Project: ProtonPack (On Hiatus til 10/1)

Last night I started fleshing out the mouse/trap while black primer dried on the upper body parts. However as I went to reach for my digicam the batteries were dead! DOH! So i'll snap some pics tonight and over the weekend and post on Monday. Stay tuned!

PS - thanks for all the help with the slime!

 

Finally, some updating!

I apologize for taking so long to update. I have been working on the mod, though while packing to move and moving some of our stuff this past weekend. On to the pics!

This was taken about a week and a half ago, it's the body with the first coat of spot filler on it, nothing real special...


Here's the bumper nearly built from balsa wood. The sides are 1/8" and the inside spans and 'buckle' are 1/4" balsa. I superglued them together and then filled in the curve backs with hot glue. It turned out pretty good, but it's real fragile until I get it bolted to the main body. I broke one of the legs off once already and then dropped it and cracked the other leg.


And now, for some of the work on the mousetrap! I had wanted to do something with the mouse, but didn't know whether or not to do something similar to the keyboard or to theme it off the ghosttrap. The numerous requests for a modded mouse got my juices flowing, and I was finally able to squirt something out on paper...I wanted it to be recognizible as a ghosttrap, but also curved and shaped like a mouse for some comfort.



I dug out the logitech mx500 that I had already opened up and test painted. Ditched the cover and cut off the excess plastic around the base of the mouse. Then I drew the base silouhette of the mouse on a 1/8" piece of blasa and cut it out. Traced the mouse base on the balsa cutout, cut that out, sanded it a bit, stuck the mouse base in and glued it up. You can also see the little pieces of balsa that make up the front and back of the mouse.



While manipulating the mouse sans cover, I realized that something in the cover kept the mouse wheel from flipping out of position. Upon inspection, I could see where the little wheel 'carriage' was allowed to ride up and down on tracks, with small springs pushing it back up. And yes, I did turn it over forgetting to hold the wheel down and watched in horror as the wheel, carriage and springs bounded across the table in different directions. That took some time to figure out, but I am the BETTER FOR IT! HA! Anyways, here's my solution...four small (white in the pic) pieces of styrene super glued (carefully) to the tops of the tracks and the spring mounts.


I can here you saying, hey man, it looks like a flip-flop mouse...where's the top? Well here it is. I stared at the little bugger for about an hour before I decided how to get it right. The top is a sandwich of three layers: first 1/8" balsa, then two layers of 1/4" balsa. Each was patterned after the outer shape of the bottom piece, then parts were cut out of the center to accomodate the parts of the mouse that stand up. In the next post, I'll show the bottom of the top piece to illustrate this. I glued the three pieces together and then went to town with my buddy, the sanding stick. I would stop repeatedly to blow balsa 'fuzz' all over the apartment and to test the shape to my hand. Not bad! I got big hands, so a long mouse is nice and accomodating. This shape is 5.25" long by 2.25"? inches wide in case you are wondering.



After all this shaping, I felt pretty good about the mouse...but then realized that even with all those layers, it's still not tall enough to cover the main bits of the wheel, so I added some pieces of 1/8" balsa to build it up...but it did give me a nice base. Unfortunately, the last pics I took of the mouse were over exposed since I was too close to the mouse with the nuclear-blast of a flash my camera has. Again, see the next post...sorry mates.

So what about all the other parts of the pack (i.e. the main part of this mod)? Well they're being painted! Here's my paintbooth, a.k.a. the balcony:


My finishing of the wooden parts consisted of:
-coating with spot filler
-wet sand (can't have the pink dust in the apartment)
-fill in thin spots with filler
-wet sand
-3 to 4 coats of black sandable primer
-wet sand @ 400grit to expose holes, low spots
-spot fill and/or sand smooth
-4 to 6 coats of black primer
-wet sand @ 400grit

This process netted a pretty smooth and sweet finish on the gun mount box, which is nearly finished. So the other parts are in the process of getting the same treatment. The main body is still being spot filled, etc.

