Como modder desde fines de fines de los '80, para mi 8° proyecto tenia que intentar hacer un "scratch mod". Si se preguntan que es un "scratch mod" o "object mod" o "case/pre mod", echense una leidita a "Triada del Modding" en este foro. Habiendo visto desde hace rato la "Triada del Modding" y habiendo terminado un mod modesto tipo "Object Mod" (actualizar un gabinete HP Pavilion 4420 a componentes actualizados), la verdad quede un poco decepcionado de mi mismo por no progresar en mis mods, asi que tire un reto conmigo mismo para un mod fuera de lo común. Siendo aficionado de la Ciencia Ficción, mencione una idea de hacer un mod con un wok (si, las ollas usadas en la cocina Oriental) para hacer como un platillo volador (Ovni a final de cuentas). Un compañero mio de ModdingMX, Oztap, un genio en el uso de Sketchup, me tiro un concepto que me pareció mas original y mas difícil/reto que mi idea original:



el cual, por incorporar mas ideas, habia progresado a esto, otras vez realizado por Oztap:



Como parece que a algunos han tenido la idea de algún dia hacer su propio "gabinete", lo lógico es tener como un poco de flojera pero siento que es causado por lo abrumador de que tema/idea escoger y como se va a acomodar esos preciados componentes.

La primera herramienta necesaria es un programa de diseño como Sketchup que es gratis y relativamente fácil de usar con unos excelentes tutoriales:


http://sketchup.google.com/download/gsu.html

Domarlo tomo un rato como cualquier app pero para mods fantásticos, es imprescindible.

Lo segundo es el tema. Para mi era medio fácil-una nave espacial. De que tipo? Hmmm...que tal un platillo volador (ya me habían ganado el Enterprise, BattleStar Galactica, varios de Star Wars, Firefly, etc.)? Tenia un solo componente de donde partir, un abanico de 25 cm.:





Tercero, que materiales usar? Por la curvatura del gabinetes pense en uno(s) wok(s) como este:




Como les digo, un colega Oztap, al mostrar en el foro el concepto en Sketchup, cambie de parecer y decidi usar materiales como la fibra de vidrio, trovicel, espuma expandible, pastas, acrílico redondo (tren de aterrizaje) y acrilico/plexi. Como se me ocurrió? Pues viendo otros proyectos como hacemos aca, para sacar ideas-y vi cientos de mods y worklogs! Tambien ayuda si quiera, haber visto como se usan estos materiales . Siempre me he jactado de ser una persona "interesada" en aprender, no importa que tan humilde el artesano o que tan sucio es el proceso (nací en cuna clase mediera acomodada pero estudie en el extranjero en donde me quitaron lo burguesito, racista, sexista, apático, flojo y otros pensamientos raros que adquiere uno por vivir solo en su pueblo). Por eso se aplicar fibra de vidrio, usar el trovicel (lamina de espuma expandida de PVC), aplicar la espuma y trabajar el acrílico. Para que algunos tampoco piensen mal, siempre he trabajado (todo legal-¡no en el gobierno!) y nadie me ha regalado nada hasta ahora y tampoco herede.

Primero le cai al "domo" y este se hizo de fibra usando una ensaladera de mi casa como molde:


[img align=right]






Prueba de Fuego!!:

Ahora el centro, que contiene los componentes y las "alas" que dan la impresion que es un Platillo:




Lugar para fuente de poder ATX y un disco duro.


Tarjeta mATX vieja para probar y cabe una tarjeta de video de 10" (en la foto una viejita de 8").







Vista de abajo con ventilador de 25 cms, metiendo aire fresco al 100% del area de la tarjeta madre/placa mAtx.






Hasta aqui por el momento,

Saludos

Foaming time!  



As the intent is to cover the leading edge with fiberglass (albeit a lighter type), a filler has to be used in order to have a base on which to work on. Also this type of foam is resistant to catalyzed resin and will not deform or shrink. This foam supposedly expands up to 40X its original size so, although there is quite a lot of space to cover, the can should do the trick. I do not recommend any particular brand, just the cheapest as from what I have seen, they all just about yield the same. I suggest buying the cheapest available.

