Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Ghostbusters Proton Pack!

oh my fellow makers adam here from tested and  careful viewers might know that i'm working on   a ghostbusters pack because that's what this is  but it's not just any ghostbusters proton pack no   no no i'm working on a super crazy custom specific  ghostbusters pack in conjunction with the new   ghostbusters film now when jason was writing  the script he consulted with me and asked me if   egon had kept on using his pack and modifying it  what might it look like and aesthetically that is   my kind of challenge and so even though the  production designer and the production team came   up with the answers to these questions for the new  movie i am also going to answer them for myself so   i am doing a personal custom one-day build of egon  spengler's original pack but within the context   of the new movie as if he had been using it and  modifying it to keep it running in the intervening   decades now production went to incredible lengths  to maintain a high fidelity to the original   ghostbuster props i was super impressed with how  assiduous they were and i plan to be the same so   through my various channels of the people that i  know i have managed to source a pack shell that   has a direct lineage to a screen used original  and the best part i know i've already listed   several things that are the best part but the best  part about this is that i'm not doing this build   alone i have incredible help to work with me on  this prop maker and special effects artisan from   the production ben edie come in my friend adam  you worked on the actual production managing   20 separate proton packs it's all the little parts  and the bumpers and the little details i mean   there's so many details on a proton pack alone it  must have been like a tile puzzle trying to figure   out everything well especially when you take into  account there was let's see that one two three   four five six seven different styles of packs so  yeah it uh it they're all the same foundation but   it changes from scene to scene depending on what  was going on and some of them are so so very cool   okay so when you're working presumably some of  these packs are like exactly the same pack from   the original film i'm very close to of course  you know you got to look at the the timeline of   the movie this is going forward to 2020 or 2019  and you got to look at what would have happened   over that time period would there be you know  improvements would there be modifications   would there be aware so yeah they're they're  worn and i'll be completely honest i probably   didn't get the packs rate but i have time on my  side saying well they made a modification that's   that's why it's different yeah yeah and there's  multiple teams multiple shops making hero packs   stun packs in la that they're sending up to you  and then you're modifying from for production yes   yes we and we were even creating some on the  fly as needed so there was like i wouldn't say   a script change but there was some things that  weren't ordered and everybody's like oh no what   are we going to do and it's like well let's build  one and having visited the set a little bit it's   pretty clear to me that jason was right there on  the front line making sure that these things had a   direct uh uh uh aesthetic lineage to the original  yes very much so like you know they we had to make   sure certain things were right like you know the  wiring harness with the original wiring harnesses   came in well that's 89 that's not what we wanted  we wanted the 84. and people are like oh no so   then we scrambled like tried to find these and you  know we got lucky there was eric craig on on set   and he had a friend who had a friend there was  a lot of friends who had friends and it all   played out really well okay so you guys modified  some of the packs as if they had been being used   and kept up over the intervening decades yes and  i want to build a pack in that vein but i am not   going to follow the production designer's  victim i'm going to follow my own museum   can you help oh absolutely are you going to build  something where it's it's not the show but still   has like maybe a little more of our flavor in  it would be awesome and i think everybody should   have their own pack because it's a custom piece of  equipment all right ben this is the key piece of   equipment that i'm adding to the cannon right  my feeling like i said was that there weren't   enough lights on the front of the pack and so  this is a pack attenuator that would clip to   your backpack strap on the alice pack right here  okay um because you need your right hand free and   your right side free to grab the wand i figured  on the left side here with some switches a light   i figured we'd do a bar graph there because  ghostbusters loves bar graphs and then maybe   a pot here like if you overheat your pack you can  kind of turn it down a little bit from right here   nice so the first thing i want to talk about is  making this box right so i'm going to machine   some of these slots i want to weld this together  like the welded ghostbusters look do you think   we can do that we can try okay in a while since  i've