TK-459

The wireless antenna was a good resourceful solution too. The complete SKU for this part is 010054321570 It is made by WirthCo Eng. Inc. Mpls, MN I think there may be two sizes and this is the Gallon, Quart, Pint version. This looks like it.... http://www.jcwhitney.com/webapp/wcs/sto ... ogId=10101

I found this at Harbor Freight for about $2.00. I thought it had good bee stinger potential. #32157 Flexible-Spout [/img]

I like it. How much did that cost you?

haha! I love the poses and the angles.

Very kind. I just got my main boxes from Seth and Mike now too and they are great! I am stoked. I was really looking forward to getting them. Now I can start assembling everything, just in time.

Thank you, that means a lot coming from you. Rocko, dive in!

Thank you again for the nice comments. The radio box is finally complete! I cut off knobs from potentiometers for the switches. I then backed that area with a small piece of plastic to create a recess. I also backed the box with some scrap sintra and cut out the center out so that I can put some bolts through to the main box. The only thing I have left to make related to this for my own pack is the little bottom carrier that holds the whole box from the bottom. I will have to vacform that. And oh yeah, wait....I need some dirty armor too don't I, lol. Here are some images. Thanks again for all the support. This was a fun part to work on. I just created another buck to attempt a vacform styrene faceplate of the box as well. I'll try that out later today. This project was always meant more as an exercise and for my own pack, but since I have went through it now I could create a few more if there is any interest. The fiberglass box takes a while to make so I don't expect to make a lot if any, but we'll see. Perhaps I'll make an interest thread. Cheers!

On to weathering in the morning...

Thank you. My first fiberglass part. Not perfect, but not bad. Gotta work on the impression coat a bit. I used a bondo/polyresin impression with a fiber/polyresin backing. Woot. I'm going to try to finish up this part tonight.

Just finished the silicon with a fiberglass shell. This was the first time I tried either but it came out good. I made the mistake of trying to do a 1-piece shell. I also used cheesecloth between the silicon and fiber layers to glue them together. While the silicon didn't stick to the buck, there was still just enough pressure to hold it pretty tightly inside the silicon. Live and learn. So, I had to cut the shell into quadrants (without cutting into the silicon) so that I could bend it a bit and release the buck. Here is the result. It still holds its shape so I am going to try to make a box from it, but I may redo this part with a 2-piece shell. Good thing is that the buck is intact.

Regarding SDS / AA, my personal opinion is that they are more artworks than they are armor. Regardless of the countless perspectives on accuracy, they come from the origin.

Sweet. Come on, don't hold out. Let's see your dewback!

Thanks, I'm having fun with it. Regarding the step-tiers, from what I can tell and as mentioned, they are definetely there to some degree. Mine may be a bit exagerated. The original looks more like a lid top around the edge to me. These packs are particularly fun though because there is a lot of variety. Adjusted Image MEPD Gallery The circled areas are some of the areas I have been focusing on. The green circle is the part that is still giving me issues. I think you guys are probably right with some of the knobs you posted with the ring around it. The reflections/highlights in this area are really weird. Washing machine dials also come to mind, but those are a big large. The yellow is part of what I was talking about earlier. On this pack, there is a bottom holder around the radio box. Not sure if I am going to use this or not yet. The red shows the circles extending all the way to the edge...more of a cog/gear shape. In the end, I dismissed this as motion blur. The blue just shows the steps on the top. Even though I really like the sharp edges, I am probably going to round out most of the outer edges.

Just received the pouches (fast! shipping) and they look great. I doubt I will touch them with any dye at all. They are black and they look nicely, naturally weathered. I'll actually probably try to get my other pouches to match these.

That armor looks awesome! Very nice job. A few of the pieces of your pack look a bit on the clean side. Really looks great. I love how mean a nice bucket looks.

Ah, my server is down. Here are some updated progress pics.

Nice job, looks good. I like the scale compared to your other pack, although that one is still good too.

I was searching for one of the alternate pouches and found these. Opinions?

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, those are good points. I'm going to try a few different methods and levels of completeness to see how they turn out. There are a few details which I can't come to terms with yet on the box. One is the ring or raised area that seems to be around the large upper-right knob. When I watch it in the film, the highlights seem to spin around the knob. This makes me think that it is an upward circular bevel, but it's still a bit unclear. I think I will probably do something similar to you in adding switches seperately. Also, in the film, the radio I am emulating has a small half-box area around the lower section rather than a line through the face. I did some photoshop image enhancements to verify this. I don't have the pictures with me right now, so it's a bit difficult to explain.

Thanks.

Hey. Little by little I have been working on pack components. I recently wanted to start getting into vacuforming and fiberglassing, and the radio box seemed like a good part to experiment with. After a lot of reference and interpretation, I came up with this so far. Still a work in progress, but I feel good about it. From my measurements, I went a bit more square in the overall aspect ratio. Excuse the cell phone pics. A lot of hours can sure go into a single piece, but worth the effort.

Hey there Jez. Welcome. Your site has been really fun and informative. Good to see you around.