The foam after about a minute:



About 30 minutes:



After an hour, no more expansion. Now just to wait for it to cure about 6 hours (highly recommended or you´ll be sorry).



I had previously made a template out of epvc so as to measure how much to cut, as the ribs are not visible to guide the shaving process:



As I planned to fill the leading edge outer ring with sequentially blinking leds, I had to leave the bottom area free for the wiring. I used some old Styrofoam as a filler so that the expandible foam would not cover that area. The Styrofoam will later be removed with a few drops of mineral spirits which literally melts it and while I was working that part, I made a floor (ring) to protect the wiring.





The shaving process:



What a waste of foam!  I should have used about 30-40% less as was witnessed by all the excess shavings.

Sanding to size.



Well, time to sleep. Will post more tomorrow.

Remember the sequentially lighting leds for the leading edge rim?  Instead of busting my head designing a kit, I bought this one locally for about $9usd plus additional leds for another $10usd. When I reach the final stages of the build, in they go!:



The "instruction" sheet is a bad translation to english/spanish texts and was then shrunk to a common 8" X 10" sheet size.  Besides being overly crowded, I could not distinguish the + or - polarities because of the small size of the sheet!  It was not until I scanned the instruction sheet that, upon expanding it, I could see the polarities and other small unreadable gibberish. I will not mention the name of the chain-store so as not to embarrass them.

Back to the body, here the use of the template to measure the evenness of the contour of the foam.



To fill voids in the foam (unexpected) I chose a common filler similar to that used for spackleing plasterboard in construction.



Another anal template, the step has to be even and perfect (or as close to it)



One of the "new" things I found out was that the pef will contract and expand like crazy once the outer harder shell is sanded.  As it was in an outside atmosphere (fumes) exposed to changing atmospheric conditions, I ended up spackling the entire foam area.  Yeah, only to find out that even with this covering, the surfaces would still move!

After a light sanding, I suppose due to all the movement in the foam, pieces of the filler would fall off, I had to mend areas at least a couple of times and found out that dust in the foam pores will impede the filler from grabbing on. A bad area being air blown




Solution: respackle, sand and prime as quickly as possible and lay the fiberglass immediately! But first, the fiberglass reinforcement to use. It is called "velo" in Spanish or veil (as in Bridal?) because of its lightness and transparency














Got it! I went to sleep around 2 A.M. but I got the fiberglass layed down after loosing a long while figuring out what to do, almost a week. Like I said, pushing the envelope on how to use materials will cause unexpected results and force you to rethink your approach putting your experience, knowledge and imagination to the edge.

Well, this is as far as I have gotten in pics. I am still working out several details that if not, will demerit its final look. No less than perfect for any hardy modder who deems to call himself such.

As I carry a time card for the time invested of hands-on man-hours and a control of monetary investments/expense, as of these lasts pics, I have:

Accumulated Man-hours: 124 hours (of direct work on the project, not the planning or investigation or dreaming. This would triple the hours easily)

Accumulated Expense: $1,222.80 Mexican Pesos or at the present exchange rate of $13mp/1usd=$94.06 usd
Note: I am only costing the "case".

You see, we in Mexico are "poh folks" like they say in Louisiana (USA), so cost savings are primordial.  Will post again when I finish this stage. Next.... the bottom part of the sphere. Hmmm... what can be done here additionally?
Later

Now for the bottom sphere. I had always thought about giving the bottom part the same treatment as the top, so I start cutting my ribs from epvc:







Ready to start gluing to the bottom sphere with epoxy:



Now for the mock up with hardware in the hold:





Hmm..looks a little chunky for my taste but to keep it compact, it will have to stay as it it.  

And what about the "landing gear"?  Well I pulled up my provisionals to get an idea and I get this.



which I had to visualize doing this:



My, my, it does look lanky leg-wise. Well, I still have time to do something, let´s see what!

