User avatar
By Tyrael
#398984
Hey all. Last year's proton pack got a lot of praise and attention in local circles and my wife decided she wanted to have an outfit to go along with mine. I knew I couldn't make her a proton pack (far too heavy; her skin has a thing against pressure and she ends up breaking out in rashes if too much weight is put on her skin for too long), but a slime blower seemed like a much more viable alternative.

I started with lots of research on the various build threads here. The cardboard tube a lot of people have used for the main tank was something I tried out at first, but it just did not work out the way I wanted it to. My wife's a bit clumsy, so this will get bumped into things and the cardboard tube would likely buckle.

The blower started with the standard ALICE frame. An order or two with MMM and the project boxes from the GBFans store got me all the parts I needed for attachment and whatnot.
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The foam is there to simulate the vest for the wife.

Looking at MandoMan's build, he went with 8" thinwall PVC with trimmed 9" ornament halves. This definitely seemed like the best alternative, so I went along that route as well.
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I trimmed the halves to the OD of the PVC pipe, but as the ornaments were very thin plastic, I went ahead and applied (a crapton of) fiberglass to reinforce them. I also used sprayfoam to fill in the hemispheres and give the Bondo something more to grip onto.
I used the same methodology on the side tanks, only for them I ordered a pair of 4" OD aluminum tubes from Speedy Metals, as well as a couple 4" OD plastic DIY ornaments. These ornaments were a lot thicker and stronger than the 9" ones (and matched the tube diameters perfectly!), so no fiberglass needed.

I just attached the tanks to the frame assembly yesterday. The tanks ride a little higher than I'd like, but redoing them would take a LOT of rivet drilling, so it'll have to do.
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The football pads will be covered in grey fabric and hopefully I'll get to the local Tandy Leather Factory store when it's open (the one here in Cheyenne has really weird hours) for the leather panels and clasps. It's fortunate that the underarm portion of the pads aren't connected, but instead have flaps with elastic loops. The plan is to have straps connect said loops so the vest is adjustable between me and her.

Taking advice from the various female 'Busters out there, we're going with the Dickies Girl dress available from their website.
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I've got the electronics all ready to go, as well. The sound and light kits from Crix are awesome!

We're trying to get this thing ready for a convention back home at the end of July, so I've made another order to Speedy Metals for another 4" diameter aluminum tube for the gun. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Colin of MMM, and we look forward to his usual excellent quality when the slime blower gun kits go out.
Giant Slor liked this
User avatar
By Tyrael
#399036
Yep. So far the whole assembly weighs under 20 lbs. She says she can wear it for a while; on me it feels like nothing's there at all, lol.

Sent from my last remaining link to civilization
By MandoMan
#399053
Wow, awesome job so far man!! I'm extremely happy that something from my (very slow) build has helped another on their build. I had to fiberglass the crap out of my ornament domes as well, haha.

If it's not any trouble, could you maybe post some pics of where you attached MMM's aluminum pump boxes/plates to the frame? I've squinted at the reference pictures, but I still can't figure it out, lol.

Looking forward to the finished pack!
User avatar
By Tyrael
#399056
I'll take some pictures of where mine ended up. The main reference I used was the left box and mount; it appears to mostlycover the strap hole on the ALICE frame, but not completely; I'd say about 75-80% covered.
From there, the other box's placement will vary based on the height of your two side tanks. Since both tanks' top ends are even at around ear level (in theory; mine ended up reaching the top of my head), use that as the basis for where you have the second box mounted on the larger plate. The thick plate WILL cover your right ALICE frame strap hole(it did on mine, anyway), so be sure to have that strap in and good before bolting or riveting that plate on.

Pics will come tomorrow orSaturday, depending if I dispatch for work tomorrow.

Sent from my Nook Tablet (rooted)
User avatar
By Tyrael
#399445
OK, pics are a day late, but that's life for ya.
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Here's a close-up of the right bracket. As I said before, it does cover the hole for the strap loop, so that strap will have to be installed if you rivet it to the ALICE frame.
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Close-up of the left bracket. Again, 75-80% covered for the strap hole on this one.
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Found myself a 6" shatter-proof ball ornament on Amazon last week and it finally came in the mail yesterday. I sanded off the flaky red paint that was on it and replaced it with Krylon Fusion red, which worked out a LOT better. I've yet to see a build show how they tackled the mounting of the tank, so here's what I did.
First, I took a length of aluminum I got from Lowe's, cut it, and bent it around into an asymmetrical U shape. Bore a few holes in it for nuts and bolts and mounted it to the ALICE frame. For the ball tank, I made a hole big enough for the bolt shaft to fit through, but not the bolt head. The opposite side had the (larger) hole for the plumbing elbow, so I used a string and (much) smaller bolt as a plumb-bob to guide the shaft into the hole (giggity). Easy enough to finish bolting it to the U-bracket from there.