been welding so i'll have to crash course   on it because it'll be thinner metal but for  sure we can definitely give that a try that's   one thing too i i like um a lot of people look  at this and go well it's you know it's a metal   case no it's it's plastic and you can paint a lot  of things so don't ever get stuck in one material   i find myself doing this where you get sold on it  i got to make it out of aluminum two days later   you can't do it and somebody comes up and goes  why didn't you make it out of plastic like this   it actually could be that we came up  with a way to cut this out and tab it   so that we could almost rivet it together  oh that would be yeah to do that pattern   and rivet that could be no problem right because  all we need to do is mill these slots on the mill   once we're actually probably  afterwards because we could clamp it in   and i can use my cad system to flat pattern  that in the heart oh great and that that's a   that's so easy for me it's disgusting i love that  yeah that's your first uh that's the first thing foreign that's fine but if you need to  go right ahead you can see it's   it's not held in by much i'm thinking  it yeah it will hold it up here okay and i'm gonna i'll mess around sure  for sure the thing about a build like this   is within the ghostbusters pack itself is  already like this whole universal stuff you   have to get right there are dozens of pieces each  one is very specific to either ghostbusters one   ghostbusters two etc and the packs are  different between venkman and spangler etc   and then there's the added modifications that i'm  making like making the whole this thing removable   and how we get detail the inside of that so that  it feels like it's part of the same universe   so it's two totally separate aesthetic tracks  that have to meet together on this build   amazing it's amazing when a 3  8 of an inch screw is too long   okay hold on i got to think about  something here i just need to put on   my thinking cap for a second i just kind  of really just ponder this for a second oh perfect right all right let's see here that's white that's  flashing that's red wait one two three four five   lights that we need to do we could scab one onto  the same circuit i made the switch the question is   can i get it installed okay this switch i'm making  is actually one of the things i'm borrowing from   the productions updated spangler pack which is in  the elevator scene in ghostbusters when the three   original ghostbusters are with their packs on  and about to visit slimer for the first time   uh i think it's venkman turns on spangler's pack  from behind and he reaches to a specific location   i think that location is underneath this the  ion arm and so did jason reitman and so he put   a switch there and i am also putting a master  pack switch there and i've made the switch   equivalent to the one in the film with  a little bit of a nurny on the end here   uh and i've made the switch hole where it goes   now i'm having trouble fitting the switch into  the switch hole because there's just not a lot   of room in this thing so it's going to take me  a little bit of tile puzzling to get this going no okay all right cool there we go yep i got  it there we go now i want to paint that red that's pretty good i'm pretty happy with that no  that's you're going through the exact issues we   did and we did like what we ended up having was  this little laser-cut piece of wood yeah that fit   like a u over top of it we just wedged it in and  then uh we had a couple other like basically we   just made that work in a couple tacks of glue but  i think there was an extra piece or two but yeah   so what i'm going to do here is i'm actually going  to make a little wood wedgie here that holds that   in but i'll paint this and i'll run the leads out  so it comes out and then i can install and it's   ready to go right remember this is one thing we  did is we installed a bunch of switches and then   afterwards somebody went okay where are the wires  so we can use it and we're just like taking it   all the way put the wires in classic move you can  actually shorten this by this distance okay okay   make these feet a little longer okay because what  i'm gonna do is i'm actually going to drill a hole   down and put a cap screw in there so there's  cap screws in each one it looks nice and   neat do you want these outer pieces to  be thicker then so you have more material   negative these outer pieces are great i am going  to want to chamfer them on the on the 3m disc okay   the same way those copper ones are chamfered we're  going to want to do it's not going to look as neat   as theirs but it'll be close jen that's a terrific  first pass awesome um i'm really pleased with that   you got the kidney shape exactly right oh right  you're cutting these out in the middle there   yeah um fabulous it's a teeny bit thicker  yeah no i can tell that so let's go with um   let's go with a piece of eighth inch okay and  we'll just we'll go two quarters and one eighth   ah okay so yeah got it right because we're  wrapping that so it'll it won't be beautiful   that's a fabulous pass excellent  caboose red or sky yeah caboose red i'm using lacquer paint very pleased