#4964874
Hey folks! Long time no post. Had my head pretty deep into Star Trek costuming for a while, but Afterlife has given me the kick in the pants I needed to get my ghost trap put together after a few years of it sitting in a box in my shop's storage area.

I spent a couple hours today doing some of the major drilling and clean-up of the resin parts, along with cutting some new rods for the ejection system (as I seem to have lost the ones that came with the kit).

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Most of the parts are knolled as per their rough final placement.

Does anyone have pictures of some of the actual knobs used? I'd love to have correct reference when I go to paint mine.

Also. If you were Egon building the traps, would the slide rails that the cartridge rests on be metal for longevity? Or plastic for electrical insulation? 🤔🤔
Last edited by Chris Brewin on January 9th, 2022, 12:42 am, edited 7 times in total.
#4964896
I personally use Photobucket, but you have to pay like a $100 or so a year to share on other websites. There is an option for uploading an image when you post a reply, but I'm not sure how good it is.
Chris Brewin liked this
#4965095
Making progress...

I've laid out some of the smaller parts on double-sided tape for priming...
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After a bit of prep work, the T-nuts were installed and mostly covered with putty to smoothen over. Also put on the ejection lever cover on the handle, is puttied and sanded, ready for primer...
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While I'm using Rust-o-leum's basic metallic paint as an undercoat and it'll be dirtied up after, I wanted to give it as much help as I could, so the parts that'll be the most heavily weathered got gloss black primer, and the cartridge only got flat black...
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Next update will likely come after some of the knobs and bits that'll stay gloss black are put aside, along with the cartridge before giving everything else a coat or two of metallic, followed by a gloss coat. Once that's all dry, I'll be doing a bunch of masking, trying the salt technique for the first time, along with some masking fluid before a flat black coat over it all.
wralex, elussya, tobycj liked this
#4965178
More progress! Gonna be taking a few days off to let all the paints dry a bit better before proceeding, though.

So I wanted the trap to look a little banged up (it's a resin kit with a few imperfections, so I figured I'd make them part of the story). This is my first time trying the salt technique to do paint chipping, but I wanted the corners to be completely free of black paint, so I added some liquid masking first to get the basic coverage I wanted. Then I applied a little bit of water, and the salt.

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It's a bit of a delicate process; it's important to have lots of tiny little droplets for the salt to stick to, but not so big as to make the salt completely dissolve. But you do need those droplets, so even if you paint the area with a wet brush, the salt seems to only stick to where water has formed droplets, not just the damp surface. Now, it could just be that I was applying the water over a a few layers of paint, the base of which was a gloss, but I guess further experimentation is needed.

Then it was time for flat black on a lot of it. I did do liquid masking in a few other areas, too, but y'all will have to wait for pics after I peel it all off...

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I also did the axels and cartridge clip in black with some liquid mask. Kept some of the other knobs silver though, I think I'm going for a GB2 look, I guess.

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Lastly, the other knobs got some Army Painter silver and white added to them for some detail, and some Model Master gunmetal to make the molded set screw heads pop a bit. They all got a nice gloss coat after...

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That's it for now. Next step is to add yellow stripes to the doors, put as much of it together as I can while I wait for the electronics kit from Ghost Mech 852 and stickers from MobySigns on Etsy, and I'll probably do some more weathering along the way.
#4966609
Hey folks!

It's been a while, and my trap is mostly done.

TL:DR for this update; I have a few parts and stickers coming in the mail, and the electronics haven't arrived yet either, but, otherwise, it's done.