Firstly, I had planned to place a fiberglass ring to hold the ribs for the bottom sphere together so, I waxed my surface, brushed on a liquid demolding agent, cut my fiberglass webbing and applied my resin:









Disaster no. 1. The exothermic reaction caused the heavy polyethylene sheets underneath to warp because of the collateral heat produced by the chemical reaction of the catalyzed resin.  This also caused the fiberglass piece to warp when I needed it to be perfectly flat. Out goes a bunch of time and wasted material.

What I needed was a perfectly flat, resistant surface such as plywood, metal sheeting or glass as a base. Since my wife is out of town, I pulled back the tablecloth to expose my dinning room table glass top (1.6 m. diameter x 19mm thick) which I understand cost a small fortune to replace. My wife would have screamed "bloody murder" if she had caught me doing fiberglass on the glass top, but as they say in Mexico, "eyes that don´t see, heart that does not feel".  So again wash, rinse and dry:





Got it again, perfectly flat with the assembly firmly attached to it!  I pried it off the glass & except for a few knife scratch marks on the glass, I picked up the mess and put the table cloth back on.

I let the resin cure for a couple of hours, so foaming time again. I sprayed the foam on, as usual but the can ran out still lacking two openings to fill. Damn I said, another can just for 2 openings! Since it was late again, I went to sleep cussing about the foam.

The next day, disaster no. 2. The foam did not only not rise what it should,plus two alien mutants grew out on each side of the foam!



 What I surmised was that the foam formed its hard outer shell too fast which did not let it rise to its full extent.  It forced itself through whatever opening it could and continued expanding on its own free will.  Since the weather was cooperating, the culprit could only be the foam (I [size=150]do not[/size] recommend this godforsaken brand).

Since we are in the "Want Not, Waste Not" times/era, I did not go for the other can of foam which I would have used maybe 1/4 of it and the rest would have hardened if not used within 30-45 days after opening. This was also the last part to foam. So what did I do?  I grabbed a tube of Mexican Liquid Nails and started pasting in shavings to fill the gaps.



 I know this will take me a long time, but economy will have been served and hopefully, not make me miss the deadline.
So you see, this is a part of a [size=150]real[/size] worklog and yes, grown men do cry.

Man-Hours Invested:  10 hours
$ Invested: $50.50 mp
------------------
Accumulated Man Hours:  147 hours
Accumulated Expense:  $1,323.50 mp= $101.80 usd

Fitfully Yours and thanks for dropping by,

Me

What is it like to be a Texas A&M "Aggie"?  Well besides having a very good academic level, I would say what would shade/colour our personalities about this university is that it teaches you "true grit" (not the movie). You have to have it otherwise you would suffer endless, painful trauma from always getting trounced in sports. Powerhouse Univ. of Texas is our worst enemy (sports-wise) and other universities are copying it, pushing us and our pride to new lower levels. So "true grit" is the only thing that enabled us to attend our school's sports events even though we had that sinking feeling that our butts were going to get kicked. :(  Inspite of getting our teeth kicked in a lot, we just came back looking for more or if lucky, a break and a win.

With that in mind, I continued on with the lower end, I shaved the foam, applied my plaster filler to fill voids, primed it to find more defects, cut my fiberglass, and applied resin:













Hey-hey. so far, so good! Now to even out the finish:








Hmmm..I could've sworn it was smooth after sanding and patching several times, but primed, evenly colored surfaces don't lie. I am supposing that the glued pieces were contracting and expanding faster than the in-place foam of the first attempt, especially against hard surfaces. Another thing learned.

A buddy of mine JYMMY4, from, in our forum in Mexico, had seen the "lanky leg" situation of my project, so he suggested this:



So I immediately made my mock up to see what it would look like:





Well, I'll be.. not that bad! Now to see if it would hold up the weight of the rest.  I decided to go for a 3 leg landing gear instead of 4 legs as I see that the setup is strong enough for it-- good I saved some on materials!



Yesiree! I'm on a roll again!  Now do you remember the section I left open?  It occurred to me that no red-blooded, true-blue modder would leave his modded case without atleast a small window to its innards, so...







