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You might find this Pack site and not be too excited. Either Am I. I know now it's the worst time in the history of worst times to present a pack replica. Everybody in their mothers is making one or two.
People had attempted to build their own packs since the first movie came out back in 84. Local surplus stores in Los Angeles, where pack parts were original bought by the movie pack proppers, were hunted and rioted by every single fanboy, prop-making boyband and hardcore prop recreators who wanted a pack more than anything at the time. Today, the same stores are still open and still receiving fanboys, prop-making boybands and hardcore prop recreators.
I builded my first pack at age 11. It was flat wooden kitchen cabinet door. I nailed two shoulder-straps, some medicine boxes, colored it with markers, mounted a wand and viola! Second try was in 1992 when I got the movies and had recently discovered my abilities and interest at building stuff. I first made a rocketeer jetpack and helmet out of cardboard. The jacket I made out of computer paper. The rocketeer project was a success, so I jumped on the pack project.
I used cardboard again. Everything was cardboard. No pancakes, no cans, no resistors by Dale. I even made the Alice frame myself. I used an aluminum pipe that was lying around in a construction site and got it bend by sticking it into a sewer hole on the sidewalk and pulling it to bend as hard as I could. During my high school years, I upgraded the pack by making the parts more accurate, but you can only do with cardboard so much. Back in 1998 I dragged that pack out of the deeps of the closet and thought it could be done better. After all, we all now had real movie packs on display all over. Plus, there is the net as well.
Lots of pack-building plans I found on the net. But as I went in further on my research, I realized these plans were only educated suggestions based on naked eye observations. I decided draft my own plans from zero by computer scaling. I made a subconscious, unspoken commitment to replicate the pack in ways never done before and get it as accurate as possible. I knew I could and would be exiting to have a unique and near accurate replica, if not completely dead-on.
"IF your ship doesn't come in, swim to it"
-Sheryl Crow
The Pack project isn't exactly "My ship," but rather the project I swam to. Rather than wait for someone to do it for me and boom, here's my money. One pack, please:) or boom, Here's my money. One pack part, please:) I decided to make it be me the one who would self provide and attempt to replicate parts that had never been done before such as Bumpers, cyclotrons, and all together accurate parts in resin. Imitating the way the real movie packs were made.
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