Upcycled Proton Pack

We got one!

Some of my greatest joys are making stuff and trick-or-treating with my horde of nephews. It is a strong certainty I will always be there to enjoy candy chasing with them but they still reach out to me in eager anticipation. Knowing that I just got the Ghostbusters neutrona wand for my birthday, who are you going to call? Uncle Shea of course! But in typical fashion the idea was last minute and already into the week of Halloween.

We are in a great era where there are more and more premade costume and proton packs that are already available but we were in that eleventh hour. Hunting for my options everything was just sold out, picked clean, or would be too expensive and not ship in time. What was a motivated maker to do? It was time to channel my inner Egon Spengler, hit the work benches, and scratch build that ghost catcher!

So my personal constraints were to do it in all in a condensed time, reuse as much as I had laying around, and do it as "relatively low cost" as possible. I had no intentions of making an exact replica but only a representation that was easily identified with little doubt. Try and do what you can, with what you already got, where you currently are. This is all for the excitement of doing and there is no wrong approach as long as it is safe and fun!

Will you answer the call?

Keep in mind that this build is intended to be somewhat of an available junk build when possible. What I share here is what I personally did but in no way let it limit your creativity. Substitutions and makeshift solutions are all part of the maker game. You would be surprised at what totally random bits and bobs of trash will do when glued together and covered in paint.

I will try to give hints at possible alternative materials but there is no hard rules here. Just get your hands dirty and try different things! After all most of it was going unused or destined to be trash anyway, right? Express yourself with odd creativity and resourcefulness and the sky is your limit.

Safety:

• Eye protection
• Disposable half mask or respirator
• Disposable gloves and/or solvent resistant gloves
• Ear protection for power tool use

Cleaning Supplies:

• Paper towels
• Terry cloths or other clean rags
• Clean water
• Bucket for water and rags
• Trash bags
• Big box to paint in

Tools:

• Drill and a selection of drill bits
• Jig saw or hack saw
• Drywall plunge saw
• Screwdriver
• Hobby knife
• Pencil or other marking device
• Large ruler or scrap wood
• Scissors
• Sandpaper
• Hot glue gun
• Clean paint brushes

Hardware:

• Machine screws
• Nuts
• Washers and fender washers
• EMT conduit straps
• Zip ties
• Plastic corrugated split tubing

Paint, Coating, Glue, Etc.:

• Silver canned or spray paint
• Flexible rubber spray sealant
• Glue sticks
• Multi-purpose glue
• Multiple colors of electrical tape
• Caution tape
• Duct tape
• Spray foam

Parts:

• Surplus ALICE pack frame
• Rectangular food cans
• Tall tubular chip container
• Paper towel or wrapping paper tubes
• Microwavable dish cover
• Medicine bottle lids
• Stiff foam insulation sheeting
• Split foam pipe insulation tube
• Random singular wires and terminal rings
• Multicolored wire ribbon cable
• Tempered hardboard
• Random metal bar or pipe piece
• Disposable wooden kitchen skewers

Alternative Suggestions:

Surplus ALICE pack frame

• Plastic or metal piping for frame (optional)
• Straps off of an old backpack
• Straps from a broken ratchet strap

Stiff foam insulation sheeting and tempered hardboard

• Stacks of cardboard
• Thin wood

Medicine bottle lids

• Milk jug caps
• Drink bottle caps
• Cut and stack foam or cardboard

Food cans and paper tubes

• Use premade tiny boxes
• Make your own shapes from scrap cardboard

Microwavable dish cover

• Bucket lids
• Flying disc
• Stack of paper plates
• Stack foam or cardboard

Random wires and ribbon cable

• Shoelaces
• String
• Yarn
• Clear tape backed bundle of these

Random metal bar or pipe piece

• Section of coat hanger
• Dowel rod
• Random painted straight stick

It is always a good idea to sketch and plan out your project when possible. Doing this will give you a clear goal to keep in mind and also help figure out the best order of operations to make the most of your time. With me being on such a tight schedule most of my management came down to waiting for things to dry or set and making sure I always had something else I can can be working on in parallel. It also helps me to figure out what needs to happen in what order to put it all together. Nothing is a bigger pain that having to tear down a build just to add back what was forgotten without having a written plan.

Pictured here is the sketch I made for myself to work on the proton pack. I tried to figure out the amount and shapes of the foam I will be working with to incorporate my other junk items. This is going to be a bit different for everyone based on the items you have at hand but the general idea still holds. Just know you might fudge with this design as you get into actually working with the physical items.

Keep in mind I only have drawn out items for the backpack portion since I already had a wand. You can easily use the same thoughts and techniques in this tutorial to make a wand as well. Just break it down in your mind and keep the base forms simple and just add details as you go. You might just get away with using a couple PVC pipes and a random box!