Tada, a window. If you crouch down a little, from the front you can see the heat sink+fan, video card and part of the mobo, all lit up for the occasion (I hadn't thought about that at the beginning but what the heck, more lights!). So there you have it, the mainframe ready for a prissy, paint, leds and finally legs. Still about 40% left of the project to do time-wise, I figure.



So much for now. I got a couple of ideas to do in acrylic/plexi/lexan to enhance the bling. Will let you know as soon as I land the ideas.

Man Hours Used: 28 hours
$ Invested: -0-
----------------------------
Accumulated Man Hours:
Accumulated Expense:

Thanks for looking & have a great day.

Only had a small advance on my project this weekend & seeing the very intense competition happening here, I decided to upgrade my mod with more "bling". However I had to subcontract the cutting of some rather large pieces double laminated acrylic which I felt I could no do  properly with my rather rudimentary set of tools on hand. I should have the parts by mid-week to add but since I had to send most of the mod to the shop for measurements, I advanced on the center part of the three parts.

Since the 25cm fan is the sole intake fan, I had to add additional ways to exhaust the large amount of fresh air it was going to blow on the entire surface of the motherboard so I thought about using 90° elbow pvc connectors but thinking about scrimping on expenses, I figured I could get the same by using a straight piece with 45° cuts on both ends, so I took one of mock-up landing gear legs thusly:



Since pvc tubing is softer than wood, I pulled out part of my carpentry tools to cut the connectors.

Well, this is weird, my site is down for an overhaul for a couple of weeks and there is were I post the original logs of my project and by the time I post here, I re-edit and usually cut down photos and text into a more compact form. Now I will make my original post here for a change, so bear with me as it will be the full Monty vs. the usual form:

Before I go to the next step, I painted the mobo tray and added more vent holes



Next up is how to mount the power source and hard drive in the mod. I had mocked up the 2 components but just placed them inside the dome, so time to make something more permanent. I looked around and found a part of an old computer used for the internal drives so:



Since I have cooled my hard drives a while ago, I cut the base to house an 80mm led fan. I could not use the Cooler Master fan I got because it was to fat (25mm vs 10mm for this one-CM should make these as they are very hard to get):



Fully assembled with junk components, sanded and painted:





Now off to the acrylic shop for the feet and some acrylic rings:





The charge for labor: $150 mn ($11.53 usd) sort of steep for Mexico but OK for the amount of time he put into it.  Cesar, my supplier, nods his head every time I go to him for these "odd-ball" jobs. These are things I cannot do well due to a lack of proper tools. And no, I will not invest in buying them because I will probably not use them again or would way down the road.

Back home now, time to figure how to attach the new accessories plus I picked up from the trash before leaving Cesar, an extra ring that did not fit. I'm guessing I can use it somehow!  The strip with red acrylic down the middle will be used on the leading edge of the saucer, but damn, it is so hard to bend. It must be because Cesar glued the red strip which causes the strip to not bend as it should.



 Hmmm.. time to put on the "thinking cap" again, but first things first, I have to secure the landing gear onto the body.  Now the legs look sort of "plain", I will definitely have to dress them up, even though they will be have leds in them.

Thanks for looking and excuse the verboseness but this is the way I post back home, with all the ugly details, hoping that folks will pick up a hint/idea or two and if they wish, incorporate them into their own mods. There is no better flattery than imitation and I assure all of you, nothing more satisfying.

Cheers,

Oops! Forgot to report my 48 hour stress test on the fans to be used. Usually, fans that don't fail after this test, do not give problems later on. All CM fans are doing great, I'm happy to report:



The thin led fan to cool the hard drive is also ok, although it is not a CM fan.

Forgot to report that I heat bent the acrylic for the front "window" with one of the kitchen pots as the form with my industrial heat gun:


Am happy to report that no damage was done to the pot, heh-heh. What my wife doesn't know won't affect here.


I love bending acrylic, which is pretty tricky, but there was only one piece to form on this mod. I know it is thin stuff, but if you don't give it a little bend, it will pop out later on.

