"Heat 'Em Up!"

Over the past several years I've enjoyed the hobby of building a 'Proton Pack', which is the main piece of equipment utilized in the Ghostbusters movies, along with the uniform that goes with it.

It all started at Halloween 2005 with a store bought Ghostbusters costume, which came with an inflatable proton pack.  (Actually it all started in the 80's when I was equally obsessed with Ghostbusters, but I'll cover that later.)

From there I wanted to build my own, so I started buying a few parts from sellers online, most of which came from GBfans.com, but the majority of the body of the pack, or "shell" was made from foamboard I bought at a craft store and cut into pieces then glued to create a pack.  

That pack proved to be less than sturdy, and I decided I wanted one that would last, so I built a "shell" out of MDF and craft wood, transferring over many of the parts I'd bought for the first pack.

I still like that pack, but it's not as accurate as I'd like it to be, and it's quite heavy, so I decided to take the plunge and buy a fiberglass shell to build my ultimate proton pack.  I'll refer to it as Proton Pack 3.0...or maybe I won't, we'll see.

This blog will document the progress of the pack build, as well as educate those who don't know much about what it takes to build a movie prop such as this.  Every time I've been out in public in my Ghostbusters uniform, people ask, "Where did you get that?" or "How did you make that?" or similar questions.  Hopefully this blog will shed some light on those questions.  If you are reading this, you are most likely one of my friends and you were invited to view this blog.  Hopefully you will see the hard work and craftsmanship that goes into being an epic nerd like myself.

More to come soon!  Thanks for looking.

-Matt