matty matt
Sr Member
So my three year old has recently discovered Ghostbusters and expressed interest in being one for Halloween. Enough said, the build was on. I picked up an old Kenner pack on ebay. I had one of these when I was a kid, and it was great but it was never good enough for me. No particle thrower, so I started to scratch build one.
Never made any Ghostbusters stuff before, so this was all new. I didn't use any plans for this, just eyeballed everything, trying to spend as little as possible.
The main box part was made out of wood and the tubes are aluminum. I found some rubber hand grips that fit perfectly. I made the Clippard from some PVC I had laying around and printed out a label. This was a real exercise in digging through stuff to find parts I could use.
I took apart an old toy that made some really lo-fi jet sounds. It worked perfectly. There's a red Led in the end that flashes when you press the button. Added some more Led's and a couple switches, burned myself with the soldering iron and shoved everything inside. It all worked! I had to order a clear acrylic tube for the end. Couldn't find anything that would work.
Now the pack!
It was in pretty good shape, but the postal service crushed the box and dented in one corner pretty bad. Now I didn't feel so bad about cutting it up. Took off all the labels, drilled some holes in the cyclotron, and made an ALICE frame out of PVC and aluminum. I also cut off the hook that held the thrower.
Assembled and painted everything up. Printed out more labels, added hoses and a ribbon cable, and made straps from some green webbing. Also put some red plastic in the cyclotron holes.
He was super psyched for this. Walked around singing the song and didn't want to take it off. I have some split loom tubing, but my wife was worried about him being strangled. Probably a good point. Not sure if I'll add it just yet. Overall, this was a balance of accuracy, play value, and durability. I think it turned out pretty awesome and I would have loved to have this as a kid.
Never made any Ghostbusters stuff before, so this was all new. I didn't use any plans for this, just eyeballed everything, trying to spend as little as possible.
The main box part was made out of wood and the tubes are aluminum. I found some rubber hand grips that fit perfectly. I made the Clippard from some PVC I had laying around and printed out a label. This was a real exercise in digging through stuff to find parts I could use.
I took apart an old toy that made some really lo-fi jet sounds. It worked perfectly. There's a red Led in the end that flashes when you press the button. Added some more Led's and a couple switches, burned myself with the soldering iron and shoved everything inside. It all worked! I had to order a clear acrylic tube for the end. Couldn't find anything that would work.
Now the pack!
It was in pretty good shape, but the postal service crushed the box and dented in one corner pretty bad. Now I didn't feel so bad about cutting it up. Took off all the labels, drilled some holes in the cyclotron, and made an ALICE frame out of PVC and aluminum. I also cut off the hook that held the thrower.
Assembled and painted everything up. Printed out more labels, added hoses and a ribbon cable, and made straps from some green webbing. Also put some red plastic in the cyclotron holes.
He was super psyched for this. Walked around singing the song and didn't want to take it off. I have some split loom tubing, but my wife was worried about him being strangled. Probably a good point. Not sure if I'll add it just yet. Overall, this was a balance of accuracy, play value, and durability. I think it turned out pretty awesome and I would have loved to have this as a kid.
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