Cheers again,

Muchas Gracias guys!  The last week was spent on "details" which scratch modders will recognize as over half of the work in this type of mods.  First of the bat, how to fix the legs in the body.  As the body is filled with expanded foam, this will hold up for a while but will eventually buckle under use. I figured that a sleeve will do the heavy work and this will be fiber glassed into the foam.  I spent half a day looking for some kind of tube that had a 1" inside diameter (Thickness of the acrylic legs). Suffice to say that here in Cancun, that does not exist and I looked into all types of material: PVC, copper, galvanized steel, etc.  I finally found a 25mm (nominal) high pressure PVC pipe, schedule 40 A that more or less filled the bill, except that the minimum to buy was 1/2 tube or 3 meters (5 feet) but fortunately it only cost $50mn. The legs wiggle a little but with some masking tape I took that out. I just had to widen the hole and in they go.





Since I ran out of foam (remember the last fiasco?) and did not want to buy another one, I made a frame for the leg and glued it in with epoxy.



Man Hours Used:  8 hours
$ Invested:  $50mn (for the pvc pipe used for sleeves)



Since I only used 3" of tubing per leg, I had a crap load of tubing left.  Since I had to make an exhaust for the upper dome to vent the power source and the hard drive, I decided that I could use up more of the tube so:




Gluing together with pvc pipe cement.







Since the damn pipe weighed so much, I reduced it a little and came out with this and dressed it up a little:





One of the time-consuming pains was cutting the hole into the fiber glass upper dome. Doing it little-by-little by tracing the form into the dome, I finally got it in after around 7 attempts (half day work), I epoxied it into the dome to be later fiberglassed.

Man Hours used: 13 Hours
$ Invested:  -0-
(continued)

Exhaust fan mounted.  Where did the fancy fan come from? Well, since I needed lighting inside with the motherboard, I swapped the fan of the heat sink for the lighted fan that I got originally as the exhaust fan. The exotic shape it has helps with the outer looks.



Now to dress up the top of the dome.  I cut out a template of .40 in.mil styrene (sheet cost me $48.00mn) which is 0.5 mm. Hint: the xacto type knife will not curve easily so once you trace the form out with a pencil, score it with an ice pick. With the scoring, the knife will follow the groove and give you a curved cut.







Now I can trace the 4 curved vent holes on the top of the dome and the center circle for the strobe.



I only cut out 2 of the vent holes because I felt the part sort of weak, so I put another layer of fiberglass to reinforce it and fix the exhaust fan firmly.



This is what the strobe will look like once I open up the top of the dome. About half of the strobe will be outside so the blinking will not blind anyone too much and of course will have a switch so that it can be turned off. The venting holes will have a stainless steel screen underneath to help filter out some of the dust that will be sucked in along with the fresh air.



I can't cut out the circle for the strobe until I trace all the lines for the armor to follow. As can be seen, I traced the vertical lines, cutting the surface into 12 slices. Now I will somehow have to trace 4 circles horizontally, which I still don't know how.

Man Hours used: 18 hours
$Invested: $55.50mn for the styrene (1.2 X 1.00 m.) + $7.50mn for modeling clay.

Accumulated Man Hours:
Accumulated Expense:

Thanks for looking and help promote modding by teaching your peers. Someday, some noob will be inspired by you and will be a modder too someday (speaking mostly about Mexico).  Cheers/Saludos

The "armor plating" has given me a lot to think. There are 2 ways to do it: 1) Cutting small squares, rectangles, etc from styrene and gluing them or 2) Masking and painting them.  The masking and painting trick I learned from Boddaker's great worklog/tutorial of his "Battlestar Galactica" award winning mod finished this year.  The armor plating finish mimics the plating of the real Battlestar and combines both ways of doing the plating.  Since I don't have the tools that Boddaker has, for the most part I will go with the taping and painting way.  But since this is the first time I've done this type of finish, I will have to experiment and although Boddaker gave a boatload of photos, he was scarce on explanations of how he got certain things done.  Two of those were exactly how many coats of paint and primer were used and how long to wait before removing the masking tape. So, grabbing a scrap piece of styrene I drew in freehand the plating, then cut the masking into smaller strips and applied the masking on the styrene over the drawn lines:







Ok! Now to fill in some blanks:  I put 4 coats of primer down, then 4 coats of paint.  To give a little more depth, I would add a couple more coats of primer to 6 and leave the paint as is with 4. I suppose the primer is used to give height but the coats of paint are to give it a hard(er) finish.  Anyways, primer and paint cost just about the same, primer builds up faster than paint but is, as we know, softer, so I suppose the paint will give the overall finish a hard shell that will stand up better over time.  I calculate that to "armor plate" the entire body, I will be using around 3  cans of primer and 2 or 3 of paint. I guess that I will be using up a lot the half empty cans of all colors of paint I have, as the final color is another.  

My great doubt was how long to leave the masking tape on before yanking it out after I painted. There are all types of opinions on the web (immediately after the last coat of paint to totally let dry) but what works best in this case is right after the final coat flashes (dries just enough not to run or sag-5 to 10 min.) for small pieces like the sample which was 2" X 5".  There are small pieces of paint that come out with the tape, but only visible very close up.  Just to see what it would look like in the end, I gave the sample a couple of coats of gray paint which helps hide some of the defects, and it looks like this.



And it sure is a lot faster than cutting styrene and pasting!

Another thing that was bothering me was the acrylic rings I sent out to be made. The problem was that they did not "hug" close enough to the dome for my liking. Since it was acrylic, I could not use body fillers to fill the gaps between the rings and the top dome, so I grit my teeth and cut the clear acrylic ring in 3 equal parts, adjusted them as close as possible (a 1" PVC tube with 100 grit sandpaper wrapped around it) to the dome and glued them back together with gel cyanoacrilate/"crazy glue" (to fill gaps between the cuts). The same thing was done to the top red acrylic ring but since it was the part with a view, I made 4 cuts. The cuts will be covered over with adhesive pin stripping I have left over from another project.



I drilled 11 small holes to place 3mm leds at the height of the clear acrylic which will be permanently on when the pc is turned on.  The only thing I'm not sure is if I'm going to use red or blue leds. Here is the ring in its final shape and glued together. I placed a blue cold cathode inside the dome, but I can hardly see the lighting through the clear part of the ring.



With the leds jutting into the acrylic, they will clearly be visible, even during the daytime.

Ohh, I figured out how to trace the horizontal curves. I cut a strip of styrene, measured the distance I wanted, then drilled small holes in the strip just large enough for a sharpie point to fit and dragged it along the entire perimeter.



Well, things are a little out of order but you get the idea. This is a real worklog with no pre-editing and here at CM for the moment is where I'm posting my advances on my project for the first time.  Other sites will get the "edited and polished" edition but here is the real deal while my site is down.

Well, so much for now, I'm still going over details pending before I lay my paint cuz I don't want to man-handle the body too much after it is painted...so many little details but those will be tackled as they appear.
Thanks for ogling my rants & I would appreciate your comments on the color of leds for the acrylic ring.

Man Hours Used: 16 hours
$ Invested:  $162.00mn (2 cans of primer, sanding drums for Dremel, 3 sheets of sandpaper)
-----------------------------
Accumulated Man hours:
Accumulated $ Invested:

Cheers/Saludos

Once I got the "armor plating" trick down, I spent all of yesterday, tracing and taping. I split the lower dome into 2 halves (fortunately). The first half took me about 6 hours but the second half only 3 hours.



Before I laid the masking tape down, I lightly sanded the surface with a 400 grit sandpaper and wiped it down with alcohol.  I corrected some badly laid out slices with the tape.  Last chance before painting and the point of no return.

Next up, the 6 coats of primer I mentioned before but I got sags with a new brand of primer (Truper) so I had to go out and buy one of the proven primers (Meridien at Walmart or Comex- I bought Comex cuz it was closer). I will try to correct the sags by sanding when the paint dries. So buyer beware, Truper paint is cheap but sags with even a moderate coating and is no good for modding!



Five coats of paint odds and ends  were applied (3 blue and 2 silver) and let flash dry.