No matter how good of a design or plan you might create for your project you will always need to tweak it somehow. Take all your items you intend to work with and actually start laying them out. You might have to change your initial thought to make everything fit or it might just not looks like what you originally thought. Working with random items you are not ever going to be able to fully plan ahead of time until you have everything in hand.

My biggest suggestion is to start with how you are going to handle the backpack part of your build since it will set the main minimal bounds to build from. Using my backpack I started to draw around it the thoughts and shape I had from my general idea. Truth be told what I was originally thinking was way too big and hand to shrink it down. Never be afraid to change your sizing and redraw your lines. All of this will be covered up in paint or cut away and no one will ever know but you.

Since the design uses basically a big circle I just drilled some holes in my wooden ruler and used it with a nail and pencil like a giant compass. I had to do it a few times to get the size to feel right and work right with the items I was going to be using. The real thing to focus on is how you are going to mount your pack frame. Make sure to get it centered how you want it and mark the holes for how your conduit straps are eventually going to connect to your board.

With the design now settled on you will need to now start cutting. When cutting something this thin it will want to shake and vibrate a lot if you don't have it well weighted or clamped down. The farther an edge is away from being well fixed down it will want to flap a lot. Just be safe and cautious of this when using either power or hand tools to cut your board.

Once you are satisfied with your work make sure to drill the holes to mount your backpack. The size of these will be both dependent on the size of machine screws you have as well as the washers you will be using. I would suggest just drilling big enough for the screws so there is not a lot of wiggle.

This is probably a good time to mark your board to keep track of what is the front and what is the back. Speaking from experience it can be easy to forget what side is what and easily have to backtrack if getting it mixed up.

Once you have your board cut and holes drilled you will want to secure your washers to the board. Not only will this give a solid mounting point for your backpack but will help with it not wearing through your board. I also did it this way so it would be easier to remove my backpack frame at a later date if I wanted to try my hand at making a more detailed proton pack.

Just take your multipurpose glue and fix them in place. I used a screw to make sure they stayed lined up with the holes I previously drilled. Just know you will need to do this to both sides of the board around the holes.

When you are ever working with new combinations of glues or paints with your materials always make sure to practice your techniques on scraps. With most foams the many glues and paints available will dissolve or distort them because of the added solvents. Making sure things are well mixed will help against getting mostly these solvents since they could have separated when sitting for long periods of times.

With the rubber flex sealant you will need to do multiple passes and put it on relatively thick. Light misting will just lead to the dissolving action I mentioned. Putting it on a bit thick still does it but it will be hidden below the surface and the extra rubber will fill in the gaps and hide this rather well. Again just try things out since different brands will react differently.

Note up front that will will be only coating one side at a time and here we are only doing the backpack side. The reason we are not coating all sides is that we don't want to waste our coating on a side that is going to be covered up with items glued to it. This is will not only require extra flex sealant if we did it that way but also possibly make it harder for any glue to grip the board to secure our pieces later.

Remember to setup a big box or something to paint in. If your board is anything like mine it will be rather thirsty at first and soak anything up. Be patient and take your time.

This might take several coats to come out how you would like it. Just know that it will look different wet than it does when it is dry. Wait until it is dry to make any judgements on needing more coats. You will also want to coat your conduit straps that you will use to mount your backpack as well as anything else you want to secure to the board like hosing to a wand.

While you are waiting for your board to dry it is a good time to foam fill your parts to stiffen them up. Foam is going to get everywhere and plan for this. Secure your pieces on scrap carboard and/or place them over plastic bags. It is going to look messy and all over the place but we will clean everything up a bit later.

Once your board is dry you can move on to mounting your backpack frame. We are doing it in this order like this since we many never have easy access again once we start fixing parts onto the other side. Use a screw drive and a wrench or plyers to tighten everything. You might need additional small washers to help get enough surface area to hold onto.

I did mine with the flat heads outward to the back that will be exposed. I did this to have a relatively flatter surface to mount things over without too much worry of needed to cut or create recessed holes in things to lay flat.

Working from your general plan, and the tweaks you made when physically laying everything out, it is time to start working on your foam sheeting parts. You can use the same ruler compass trick to get your shape of the larger foam discs. I only drew and cut one out at first and then traced it onto the second one. I used a drywall saw to cut my foam. Just take your time and make sure to hold the foam firmly so you don't snap it in half somewhere.

Don't worry about making crazy cuts until after you get each of the pieces glued together. You can even everything up and sand edges once you have them as singular pieces and it will help keep everything more even. Make sure to use something heavy to help the layers to lay flat as you waiting for the glue to set.

The large foam disc is one of the major shapes of your pack. You want to double check it is about the size you want it and you will be able to fit and align everything else later. Once you are sure you don't need to trim or rework it in any way you will want to finally glue it to the board. Get it positioned and centered just right.