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Got the main tank all masked off for the caution striping. I currently have the yellow painted on (fluorescent paint; don't want my wife wandering into traffic... :walterpeck: ), which is drying in the garage.

The 4" diameter aluminum tube should get here this week for the makeshift gun assembly. This absolutely has to be done by the 23rd to be in time for the convention we're attending, so expect a mad dash of updates in the next two weeks!
User avatar
By Tyrael
#399491
I got the 9" ornament from Barnard, Ltd's online store.
http://www.barnardltd.com/product.jsp?p ... &catId=129

Like I said before, it was extremely thin plastic (I cut them to size using a pair of scissors), so I had to use Bondo fiberglassing materials to reinforce the hell out of it. I also filled it with spray foam afterwards, to add a bit more backing and give something for the Bondo putty to grab onto between the PVC pipe and ornament halves.
User avatar
By Tyrael
#399511
By the way, everyone, DO NOT USE KYRLON SPECIAL PURPOSE FLUORESCENT PAINT. This crap ate through the layers of primer and clearcoat, all the way down to the PVC, congealed to the point of leaving very large spaces in the paint job, and forced me to scrape ALL of the paint, down to the PVC, off of the tank. I've since re-primered those spots, but it's going to take a lot of careful sanding to make it look halfway decent again. :sigh:
If you do choose to use it, God help you. At the very least, apply MANY VERY THIN COATS at a time. Uniformity is very difficult with this crap, and trying it in 3-5 coats is apparently rushing it.
User avatar
By Tyrael
#399630
And the Krylon fluorescent paint has screwed up again. Even in small doses and thin coats over a long period of time, it still manages to screw up and refuse to stick to lower layers of primer.

Final verdict: DO NOT USE IT AT ALL. DO NOT EVEN TRY. IT IS AWFUL.

Before I get back to scraping that entire area down and re-primering the whole damn caution striping area, I just now realized I forgot about that extra connector where my ball tank bracket is. Coupled with varying issues at work, today is not my day. I may end up just leaving that part out, as I don't have that connector anyway; just enough connectors (authentic ones, at that!) for the ones you can actually see.

Blargh.
User avatar
By Skully
#399661
Really looks great so far . . Why not at this point just buy the correct caution tape . . Hell you put the 20 odd bucks the tape cost in labor at this point. . One more thing . .the top straps on your LC2 frame need to go around the top bar not just through the small slot. . Thats there just to prevent the straps from sliding over and down the frame.They will break . . . as for the hidden connector I would just buy a single resin copy from Colin at MMM and paint that badboy gold. . After all its rarely seen. .
User avatar
By Tyrael
#399662
Eh, I really wanted the painted caution striping look. Tape will eventually wear down and such; paint won't.
I'll be sure to correct the straps. This is how all the straps have been on the ALICE frames I've purchased, so I figured that's how they went. Guess I should've read the ALICE frame sticky.
I may get around to fixing that extra hidden connector. It's taken a far back seat to getting the paint job on the main tank redone, though.
User avatar
By Tyrael
#399850
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STRIPES! STRIPES THAT DON'T PEEL OFF IF YOU SO MUCH AS GLARE AT THEM!

Waiting for the yellow to dry before applying the black. On a sidenote, the 4" diameter metal tube I ordered from Speedy Metals came in the mail today for the makeshift gun we'll be using before MMM's kits ship out. They didn't cut the thing in half like I asked them to on the order form, but hey, it's just a makeshift gun, so I'll probably just rivet the hinge on, paint over the excess brass in a silver paint, and call it good.

This is what I'll be using as a makeshift cone for the end of the gun assembly:
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I had a collection of little megaphone cones from my days in the Iowa State Basketball Pep Band, so I cut one down to the proper diameters. I'll use 2-part epoxy glue to adhere it to the HVAC ducting cap I got from Lowe's, paint it up all silver after drilling the holes in the sides, and tack it on when I'm all done. It's not exactly pretty, but it'll do till I get that gun kit.
User avatar
By Tyrael
#400787
@Boomerjinks: Sorry dude, didn't see your post till just now. My wife and I are planning on coming down for Nan Des.u Kan in September. Will you Denver folk be in attendance? I realize it's not your typical GB faire, but it could be a lot of fun!