So... where did I leave off? Right! Most of the pre-assembly painting was done. On to the assembly. Aside from either over-torquing one or two screws, or misaligning my drill/countersink bit, the bottom of the cartridge went on easily. I think I bought the wrong kind of countersink bit, cause it did *not* like cutting through any of the plastic on the rails.
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Because I only had the one set of screws (they were included with the kit), and the center ones didn't have much to bite into, I decided to superglue them in place. The rails were also superglued in place. The tips of the screws sticking into the cartridge eventually got cut off and covered with glue from a hot glue gun to prevent damaging/shorting once the electronics are installed.
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The rails on the base went on pretty well, but I did have to pull out the ejection system to have room to get my drill in for pilot holes and countersinking. But. They all got in there. The front three screws were too long for the frame and I didn't notice until I had the front middle one in and saw it sitting proud. It's barely noticeable, but it did clue me into shortening the screws and marking my drill bit so that I don't drill the pilot holes too deeply. Also, sadly, some of the putty over the T-nuts came off during all the handle installations and removals I had to do. Gonna hafta touch them up later.
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The side plates and hardware went on pretty well. The side rods and knobs are bolted in from the inside, and I drilled holes in the frame to accommodate the bolt heads. The button-head bolts and other hex bolts went in pretty easily, but they were a bit long, so some of them poke through into the cartridge area. These needed to be ground down so the cartridge could still slide in and out. They're not super noticeable, but I may hit them with some matte black when I repaint the exposed putty.
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It's crazy the effect of event loosely placing the striped doors on the top of the cartridge makes it look and feel SO much more like the iconic prop...
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I picked up the Charlesworth Dynamics twin servo and chain drive kit (which Throwing Chicken's installation instructions cover) and the kit installed really nicely, for the most part; the servos came with the gears pre-installed and they were installed with the teeth next to the servo, rather than at the end of the spline. As a result, the chains sit at an angle which I don't think they're supposed to do. It doesn't look like their chafing or binding, so it should be fine. I'll find out the hard way when I get the electronics installed and tested. The doors also don't sit quite flush, so I'll have to see how the move once the electronics are in.
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I just loosely placed the front plate in front and dang, it's really getting there...
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When installing the front plate and knobs, I drilled pilot holes for the retaining bolts, then did pilot holes for the knob bolts as well. The plate was removed and the pilot holes for the knobs were enlarged to accommodate the knob bolt heads. I really wasn't precious with this part as I knew no one would be seeing the inside of the cartridge and the front plate would be covering the other crimes anyway.
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Attaching the wheels would have gone more smoothly had I been given enough machine nuts to secure the bolts. As a result, I had to go through my personal stock to find other bolts (that were a bit bigger) that would work with the locking nuts I also had previously. But. They went in relatively easily, despite them not being perfectly level. I also did some countersinking (in spite of my countersink bit hating the resin, too) around the holes for the V-hook I bought from BenOfKent Props.
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The v-hook installed without an issue once I shortened the bolts it came with so they'd fit in the frame under the rails.
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The knobs aren't very accurate, I know. I've seen a few different builds with different knobs, and as most of my kit is a bit of a hodge-podge anyway, I have absolutely zero effs to give about the knobs not being accurate. Also, A) the kit comes with a pair that I haven't seen on any trap build; and, B) I stripped a bunch of the paint off one of the round knobs when I was screwing the bolt into it, and since I had another painted knob sitting around doing nothing, I figured I'd use it instead of doing touchups/repaint. You'll also see some of the dry-rub decals I placed on the front plate above, and here...
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Let's continue the tour of its current state...
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"Wait a second! That's not an air fitting for the pedal. Is that an antenna?" Yes, and no. As the electronics kit I've ordered is wireless, I figured I'd lean into it by making it wirelessly controlled by a switch I'll be adding to the thrower. It occurred to me that the attaching point for the "receiving antenna" would also be a great spot to "camouflage" the electronics' charging port. As I work in aviation maintenance, it struck me that a static wick (static wicks are small conductors that help dissipate the static electricity that builds up on an airplane's skin as it flies through the air) would make an ideal antenna simulate. I brought home a broke one after work one day which I cut down and super glued it to the connector.
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The tour continues...
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As those with the knowledge will be able to tell, I'm missing the side vector plate and resistor, a few of the stickers and the lens for the light on the battery compartment. All of which are in the mail, so the end is definitely in sight.
ccv66 liked this
#4966621
Looking good!

If you're planning on using a trap holster you might want to check you can hang it off that with the v-hook. I had to put a shim under my female v-hook so that the wheels didn't stop it hooking onto the male v-hook on the holster.

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