Proton Packs • Re: OnEdge’s GB1 Foam Build

I was finally able to find time again to work on this project and I feel like I’ve made a lot of exciting progress that I can share . I also wanted to say thank you for all the support!

I decided that my first step was to modify my SMC elbows. I saw other people do this like edspengler in his build and it gave me the confidence to try doing this myself. so I bought some brass pipe online and went to work. The first thing I did was pull off the end pieces, and start cutting the brass pipe when I ran into a bit of a problem. The brass pipe I got had too small of an outer diameter! I went for 4.5mm OD because I tried using the insert piece from those compression nuts for the fake legris straights which I thought was 5mm OD, but I was wrong. It also happened that I saw GohstTarps build thread where he used 5mm brass pipe off of amazon and I had a big facepalm moment. I decided I didn’t want to let the pipe I bought go to waste, so I used it anyway, but next time I’ll get 5mm OD pipe.



I then masked off the areas with tape and went to painting it with Rustoleum gray primer and I didn’t have any appliance enamel like what edspengler used. Later though, I remembered I still had a lot of the Watco clear laquer in satin spray that I had used to seal the crap out of the Homax texture on my old pack, so I thought to try that while I was painting and it worked great!



Here’s what my finished elbows look like. Definitely not too bad, but the OD of the brass pipe bugs me and I think I cut them too long too. Next time I’ll do better for sure




After that, I moved onto making all the parts that bolt onto the shell, like the booster tube, injectors, filler tubes, vacuum pipe, hga, etc. I was contemplating between 3D printing all the parts or cutting them out of all the PVC pipes I still had which were collecting dust. I decided to go the second route since I didn’t want the pipes to go to waste and to also save some money, but it won’t be so accurate since all the pipes are the wrong diameter. The first pipe I cut was the booster tube. I realized I ran out of the pipe I used for this originally, and I didn’t want to go buy more so what I ended up doing was using the old pipe from my old pack, and cutting it to the proper angle. This made the pipe too short, so I took my old HGA, and hacked off a tiny piece, then I super glued it on and filled and sanded it. Not ideal, but it works for now. I also made my booster plug from pvc pipe, and some floor mat EVA foam. The booster plug fits pretty good into the pipe, but I’m worried it will fall inside it and I’m not sure how to glue it in. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d appreciate it!





I then made the HGA by cutting it from my old N Filter, and I capped it off with styrene, and added hot glue welds. Those fake welds took me forever because I was trying to make them individual beads. They don’t look particularly great, using epoxy would have definitely looked better and saved time, but I’m on a bit of a tight budget with this pack.



I then used some pex tubing to cut the filler tubes, and I was able to buy 1/8” thick styrene so I was actually able to cut the baseplates unlike last time. I also added the fake hot glue welds to the baseplates too. This was my first time working with 1/8” styrene and its awesome lol



I salvaged the old injector tubes from my last pack too, and sanded it. I then cut the baseplate from the same 1/8” styrene, and also capped them off with more styrene. I again added the fake hot glue welds.



I made the vacuum pipe from more PVC that I salvaged. I then cut the circular baseplate and oh my god it was a NIGHTMARE to cut that thing. I was scoring for probably more than an hour, and I ended up just using a hacksaw to cut around the damn thing and snap it. Came out pretty good though!



The last part I made was the PPD, and this time I got the angle for it right. The originals were resin filled, but I didn’t want to go through all that effort so I capped it off again with styrene.



Here’s all the parts together before and after priming. They’re definitely not perfect and have some inaccuracies, but I’m a lot more happy with how these parts came out compared to my last pack!






I then decided to start on the v-hook. The Hasbro Neutrona Wand that I’m using for this had a v-hook piece that I didn’t use since I used a 3D printed v-hook last time. That v-hook didn’t work very well and cracked so I wanted to try using the original piece it came with and looked into some options for the male piece. I ultimately decided to just make it myself after seeing Batfly make his out of styrene in his build (it also saves money lol). I measured the female piece of the hasbro v-hook, and traced/cut the pieces out of styrene. I also used pliers to try and snap off the more tricky pieces. Heres what those looked like.






The next day, I sanded those parts clean so it can fit into the female piece better and have a cleaner appearance. I still need to drill holes for bolts and paint it, but for now this is done!




The next part I wanted to work on was something I was dreading for a while, which was to reshape the BOK motherboard to fit my shell better. The motherboard was cut oversized so I didn’t have to worry too much about it being too small in some areas. It created the problem though that there were a few areas where it was way off. The really bad culprit areas were where the spacer was, the top of the power cell, and the corner plate. I decided to take this to my friend’s place to get his help with this since he has a lot of power tools and a grip sander which was SO useful. Heres some pics, just ignore our very unprofessional setup








Heres some photos of what the finished result looks like in these areas. These areas looked really bad but they fit so much better now and I’m really glad we were able to get it done!






The last thing I did was finally attach the BOK N-Filter onto the shell. The BOK N-Filter’s diameter is too small compared to what is accurate, and it also came to me looking super rough so I had to sand the top of it and the sides to make it more smooth. I don’t know why I did this so late into the build because I should’ve done it during the initial sanding stage. I had to sand the opening out a little better so it would fit, and then I hot glued it to the shell and reinforced the inside with more hot glue. I then took wood filler to fill in the gaps and sand. I tried to also fix some areas of the cyclotron.



Heres what it looked like after the first round of filler



After a lot of filling and sanding, we’re back to this point





I’m not actually super happy with how the roundness of the cyclotron came out still. In the photo above you can tell it looks really rough and I also think its not sharp enough compared to the real pack. In this photo of the super hero’s cyclotron, you can see the sharpness of it very clearly. I also think I was growing a bit impatient with how much sanding I was doing so I rushed it a little bit and said it was good enough. I was using medium grit sand paper for the whole thing so I should’ve probably switched to a much finer grit later on to smooth it completely. It might be the wood filler’s fault too but I’m not sure, it could be a bit of both. The cyclotron is one of those parts on the proton pack that I have a very specific eye for. I want the roundness of the cyclotron to look better for next time so I would appreciate any comments about this!



Anyways, thats it for all I’ve done so far! I made one last final order from GBFans with everything I need to finally finish this beast. I’m running out of things to do until then, but I think by the end of this month, we will be done! Thanks for reading

Statistics: Posted by OnEdge — July 2nd, 2025, 10:38 pm

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