By my estimate it's been about seven years or so since I last attempted to build a Proton Pack… and the results were… less than satisfactory:


After I first met Andy and co at Collectormania 10 back in 2006, every so often he's dropped the comment “When you gonna build a Pack?”
Being the procrastinator that I am, I would reply with some variation of “soon”, and then the idea would be filed away not to get any movement until he would bring it up again.
And so this pattern continued until a “lightning bolt” moment happened: Ghostbusters: The Video Game. I wanted to help promote the game with a pack and suit, and it was probably that moment where I finally began to seriously make movement to get a Proton Pack built. I'd collected a lot of the custom parts over the past several years and I was at a point where a lot of the Pack's structure could be assembled.
And so an agreement with Andy was struck where he, Lawrence and I would spend a weekend at Andy's and get as much done as physically possible. And this past weekend was that weekend.


First and foremost I want to say that Andy and Lawrence were both a huge help in getting this project off of the ground and their advice and access to their skills was invaluable.

I'd only been off of the train to Andy's suberb of London about ten minutes when we bought the first piece of material for the day, a huge board of wood.

Once the board had been cut, we deployed ourselves into Andy's work shed where I unloaded some of the resin and electric parts I was hoping to get mounted over the weekend.

Andy's work shed: I was left green with envy, because thanks to my dad, I barely have any work space in our huge garage due to junk and booze occupying almost every flat surface.

Work begins on the top of the Spacer whilst Andy begins to mark out the sides of the EDA (grey pack parts are older ones not made for my Proton Pack). By this point the face panels for the Gear Box…

…had been drawn up and were ready to cut from the wood.

And of course, all of our measurements were accurate to the nth degree.

Work continues on mapping the EDA sides…

Whilst placement of one of JT's Cyclotron covers was compared with the top of the spacer. The parts fitted beautifully.

As work progressed, the “beast” of a Gear Box was glued together by yours truely and Andy and Law. They reassured me it would clean up a treat, to which there was no doubt in my mind.


And as the day wore on, the Spacer came together. It was a nice photo opportunity as it would've been difficult for more than two people to put it together.

As the Spacer's glue dried, the additional elements of the Gear Box were added: the sloped plate and the tube for the hosing.

Soon, we had enough parts to begin testing the layout.


And then it was time for Colin's Booster Tube to be glued and screwed onto the EDA.


And layout testing continues using the motherboard, also one of Colin's.

The two madmen of the evening posing with the fruits of our labour.

And with Lawrence's help, we commemorated the time we were about done, 18 minutes to one in the morning.


The final act of the evening was to give some of the parts: Spacer, EDA, Gear Box and Gun Mount a course of Bondo (technically, really called “Body Filler”) for smoothing out in the morning.

And that chronicles the first day's work of Proton Pack building. Stick around for Part 2, which will hopefully be up some time this weekend.

LOL, Thats pretty darn good!

Thank god you have friends like you do…. I wouldnt trust mine, LMAO!!!

Man I cant believe you really never had a proton pack that was satisfactery

Heck I dont either

nice! I hope you will get it done before Christmas.

Picking up where we left off, work progressed on the major components of the pack…

…including addition work to the “upper assembly”, which was bolted together and readied for priming… complemented with a Nick-a-tron Booster Frame and a Irricanian Ribbon cable clamp on Irricanian's Booster Tube.

Of course, we couldn't progress without once again marking the point in the Pack development.



And soon work shifted to adding the greeblies to the Proton Gun. I don't recall the gun's pedigree, but the Trigger Box, Rear Instrument Bar and Rear Cylinder are Colin's. By this point a base for the gun had been fabricated, as it originally didn't have one, or supports to hold it in the Gun Box. Unlike others that utilised four posts in each corner, Andy settled on a more simple approach of placing two blocks of wood on each side of the gun base which exterior screws would drill into. I feel that this'll be better than using four posts, and the two extra screws on the outside give the gun a little but of uniqeness.
I believe the Gun Track and side knobs are from Propfan before he was revealed to be a recaster, however I have no idea if they (along with the white resin gun knobs I have) were recast from someone else's parts.
Also worth noting, you can see wiring for Exoray's gun light kit.

Another test layout with the motherboard shows how far she's come along.


More parts are added to the gun, including a Irricanian Palm Rest and the front barrel. When the gun had been assembled prior to me receiving it, the two handles had been glued on without any apparant thought for fitting it with electronics at a future point, so both barrels had to be unscrewed and detached from the Gun Box so that the connecting dowels could be drilled for the wiring. Overall the process was successful, but at one point things got a bit hairy when the barrel dowel broke into two bits from the drilling. Thankfully, a bit of glue helped fix that problem.

Yet more proof I really should shave before taking part in these endeavors, I look a mess.


And an obligatory group shot, to proove I was actually there.

Assembled, the major elements were primed and then given a base coat of matte black. Also visible are the curved plate that is found behind the HGA, and one of Irricanian's resin HGAs.

And a final parting shot at the end of the day.
The following morning, the parts were transported home and are now currently on my Dining Table. The gun knobs have been painted (which will be seen in the next update), but I have had little progress over the last week due to my dad being up in Scotland, and I would prefer to have him on hand for some of the more complex work. Sadly in transit, two parts of the Pack were damaged, the first being the Gun Barrel which separated from the Gun Box (thankfully it isn't any serious damage, just the glue separating from the resin). The second, however, is more substantial. The wood board that was used to make the Center Plate partially gave way in the position it was transpoted in… I've decided to rebuild this part of the Pack to try give it some extra strength and to have an intact rim around the Ribbon Cable hole, which had snapped off when the hole was drilled.
So that's it for Part 2. Hopefully Part 3's progress will happen over the course of the next week.

Well, it looks like you'll be the closest we'll ever get to Jack Black in GB3. :p

Nix;151077
Well, it looks like you'll be the closest we'll ever get to Jack Black in GB3. :p

Um… thank you? (*winston)

That was a “damn, why didn't i shave” moment only when looking at the pictures i'm guessing. I do that many times, and always look a mess.

Looking good there Ben, i'm extremely envious and of course rethinking my plans for finally getting round to building a pack myself. Maybe i'll start with the trap just to make sure i can actually build something!

heslimedme25;151110
That was a “damn, why didn't i shave” moment only when looking at the pictures i'm guessing. I do that many times, and always look a mess.

Very… it happens more times then I really would like.

Maybe i'll start with the trap just to make sure i can actually build something!

That was my original plan… “start with something small and work my way up” didn't really go anywhere.

Very nice Kingpin, Very Nice indeed…wish I could get mine going. It is unfortunately looking like mine is going to be on an indefinate hold until the begining of next year.

But still…looking good man.

Kingpin;151084
Um… thank you? (*winston)

You're quite welcome.