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Rocket Pack

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As Seen In:    The Rocketeer

Time Spent:    None. I acquired this online.

Date Added:    Oct 21, 2004

To the left is the first picture of what I am calling my "parade pack". It's going to be a VERY quick throw together job. I made the decision that I did not want to be hauling around a screen accurate, very expensive rocket pack when I go out for halloween, parties, or whatever. Too dangerous.
With that in mind, I had a friend pull a vacuum formed copy off the stunt pack I had available. This is the result. This is actually going to be a neat test of my skills, as I hope to assemble my parade pack in one or two days. Should be cool. I am not striving for accuracy, or even completeness. I just want something to strap on my back.

Here's the assembled body. By no means finished, but getting there.

NASTY! here you can see the inside of the pack. As you can tell, I went to extreme lengths to get the two halves to stick together. I used a few different techniques to get it to work, when one would have probably been all I needed. I first put styrene strip parallell to the cuts, thinking that it would provide enough surface area for the top to grab hold of. Not the case. After that, I glued in a number of "struts" that were supposed to grab hold of the strips I glued in earlier on the top and bottom. No such luck. Once the two halves were set, most of the glue had dried, and I didn't have time to apply pressure to all of the struts. However, it was sort of holding together.
So I pulled an "Adam Savage" and taped the two halves together. I then poured resin into the body to fill in the gaps. I call this maneuver an "Adam Savage" because on the show "Mythbusters", Adam is always doing wacky things with vaccum formed plastic, many of which end in comical disaster. The whole taping-a-vac-form-piece-that-leaks-like-the-titanic was perfected by Adam, and I pay homage to him with this piece! Thanks Adam!!!
Also of interest is the honkin' thick sheet of styrene I bolted on to the back of the pack. This is mean to make for a strong mounting surface for the pack harness. Since this will be load bearing, I wanted it to be strong. I glued it in place using "Goop", and then screwed it in using 1/8" washers, hex head bolts and wing nut screws. I have NO idea if that's going to be enough, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

This is a pretty good picture of the nasty spackle job I'm doing along the sides. Yikes! I ended up sacrificing the rivet detail for the sake of speed. If I don't have to worry about working around the rivets, I can just mouse sand the putty. It helps things go faster.

As Seen In:		The Rocketeer
Time Spent:		None. I acquired this online.
Date Added:		Oct 21, 2004

	To the left is the first picture of what I am calling my "parade pack". It's going to be a VERY quick throw together job. I made the decision that I did not want to be hauling around a screen accurate, very expensive rocket pack when I go out for halloween, parties, or whatever. Too dangerous. With that in mind, I had a friend pull a vacuum formed copy off the stunt pack I had available. This is the result. This is actually going to be a neat test of my skills, as I hope to assemble my parade pack in one or two days. Should be cool. I am not striving for accuracy, or even completeness. I just want something to strap on my back.
	Here's the assembled body. By no means finished, but getting there.
	NASTY! here you can see the inside of the pack. As you can tell, I went to extreme lengths to get the two halves to stick together. I used a few different techniques to get it to work, when one would have probably been all I needed. I first put styrene strip parallell to the cuts, thinking that it would provide enough surface area for the top to grab hold of. Not the case. After that, I glued in a number of "struts" that were supposed to grab hold of the strips I glued in earlier on the top and bottom. No such luck. Once the two halves were set, most of the glue had dried, and I didn't have time to apply pressure to all of the struts. However, it was sort of holding together. So I pulled an "Adam Savage" and taped the two halves together. I then poured resin into the body to fill in the gaps. I call this maneuver an "Adam Savage" because on the show "Mythbusters", Adam is always doing wacky things with vaccum formed plastic, many of which end in comical disaster. The whole taping-a-vac-form-piece-that-leaks-like-the-titanic was perfected by Adam, and I pay homage to him with this piece! Thanks Adam!!! Also of interest is the honkin' thick sheet of styrene I bolted on to the back of the pack. This is mean to make for a strong mounting surface for the pack harness. Since this will be load bearing, I wanted it to be strong. I glued it in place using "Goop", and then screwed it in using 1/8" washers, hex head bolts and wing nut screws. I have NO idea if that's going to be enough, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.
	This is a pretty good picture of the nasty spackle job I'm doing along the sides. Yikes! I ended up sacrificing the rivet detail for the sake of speed. If I don't have to worry about working around the rivets, I can just mouse sand the putty. It helps things go faster.