NEAR DISASTER! I had (4) 72" 2x4's propped up against my entertainment center (part of something for the move), and one of them started sliding and caught the gearbox, which was sitting on top of the entertainment center, after having it's first paint step and wet sand. The 2x4 pulled the gearbox off the shelf, to the floor and then landed on it! The bottom piece (thank christ) took the direct hit and cracked from back to about 1 1/2" from the front.


I cut a piece of basswood and glued it into place to reinforce the piece, then sanded it a little.


After it dried I started painting it again, the other pieces are ready for their final wet sand (hopefully). I'll post pics again tomorrow, with more on the mouse and the pack parts.

As always, thanks for being an attentive audience!

 

I love this mod! the idea with the "mousetrap" rulez. funny anouf the movie came yesterday here in tv and you where right, the backpack thingies for yout proton pack are the same as in the movie. keep it up!

 

While I enjoy the humor of that imagery, lets try and keep the replies in here to comments and constructive criticism about the project. Where's all the love?



Thanks for givin' an ass about this ass, though.

 

There's more to see, folks...keep moving

Some more shots of the mousetrap for y'all teh see!

In this pic, you can see the little handle that will stick up from the front of the mouse.


Here's the soft underbelly. You can see the channel for the rear LED (which I might scrap), as well as the little blocks that extend from the button skins down to the actual mouse buttons (PITA to mount ).


And some all around the horn shots...the main structure is done, I just need to add a few more things, sand, paint and detail.




And finally, it WORKS! w00t!

 

nice wood work man

 

Cool mouse work.

 

I'm stuck. I've been priming and sanding and priming the upper pack parts for about a week now, in between packing for the move...and I'm stuck.

The problem is thus: The finish that I want to achieve is that of the primer sanded lightly with 400 grit, to make it nice and smooth. (I mean, it makes it SMOOTH! Real nice texture) This worked fine with the light grey primer test. However, when I apply this method to the black, it leaves the primer with a 'brushed look'...which looks kinda cool, almost like anodized metal. But any spots a little low stand out like a punch in the neck. Now I could just prime and prime and prime until it's nice and flat after sanding...but...

After about 4 coats of primer, the parts are a nice, dark black. Real even and almost rubber looking flat black. But the texture isn't anything like the sanded texture...and it leaves some of the parts looking like 'painted wood' which is what I'm trying to avoid.

Anyone got an idea of how to get the best of both worlds? I was gonna grab up some fine grit steel wool and try that...see how it works out. Any other ideas? Help me, mates!

 

Try PMing ZapWizard....if there is a man to help you with this its him. He is always glad to lend an ear and few keystokes...

 

Short Hiatus

I decided Sunday that I had run the project as far as I could before I'd have to pack it up to be moved with all the other stuff. We're moving all of what's left Saturday, and I don't have the time, energy or free space in the apartment to continue on with it right now.

In better news, I did obtain some 'super-fine' steel wool, and after rubbing the primer down with it, got a texture that I can be happy with. There will be alot of spot filling and re-painting, but at least I know how I'm gonna finish it off.

So for now, the pack is bubble wrapped and sitting on the pile of stuff to be moved in the next trip. My aim is restart the mod by October 1st, depending on how quickly we can deploy our stuff when we get moved.

See you then, mates.

 

As they say, better late then never:
A good way to finish balsa wood (and on top of that make it a little sturdier), is to give the unfinished wood a few coats with a mixture of 50% cellulose based varnish and 50% thinner (i'm not sure what this is called in english, it's the really nasty paint thinner that eats into plastics.

As you can imagine this soaks into the wood pretty good. You'd be suprised how much more solid the bals wood feels after this treatment.

(An old trick from back in the day when model airplanes were made of balsawood and paper to get the profile on the wings)

 

Impressive, Hope the balsa wood holds up to the move. I want to see this one finished. I have to watch this anyway if just simply for the sake of the last quote in my sig.

 

thanks for the advice, vetlel. I may try that out if I have anymore balsa components, like the trap or something. I have another project in mind that that would help out too.

Saint, I hope so too...I wrapped it thick in bubble wrap, and intend on personally handling it to the new pad.

 

where's the pics?

 

indeed, pics are kaput!

 

This project is over 2 years old. I wouldn't be suprised If they've 'gone missing'.