Even though it is a large piece you will not need to fully cover it in glue. Just focus on the edges but make sure it does not have any gaps. You might want to apply the glue away from the edges so none of it oozes out when mounted. You will also gain a little wiggle room to move it around without having glue smeared everywhere.

While you are waiting for the glue to dry on your foam sheet pieces you will want to clean up your foam filled parts. Chip away the foam you do not intend to stay and feel free to cut things off or trim them down to size. You might also want to sand your parts a bit for the hard to get off foam and to also make them lay flatter on certain sides.

You will now want to coat all of your individual junk pieces now. Don't be upset if certain nooks do not get filled in right away. You might want to do multiple passes and make sure everything looks well covered. There is nothing precise about this so do not worry too much. Just touch things up as you go and wait until things dry before making any judgements.

Once all your items are dry you will probably want to do a dry fitting. Just like when you were first figuring out your physical layout feel free to move things round to make it feel how you like. Make notes and possible mark on your build to know how things are going to be once you start to glue it all together later.

Before we continue to work on the other side we want to protect our backpack frame from getting anything on it. The easiest way I found to do this was to get a large trash back and put it around the pack and tape the edges down securely with tape. We do not want our good looking parts to get all dirty now do we?

We will now need to coat the other side of the pack. Use what you learned from doing the other side and take your time. I did not coat everything knowing the disc was going to be covered with another part soon. I did this to save on the rubber coating spray. Also we can go over it again later to help blend everything together.

There is part of the pack where there are two tubes that will basically be partially free floating. To secure them I used disposable wooden kitchen skewers. I just applied glue and stuck them into them and what I wanted to mount it to. You might also want to glue the tubes to each other to aid in stiffening it all up. You will also need to make note that you might have to apply more flex coating at this step or a bit later once it is all together.

Once everything is mostly covered in rubber sealant and dry it it time to put it all together. I used a combo of multipurpose glue as well as hot glue. The hot glue was used for several reasons. One it kept everything in place while the main glue dried and then two it was intended to look like welding once it would be covered as well. Do not worry about making it look clean and exact. Being a little messy adds to the effect that this looks like a prototype device.

After everything has dried and is firm and secure it is again time to coat everything but this will be the final time. Cover anything you have not already done so to and try to blend in where everything is now glued. Try to make it look seamless if possible but do not stress about it too much.

This step is a rather optional step and is mostly up to personal choice on how much or little you want to do. I wanted my pack to look old and banged up so I wanted to to look like the paint was coming off the metal.

Taking a paper bag I sprayed a little silver paint thick onto the bag. I then took my brush and dabbed it into the paint and brushed most of it off on the paper. This just left a little bit of paint on the brush and then I went offer the edges to look like wear and tear. A little might help with the hot glue weld look but you can do what you like.

If you have any stickers or patches you like to weather as well you might want to do it at this step too.

We are now to the point were we will be adding all the extra details to bring the pack to life. There is no set rhyme or reason needed other than it looks good to you. I just use random tubing and wire everywhere to give it some character and to try to tell a story. Hot glue, zip ties, and duct tape is your friend here. Just bunch up random wires or string with zip ties and duct tape them or hot glue them into hidden away crevasses from your other parts.

These packs were raw and exposed in the movies so it does not have to be perfect cable management unless you want it to be. You can also take your multiple colored tapes and make fake labels that just imply detail and text using strips of white tape over them.

Make sure you look over your pack several times to make sure there is nothing missing or any additional details you want to add. I decided to use the same tape technique used for labels before and make my red lights for my pack. The tape was not wide enough in both cases and I decided to over lap it on something else I could cut and glue onto the pack. I also waited to the end to fix the antenna piece to the pack. This was just a scrap cut of aluminum but could be just about anything to give the impression.

This step might be optional for you based on what you want or how the pack feels on you. For me I wanted a little extra comfort and cut a section of pipe insulation foam and zip tied it to the top of my backpack frame. Depending on how long you will wear this it might be highly advised to go ahead and do this anyway.

This tutorial was only focused on the pack part of the gear but you can't go out there without slime protection! You can use just about anything if the colors seem right. You can easily grab a painter's outfit or a mechanic jump suit and iron on some patches. Being a fan I already had the patches on hand and decided it was time to put them to good use.

A good Ghostbuster relies on lots of gear. You can make these yourself like we have done so far or your can hopefully pick them up. We are now at a time where you can easily snag most of this in a toy store or a Halloween shop. Don't worry if you don't have everything as I am sure no one will ever feel you are underdressed and not ready to snag some specters.

It was a rush job but I feel I nailed it in reasonably enough quality and time. I had an absolute blast making this as well as trick-or-treating with my nephews all dressed up. It is definitely one of those costumes that is fun to build any time of the year with everyone's interest it in. Maybe I will see you fully geared up for a future movie or next Halloween!

If anyone has any questions feel free to post in the comments below and I will try my best to answer when I can.

THANKS!