so these are the same batteries we use for our  remote control tank game i have a 3d printed clip   that i designed that literally it snaps into place  and snaps out i want that this is the main power   supply uh i can bring it in print one and bring  it tomorrow great how many volts and 12 volts   7 800 milliamp hours oh lost more than two hours  on this maybe two days can we swap the switch out   for what is coming out of here probably uh or  we can just have this be hot to this and this   oh right swap the switch here so it's not well  i'm just thinking you undo the thing there to   find out where it's soldered and put these pins on  yeah yeah uh if it's useful also there's a version   of this it also has a five volt out usb if you  think that we would need that and swap it for one   of those the thing is is the um the led lights the  whole the the cyclotron that's all that's all five   volt um but we could throw a buck converter along  the way too yeah this is this is the other one   this has five volts out so do you want it wired  through the pack yes i think i would like it wired   too okay because getting a 12 volt battery in that  thing is a pain okay cool so we put a 12 volt here   yeah we do like a buck converter just a little  step down converter and then the step down   converter could be hooked onto this switch that  way we're not modifying anything there that works   perfect because the way this is designed the  main board goes in here and that's where the   power goes to oh good so we can just put the board  where it's supposed to be hook it to the battery   and then i think it supplies power and everything  for everything else through the cat the network   cable that it came with yeah okay so do you want  this guy now we can bend this up and fold it but   we can also it's easy to mount and do all your  holes while it's flat before we bend it up   no let's bend it up fold it and rivet it and then  we'll add the holes cool um and that little break   under the table might be the strongest one for  this heavy gauge oh you got like a little i have   a little 12 inch break i have two 12 inch breaks  and one 24 inch right yes okay cool one piece   of half inch so you'll see until the yeah good  for you and then the tab on this will just get   shorter and the whole kidney will move towards the  wall and this tab will elongate just a little bit   early on in the discussions about this film i  told jason i wanted to build one of the hero   proton packs ultimately that doesn't quite  work for one individual to do that because   these props there's never just one of them  they're many cases dozens and they need to be   supported by the people that built them because  they require all these different power systems   and when things break on set you need the people  working on them etc it just didn't make any sense   for me to make some one-off that other people  had to deal with all the headaches i created   so i was fine with that but getting to do kind  of my own design of this within the frame of my   own brain and with this incredible help that  we've got today it's just like fantasy camp there is a cool feature which i have added to  my proton pack that i've never seen anyone do   and that is this little doodad here this is  called the crank generator now almost all   the verbiage i'm using to describe these parts  were come up with by ghostbusters fans in the   80s 90s and 2000s so this is called the crank  generator and the little handle here is a   raytheon crank um you might have used one on  the power supply for your lionel trains back   in the day yeah that was one of the places they  showed up at any rate i made my crank generator an actual generator so within the  aesthetics of the pack i'm adding   brass screws and stuff here and there to  look like it was cobbled back together but   these brass screws serve a purpose they actually  hold a generator i bought on ebay to the back yeah it's real there's another mod i'm about to make uh that is  different from the canon packs which is this piece   right here this is the ion arm assembly this  is often called the antenna um i am actually   going to make it look more like an antenna  by adding some cross antenna pieces yeah i   i like the idea of this looking a little more  like the old tv style antenna of my childhood okay uh i'm gonna dirty this up just a tad you know i wish i could make  the ion arm shoot silly string   next up the booster tube yeah okay you don't know  what that is okay maybe you know what that is but   i'm making a mod to the booster tube that i'm  super excited about this that is booster tube   that's the ladder frame this is a booster  tube and sits here right here in the pack um   like i said my biggest issue with the pack is i  want more lights on it so i'm adding some lights   and i'm even adding a smoke effect i'll show you  in a minute there's that there's that great now and then this guy oh my god space is gonna  get to a premium quickly in here guys okay this is the hydrogen what  do you call it hga hydrogen uh   that is a very good question no no i'm looking it  up i'm looking it up i have a master guide here   i have a master guide come on where's my master  guide there it is yep no that's