I decided I'd see if I could fit the silver end into it's gloss black-painted base.

Like the first version I'd made, the layers of primer and paint made the portions of the lense thicker then they'd first been, which resulted in the silver end becoming even more difficult to slide into the portion which had been painted black.

However, like the previous lense I'd made, the plus side to this is that I wouldn't need to glue the end piece in place due to the tight fit. Once inserted, I pushed the remaining thumb screw into the gloss black section, and decided to do a test fit of the two assembled lenses in the resin frame.







And of course, I couldn't resist the urge to model the set as they currently stood.



Once I'd had enough of that, I set about test-fitting the cap-head screws. The two in the top of the frame hold in by themselves by screwing them in, although due to some developments during the day, I'll have to glue the lower two in.



Next stop: Attaching the snaps for the harness. Early into the project I knew I did not want to apply the snap on the top of the frame in the traditional way because I knew I wouldn't be able to easily reinforce the frame to prevent it from breaking. I also knew that it would not be easy to try apply it in the normal way if I had the faceplate in place, so, inspired by jt001's Ecto Goggle build, I decided to feed a small bolt through the snap, and tighten it in place with a corresponding nut.

The work required the need to remove some of the glue that was holding the faceplate in place, so the tool of choice was the dremel. It got the job done nicely, but removing the molten glue from the dremel fitting wasn't fun.



Unfortunately, the two side snaps weren't as quick to install - they were applied in the traditional method.

They ended up taking less time overall than I expected, but unfortunately the two halves aren't tightly fitted together due, I believe, to the curve of the sides of the frame, and due to the type of snaps I purchased. Despite this, they appear to have been hammered enough that they won't come apart all that easily, so they should be okay.



Look ma! No hands!

The harness snapped on easily, and after a bit of adjustment fit perfectly.



The success with the harness gave me the opportunity to test wear the Goggles again, so I refitted the lenses and took a few character shots.





“Check out the aura on that sucker!”



Hopefully once I've got the face cushion in place, the Goggles will perch atop my head easily.

One final update on the Ecto Goggle Build Diary, probably the equivalent of two installments.

Where things stood as of the last update on February 20th:



Following on, I embarked one one of the more ambitious and potentially disasterous elements of the Goggles. When I'd inherited my first set of Goggles from Mark, I'd loved the idea of including some form of green material in the eye pieces to make it look like I was looking through a set of Night Vision Goggles. The material I would be using to achieve this were a pair of transparent green plastic notepads which I'd purchased in Newcastle last year, the tool of choice would be a 44mm hole saw.



I hadn't used the hole saw personally, so I was a tad cautious to begin with, but I was doubly wary due to not wanting to drill a hole through the middle of the disc with the pilot bit. - necessitating the adjustment of the drill bit so it wouldn't be going anywhere near the plastic.

Before cutting out the lense discs, I did a dry run using a coaster I'd bought for a University project last year:



The 44mm bit gave the discs enough room to fit inside the end section of the lenses, but made them wide enough so they didn't slide down into the lense.




Satisfied with the dry run, the final discs were drilled.




Putting that aside, the remaining side disc was glued in place.



My attention was then turned to the resin battery cover I'd gotten from gb_dan, the part that caused me the most trouble to install.



The first option was to glue it on, ruled out by the lack of enough surface to apply the glue… even if there was, it wouldn't hold it on very strongly if it got knocked.

Two potentially workable methods are detailed in the two graphics below:



Figure 1, option 1: Slide the battery cap onto a section of piping that is equal size to the hole for the battery compartment in the frame.

Figure 2, option 2: Run a screw or a bolt into the battery cap which is then fed through a piece of rectangular material inside the frame to hold it in place.

Option 1 was quickly ruled out as there's very little thickness between the outside edge of the battery cap, and the edge of the battery compartment hole. Due to this, option 2 was the only clear route of progress.

Upon visiting Wickes and B&Q on Tuesday, I purchased a few sets of washers of various size, as any that went unused on this could be put to work in something else. I also purchased a box of 20mm mushroom headded bolts with square nuts.

With this bits gathered together, I had a lightning bolt of genius.



When I'd left the house that day, I'd made sure to measure the width of the frame for future reference. Having that information on hand was handy when looking through the washer selection, as I developed this concept for mounting the battery cover:



A: Fitting into the battery compartment hole would be one of the 30mm nickel-plated washers I'd purchased.
B: Fitted on the inside of the frame would be a 38mm nickel-plated washer.
C: Holding the whole assembly together, and the thread-mounted battery cap in position would be the square nut of a 20mm mushroom head bolt.

Having finally scaled this obstacle, I set to work drilling the battery cap with progressively larger drill bits, in order to find the one that would allow me to screw the bolt into the cap and keep it tightly held in there. I was eventually able to screw it in using a 5.5 bit.



With the thread fitted, I did a test assembly of all the components (temporarily using the nut in place for the frame in the final installation).



The next challenge occurred with the larger of the two washers. Due to the thickness of the frame, I would either have to dremel the base of the faceplate to fit the whole washer, or cut a section off of the washer.

When dremelling the faceplate gave me less than worthwhile results, I opted to cut one of the washers. After a little bit of experimentation, I was furnished with the knowledge that I had to remove 6mm off of one end.



In hindsight it's also quite fortunate that the washer now has a straight edge at one end, preventing it from spinning around freely as I eventually install the battery cover.



Before painting, I temporarily installed the cover to make sure all the pieces fitted:




Along the way, I accidentally built part of a Shock Mount:



Once satisfied, I prepped the battery cap, washers and nut for priming and then painting:



For ease of priming and painting, the battery was held in a vice. First it was given a coat of black (as it'd slipped my mind it was grey), then I corrected this by giving it a coat of Citadel Codex Grey from Games Workshop. The grey of the primer was too light in my opinion, and too flat… whereas the enamel was closer to the shade I was after, would give the cap a slight gloss finish, and was far more economical then trying to buy a spray can of the right colour for such a small element.



As those elements dried, the final push began. I'd decided to concentrate on the face cushion for the next step, replacing the sections of velcro that had either been lost from it, or had been coming loose:



Strips of velcro were then added to the frame:



When it comes to assembling the next set of Ecto Goggles, I plan to rivet the velcro on.

With that finished, the next step was the installation of the Goggle lenses, and the lense discs:



Both of which were fixed into position with hotglue:




Some beauty shots of the Goggles, post-lense install:




And a clear shot of the last part to be installed, the battery cover:



After that, there was one last detail that needed to be applied in order to make this a set of Ecto Goggles: the side label:





The Ecto Goggles are now finished (as far as I plan, at any rate). To mark this, I composed a "Evolution of the Goggle" shot, showing (not in chronological order) the pieces that led to the finished product, starting with the Ecto Goggles I'd inherited from Mark Lloyd, the Israeli frame I'd gotten from Andy Grey, the rather poor quality resin frames I'd gotten from Joel Whybrow before he was deservedly banned, and the final finished article.



With the Goggles now finished, it was time for some modelling shots.





They sit a little high when perched on my forehead due to the cushion, but I'm not sure how well they'd sit without it.

Regardless, I'm pleased with the end result… this is the first prop that I've started and finished myself, excluding making the resin parts.

Thus concludes the Ecto Goggle Build.

Oh, very cool stuff.

Hey, you know what else? If you can swap out the lenses, you could try having one red and one blue, like the original Thirteen Ghosts.

(Chances are, though, someone will ask you if you're wearing Void Stuff Goggles.)