So, a while back, I finally received my beautiful Nick-a-tron fiberglass proton pack hero kit.

At the core, the basic shell is what I’d use to work from, but even though it is amazing, there is still a lot of work to do on it!

First off, I drilled out part of the holes used for the lights in the cyclotron. (it is these holes here thad I already had done a quick drill through with my step drill.)

As you see, they are far from perfect, but I had planned to spend a little time with the shell and my trusty dremel!

Armed with a sanding drum, I went ahead and sanded those round.

It is a pretty messy work, so it is definitely recommended to do this outside. Also recommended is to wear some sort of dust protector or rebreather. VERY recommended, in fact.

We had one of our first really sunny nice days outside in a long while, so it was perfect to spend a little time on the shell while my wife had a friend over and Emma played with her daughter in the mean time.

Once sanding was done, it was time to put on the cutting wheel and cut open the slot where the blue LED’s are going to be in the future. A steady hand and going slow made for a pretty decent result.

I also spent a little time removing some of the artefacts from the casting process to get my shell as good as can be. I will still need to bondo and sand parts of it more, but at least I have started.

During the evening, I also found a little time to plan for where I would place the N-filter… I think. I marked it out with a sharpie after gently scratching the outside of the N-filter into gel coat with a scalpel. If I end up moving it, a little bondo will cover these marks without issues before painting.

I also ended up making a holder for the split loom (the hose going to the gun portion) that is not exactly 100% screen accurate, but it will hold the loom in place wonderfully. I 3d printed this out of reinforced PLA. (Normal PLA would do, but I had reinforced PLA loaded, so it will be nice and sturdy.)

I designed this a while back before actually having the split loom in hand, so a few minor modifications was needed… and it ens up holding the loom perfectly.

My plan is to to put threaded brass inserts into the bottom portion, allowing me to use M3 bolts to hold it together and have no fatigue in the plastic.

More to come another day! 😀