not it no there   it is all right hga hydrogen gas accumulator  yes this is the hydrogen gas accumulator   um i've gone with the ghostbusters one version  and those you can tell because the uh the little   clippard brass fitting here sits not on the same  plane as the lagree fitting but slightly higher one thing about ghostbusters packs  that every ghost head will tell you   is that those mofos are heavy  and this is no exception rules actually though you're not seeing the full  effect i said that i had added an effect to   the booster tube and i have my idea is  that this would be some sort of cooling   tower for when the the the the amount of  heat generated by the blast was too great   so i added some red lights in  there but you can't see them   until you do this there we go so you see the  red light see that little glow watch this yeah yeah that's an overheating  pack right there dude look at that   that is a vape pen smoke machine made by  spoon makes and it is running pure 100   vegetable glycerin through there i love it i'm  very happy with how that works yeah fabulous uh so main power oh look  at that it looks beautiful   uh activate okay great with the that lights  on that's good capture beautiful that's the   push button yeah and then blast i'm not  not exactly sure what the difference is   well who knows it doesn't matter that's  great the headlights on and everything   this looks pretty good yeah it does yeah it looks  really good and then i guess after you do it so   long to overheat light will come on i've got a  i've got to make some of these wires longer so   that we have room to maneuver it oh because the  mechanism still has to work yeah so it'll be good   you're going to mount over okay okay and then and  then we can we'll worry about that later yeah but   i feel good that it's working and we should you  know dude that's awesome all right cool fantastic right that's usually good i'd like you to put right  there thank you hold that   don't let it move ah no i don't pre i don't prank ah these guys and this guy oh  and these guys oh and this guy   all right and get all that  going let's see here now so by now i have most of the original canon  pieces of the pack kind of roughly in place   it's not painted it's not cohesive but we're  getting there and in a few places i have added   some extra brass screws as part of the you  know maintenance of this machine but now   because i've got most of this in place i'm  starting to really look aesthetically about   making more additions of screws and plates and  other evidence that parts of this were modularized   pulled off rebuilt and put back on this might  be some of the most fun part of this build sean have you ever seen old military equipment  with the wire wraps done this way i don't know   how to do it it's this i'm doing it right  now really yeah the women that do it they   carry this little spool of twine in their  hand and they can do it there's footage of   them you can find on youtube they can do  it way faster than you can like zip tie   a wire harness together yeah  yep and then and then these i guys happen to have a bunch i remember reading that andre agassi one of the  big things about his evolution as a tennis player   was when he started traveling full-time with a  tennis stringer um and you this is your circle   oh yes i see what you're saying you're saying this  is wider yes i get that it is totally cool with me   if what we end up doing is um we end up  just making a chamfer that holds these in   right so here is yeah so the issue so the  light comes here but the lights are proud there   right oh i see what you're saying  so just the led yeah just the led   and then if that turns out to be a gigantic  problem because we hate the way it looks what   we can do is if you look at the outer thing here  so this is the outer curve and here is the leds   if we look at this and this right here this area  looks like [ __ ] we can laser cut in styrene   just a little fascia cover for the outside  of that on the top that's it you're never   going to notice all the dressing around  you're just going to go ooh blue glow   um hey ben yeah will you come over and take a  look we got a um a situation here so i have the   stack up we've got two 16 inch pieces on with a uh  okay a quarter inch in the middle yeah that one's   slightly indented however the setup that you had  before the pixels were on the inside uh because of   that we're short that's okay four or five inches  what we do is we snip the end off this one we just   place them together okay um how do you guys  feel about this stack up situation i feel it   looks great i think that's like i wish i wish you  were around when we were making these it's gonna   look great this is kind of my specialty um okay  great so in terms of finishing the this panel   does this need um glue and then scotch bright  and i have a full thing of glue here sorry no no   it's okay the one thing you might want  to do is that this is going to light leak   and to the inside so what we did is we took  uh um what do you call it it's copper tape   it's just like you don't have the bleed out  and you like they're really intense to start   with and they it dies so quickly i think  that i so before