- General
Buffalo Bills super fandom: How could I not make a jetpack?
When in Mandalore, do as the Mandalorians do. That’s right, jetpack!
Look, I know. This whole thing is dragging out. If I had been more focused this would have been done in May or June I bet. Here we are with Summer basically over and I have major components of the armor still missing. It might be a relief at least to know that a large part of the delay was due to stretch goals. I hemmed and hawed about making a jetpack for my already overly complicated project but eventually settled on hawed. Or is it hemmed? Whichever one means I built the jetpack.
Jetpack – Complete with fuel
Everything has to start with an endpoint concept and when making a jetpack, the idea should always be to take flight. That said, I’m not a rocket scientist and even the best rocket scientists haven’t built jetpacks like the ones we see in Star Wars. So what chance did I have?
It turns out I had a decent idea on how to at least metaphorically take flight with this. Make it a true tailgate accessory. You got it. It’s not just a jetpack, it’s a snack pack that allows you to fuel up for gameday. Let’s talk process.
Shaping plastic is certainly feasible, but whenever possible shortcuts are a good idea. I felt that attaching some radiator style funnels to some old cleaning wipe containers would look decently like rockets once painted. A central canister of laundry pods seemed like a good fit too. So before I show you the rest and how my jet/snack/pack will fling me up and gain some elevation to wipe the floor with tailgating, a warning is in order.
The plastic itself on these is of a type that CAN be considered food safe. That said, when used to store cleaning products the plastic will leach chemicals and perfume into it. I spent far more time trying to sanitize these to make them safe than I did with painting and assembly combined. Even then there’s a faint scent I couldn’t get out. In other words, if you’re so impressed with this that you want to make your own or pay me exorbitant sums of money to make you a custom one, I can’t in good faith say it’s truly a wise idea to use it for food storage. Like I’m clearly about to show you I did. But you shouldn’t.
Here’s what it looks like painted with the pewter paint I used to get my beskar look…
That looks pretty cool doesn’t it? That’s the back of the pods container because the handle dealy-bops looked pretty neat and add some character. For the paint, I dind’t want to go too far overboard since this will connect to the backplate and should match the breastplate. So I did a similar “cosmic” look to the one from the breastplate. I went with a straight color on the lids so it’s obvious they’re lids.
Now when it comes to structure, I had a dilemma on my hands. The wipes containers were easy to join to the pods container with the Chicago/screw rivets I used elsewhere. The funnels I couldn’t really do that with. Soda bottle came to the rescue!
It turns out bottle caps from soda bottles fit into the funnel end and wedge in nicely. I screwed a hole in the caps and in the canisters and used a thin bolt to pull the cap toward the canister and snug it up to the wipes container.
We’re not quite done yet though. I promised fuel and I meant both food for energy and some “rocket fuel.” Obligatory disclaimer that you must be 21 or older to drink and even so, please drink responsibly. You should probably be reasonable about how many snack cakes, meat sticks, and cheese and cracker packs you consume too.
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