Finally got all the stripes done, and plenty o' clear coat sealing it all in. This baby is silky smooth!
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Been working on this thing all weekend, getting the gun all ready. I ordered a tube of 4" OD aluminum from Speedy Metals, but screwed up the length order. The thing is 30" long, which is a little too much. This will be rectified when it's replaced with the MMM gun kit, but it's not like anyone week after next will know the difference when we debut it at AnimeIowa. >_>;
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The seam resulting from the tube being cut in half is omitted; I've only got a small band saw that works well with small pieces, but not big aluminum tubes. There is a brass hinge on the opposite side of the one you can see in the above picture, though, just because I had one lying around.

All the lights are working like a charm, too. I wasn't able to do anything in the way of sound hookups, unfortunately, as my 4" speakers are too big to fit into the gun like I originally planned. This will also be fixed when I redo the gun. Thought about mounting them to a motherboard, just above the kidney straps, but they would be a little too obvious for my tastes. Guess we'll have to wait till September to have Jackie Wilson as our background music.

EDIT: Uh... why is d-e-s-u censored? lol
User avatar
By Tyrael
#400788
Oh, I'm not going to try to guess how, but I somehow misplaced the giant bent piece of sheet aluminum for the box that goes under the main grey tank. Hopefully I'll find it in time to get it attached, but the garage looks like a warzone right now, so I suppose I can settle on being happy the thing's almost done, lol.
User avatar
By Tyrael
#401159
95% done. I really tried shaping a box of aluminum for the under-tank tray, but as the only tools I had were a blacksmith's hammer, a cement floor, a block of wood, and a small vise, my efforts ended in a really crappy looking quadrilateral-ish shape instead of a nice, uniform box. Screw it, it'll have to wait till I have a bit more time and money for a machine shop to help me out.
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Stripes look great, electronics are working very well, and it's pretty solid overall. Gun ended up far too long, though, and the whole thing is about 8-10" too tall, IMO, but the overall effect is there. All in all, this thing is still lighter than my fiberglass/metal/etc proton pack, and built for a fraction of that thing's cost.

All that's left is to figure out how the hell I'm going to display it... :walterpeck:
User avatar
By Tyrael
#401990
I might after next week, we'll see. The process of sanding off the back half of the main tank to repaint it half a dozen times (THANKS, KRYLON FLUORESCENT PAINT) added quite a layer of grit in the harder-to-reach places that make it look like it had been collecting dust for a while and got a light wipedown with a shammy cloth. The quickconnects are also secondhand off eBay and saw a life of use, so the overall effect makes it definitely look used.

Anyone got any suggestions for the under-tank metal tray thing? I had a hell of a time trying to make it from scratch.
User avatar
By Tyrael
#403834
Haha, thanks for the positive feedback.
We took the slime blower and my pack to AnimeIowa this last weekend and people went absolutely NUTS. Chris Ayers and Johnny Yong Bosch (voice actors; Bosch also played Adam Park, the second Black Power Ranger) said they loved them!
I'll link some pics as soon as we finish the purgatory known as the drive across Nebraska...

Sent from my last remaining link to civilization
User avatar
By Tyrael
#406104
Still working on uploading a lot of the photos, but here's a few highlights:
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Wife only wore the slime blower for about 30 minutes the whole weekend! She said it messed with her sense of balance too much, though the weight itself wasn't an issue. Distribution of weight was a concern of mine, but it's not something I can really fix without adding counterweights elsewhere and thus making the whole thing a lot heavier.
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So I ended up wearing it. Then we met Jesus.
Wife said she preferred wearing the proton pack, in spite of its heavier nature. Women. :sigh:

Oh, we also met a former Power Ranger.
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User avatar
By Tyrael
#416820
Yup, he and his band Eyeshine were guests at AnimeIowa this year. Got rid of all my Power Ranger stuff years ago, or I'd have had him sign a VHS tape or something. Instead, he just signed a copy of Code Geass I nabbed off the dealer floor. :-/

Thanks for the compliments! :D I got the Irricanian gun kit in the mail a week or two back; been working on putting that in lately. Updates will come eventually.
User avatar
By Tyrael
#4800019
Since I'm not the one who made them, I'd feel rather uncomfortable with the idea of handing out dimensions of others' work. Sorry, you'll have to ask the original supplier of the parts.

Though your bumping of this thread did make me realize that I haven't updated it like I promised. As soon as I get back in town from my current trip, I'll update as best I can.
#4800020
Got the dimensions I needed:)
Tyrael wrote:Since I'm not the one who made them, I'd feel rather uncomfortable with the idea of handing out dimensions of others' work. Sorry, you'll have to ask the original supplier of the parts.

Though your bumping of this thread did make me realize that I haven't updated it like I promised. As soon as I get back in town from my current trip, I'll update as best I can.

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