we worry about the tape   we fog it up we glue it and scotch-brite the [  __ ] out of it and then we see how we are so what   i'm thinking we might want to do before we glue  and scuff it is to actually eliminate the strip   and see where the diffusion works best totally  outside or is it maybe on the the top of the   middle sandwich piece sorry i think the whole uh  oh the diffusion yeah like which cause typically   when you whatever surface is scuffed and then the  edge will get the the most of your light i think   it all gets scuffed so every surface of all three  of all three stacks oh i see what you're saying   yeah yeah yeah uh no it has to be the ones that  are unglued because once if you scuff the ones and   then glue them they'll go smooth they'll go clear  yeah the glue will fill the gap between the two so   glue them together then we scuff all  three visible surfaces got it okay and when you do that you can use some  copper tape to hold it all together so   we can pop it behind here i'd like to  experiment with its distance from this   because all that will give us  different effects i understood doing stuff like this half of me is dying  after me is like oh god that looks awesome let's see here look at that i'm really  pleased with how that looks i want to throw some electric sparks  in here so occasionally one goes   um i love that idea i know the color  scheme doesn't fit but i kind of like that   that old bone isolation kind of feel like the  you know the transformers with the with mel mac   so yeah i think i want to gather them though  okay i think i want to gather them in two bins of   of three right like um to cheat it and that allows  me some room to mess with that third little thing   however if we do that one thing i sort of request  is that we hide that seam oh yeah and that's yeah   yeah totally totally totally but wait till  you see what i'm gonna do here let's see here see what okay those two in there and then  these two yeah yeah so something like   that um and then we pop some screws up from  underneath and this whole thing becomes this   lovely freestanding extra bit of awesome  freaking detail oh yeah that's gotta   right especially if you light underneath that too  yeah if you and if you get this like a silver or   something like that it'll give you some really  interesting blow reflections from the center oh yeah look at that it's starting to look  really beautiful that i'm really digging this right okay so these need to be  silver because i can't see them okay there's that you could have this to start  lighting it if you want it okay   um i played around with what i want to do here  um i think i know the arrangement that i like   i'm going to take a picture of it so i can  look at it tonight while i'm chilling and see what happens in my head i remove two of those  i also think i'd put here here here here here here   here here i'm going to have these sticking up  and have wires coming out of them and like all   routing to the same place like through a hole  up there just for yeah so it's like wire wire   wire wiring it gets bigger bigger bigger and then  disappears up there i like yeah and i think it's   going to be this white cord and maybe a couple of  other colors these are actually radio tube caps   huh yeah um so will these get paint as well yeah  these will get painted um those will get painted   probably a dirty silver is my thinking this is  now feeling like something to me it looks amazing   right yeah so it's not even like you see  more paint i'm just making details show up yep this is the arrangement i like for these i'm  going to use four of these oh i like that yeah   it's cleaner yeah um jen i'm gonna ask you to cut  me an opa find some opaque acrylic that we've got   okay and i want to cut a ring in here that we  can hide some lights underneath um so i'm going   to pull this so we can take a look at you thinking  in the very bottom yep exactly so i'm going to put   this over here and you can work on lighting that  but what i'm thinking of jen is a little a little   shelf so whatever this idea is a little shelf  here that's about three quarters of an inch wide   and maybe press fits into there and we can  put lights on the inside of that and hide them   and we can do in the same way you've got that  beautiful orange green effect on the wall hanger   yeah yeah we do the same kind of thing in there  and we can in it because the thing is because   that ring will glow blue any yellow and orange we  add it's just going to make the whole thing feel   so awesome yeah right it's going to  make it feel so warm and inviting   so yeah let's look towards it doesn't have to be  opaque plastic we can paint it if we need to but   let's cut in a piece of eighth inch plastic three  quarters of an inch wide that is that id that od   and we're gonna have it come over here and we'll  hide some lights inside and you're thinking like   what three quarters of an inch half an inch  yeah three quarters three quarters wide i seriously i use it every day i love it all right  oh my god this is so much fun we are uh about 90   plus percent assembled except for some stickers  and some tubing but now it's time for the final   storytelling the weathering that ties this all  together and helps tell the story of the film in   which this pack continues to get used and modded  and damaged and rusted and messed up for 30 years   after the original ghostbusters film that's  the kind of storytelling i'm going to imbue   on this with some paint and some brass and  some bits and bobs and specifically some rust there too yeah yeah okay and i'm really pleased with this okay so we've got  most all right that guy goes in here it comes all   the way across oh right okay and so it's clearly  a piece of something so i'll use this stuff time for some stickers i think i have everything i need that's the  gearbox that's the end filter that's the bumper   that's the top that's the back i got all those  that's the hydrogen gas accumulator uh yeah   those are the goggles i got those for later cool  i've got a little bit of everything great great a little isopropyl alcohol to let the paint wick  hopefully my spritz bottle isn't broken let's see so i have a philosophical question  to answer here which is uh i'm going to do the rust first okay so one  of the key differences between this pack   and the ones from the original film is that this  one would be rusted if egon had kept it running   in his new home for several decades uh there  would be periods of time and it would lie fallow   it's a different environment than new york city  i'm just assuming if the outside is some sort of   cast iron or cast metal like that that there  would be some rust so i'm going to add some   specific spots of rust i think i'm going to do one  up here and i think i'm gonna do some small spots   around here and see how i like that um again this  is the idea is that it has rust damage from like   being left in a specific spot where like water  was dripping this isn't just random little rusty   spots it's like i'm doing a couple of big rust  spots and then i'm going to add in some more rust   later on i will tie this all together with  a black wash and kind of add some of the the   accent colors that help tie it together but first  and foremost the most difficult part the rust let's see if this works so it's not bad that's not bad kind of lets me know  that i want to do more of it yeah yeah yeah i see hmm me this is the uh correct lagree red all  right okay so that goes right i need all right well i have cracked the aesthetic  problem in my head of how to make my cyclotron   compelling and feel like it's a real thing  uh and it involves winding a whole bunch of   motor wire coils that will you'll get to see it  it's not going to be at the end of this video   but it'll be in another one everything else about  this proton pack is the proton pack of my dreams   it is mostly aluminum and high quality fiberglass  most of the parts are real parts the weathering   i couldn't be happier with i first of all a  thank you to sony for letting me do this and   jason reitman for everything and specifically  to ben edie from production for his incredible   guidance support and electronics expertise it  is really fun building stuff with that dude   i am in particular ecstatic about my antenna up  here i feel like that is a really nifty solution   um the next time you see this pack  it will be complete and it will be   in new york where i'll get to show it to jason  and hopefully some of the actual ghostbusters   afterlife cast i can't even believe i said  that sentence all right i'm gonna keep going   but uh you'll get to see the finished pack in  another video thank you guys for joining me   oh oh before we go i would be remiss if i not did  not tell you that sony in letting me do research   on this provided me an audience with an actual  screen used hero ghostbusters afterlife proton   pack and it was an education it's a beautiful  piece i took tons of photos with my phone and   incredibly sony is allowing us to post the gallery  of the photos that i took so this is the kind of   reference i take when i want to know all about a  specific prop and one of the axioms is no matter   how many photos you take there's always something  you didn't get enough coverage of i'm not sure   what that is yet but i will find out uh if you  are a trooper hopefully this will answer all of   the questions you have about the afterlife packs  uh and to you i would also say you're welcome

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 344,684

Keywords: tested, tested adam savage, tested one day builds, adam savage, adam savage tested one day build, proton pack, adam savage's one day builds, adam savage's proton pack, ghostbusters proton pack, proton pack build, adam savage ghostbusters, adam savage ghostbusters afterlife, adam savage tested, ghostbusters afterlife, behind the scenes ghostbusters, ghostbusters afterlife behind the scenes, one day builds, replica prop, how to, ghostbusters cosplay, ghostbusters uniform

Id: dloSR3a57IA

Length: 43min 23sec (2603 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Razorwing23]

The Gallery here of the Screen used Pack with detailed shots.

[u/Advanced_Path]

The dude just built an actual cyclotron

[u/Pluggers]

Urge to build... rising...

[u/gozerbrothers]

Don't you think Egon seems like the kind of guy who would take better care of his stuff?

[u/[deleted]]

Fantastic build