Now to remove the pieces of tape.  Woahhh!  I was making a mess of the paint squares as I removed the tape, much of the paint stretching as I pulled the tape off.  I was not sure what was going on but I kept on going and surprisingly, since I was taking a long time to remove the tape, towards the end (almost 25 min. later) the tape was coming off without pulling the paint. HINT: On large surfaces, let the last coat dry around 30 min. before trying to remove the tape--the paint will have hardened enough so as not to cling to the tape, but is humid enough so as no chips of paint would attach themselves too much to the tape, leaving unpainted parts underneath.  Patience is the recipe.





Above, the "crappy" side with sags and uneven edges on the armor plates. Below, a great improvement on the other half by letting the final coat of paint dry 1/2 hour before pulling the tape off. I also helped the drying process by applying a hairdryer 30-40 sec. over each coat so it wouldn't be so gummy when the masking tape was removed.



Normally, with 7-8 coats of paint, I would have to wait around 1 week (Cancun has now 32° centigrade and 70% humidity) before handling the piece but since I'm in a hurry, I will use my trusty home paint oven.



Damn! It's to big!  Well, I propped it up with a stick and lowered it as much as I could, and covered the openings with towels.



In around 12 hours, I should be able to handle the piece as it will almost be totally cured  (the oven has 2 X 100 watt bulbs and 1 X 13w dehumidifying rod--temperatures should hit around 50°C for the curing period).

Next up, the same for the upper dome.....

Thanks for dropping by and Cheers/Saludos

Man Hours Used:  15 hours
$ Invested: -0-
-----------------------
Accumulated Man Hours:
Accumulated $ Invested:

The upper dome is key to what the overall mod will be appreciated, so I took extra care in its details.  It's just like the bottom except I had to split it into two parts: the dome itself and the part I call the leading edge (middle). I just could not see how to do all of it at once, so when you get stuck on something, the best to do is break it down to smaller, more manageable parts that can be handled easier.







Like I said, if I work on something continuously, I want to get to it quickly, so I placed the part in my oven and left it curing/drying overnight. However, when I took out the part, I found out that it had several parts of the leading edge had buckled due to too much heat. So after a while of complaining, I repaired the parts with bondo and sanded it smooth again.



With the repairs, I lost my reference lines and since I had cut out the top of the dome, I could not use the strip trick to redraw the lines. It occurred to me to use a strip of acrylic as a guide to redraw the lines. Phew! problem solved.

Now the leading edge is the biggest visible part so I decided to put in an extra effort to make the armor plating more elaborate.





Rummaging through the closets to see what I could add to finish, I stumbled across my wife's sewing kit and I chose this bunch of buttons. The large button is to be a logo shield and the rest as exhaust ports and place holders.



While I taped the leading edge armor, I took a couple of detours, first I added some more detail with styrene to the lower dome.



and tested out the final colors for the last coat of the finish.  I think I will go with these 3 colors:



(Continued below)

Hot off the press!  Britain's Latest UFO File Raise New Puzzles:

  http://www.google.com.mx/#hl=en&q=c...5d47fa791467b35

Ha! and people thought that the only UFO (OVNI-Objeto Volador No Identificado in Spanish) sightings were in Mexico! Just kidding but I've seen several!  Well, back to Earth.....







Since this part had around 10 coats of primer and paint, I let it set for around 16 hours but at a lower temperature (40°C)

Remember the left over acrylic hoop? Well, I decided to use it but I thought it was too big, so I cut in half with my dremel and I think it looks better now.





The next big step is the outer paint and final finish. Since the fiberglass on many parts was not up to par for a shiny finish (thus the armor plating to help hide the defects), I am going also with a camouflage theme. Not the mottled usual camo that most people know, but rather a geometric camouflage scheme.  This scheme was invented during WWI not so much as to make something invisible to the eye, but rather to fool the enemy about the shape and size of the camoed object.  However on aircraft, the finish helps the ship to  blend in with the sky with its different shapes of clouds and tones such as this



How will I paint this?  Well, I think that the use of stencils will work here, instead of taping and papering the shapes. It should also be faster and cheaper.  Now to re-learn how to use stencils other than on lettering and numbers.

Man Hours Invested:  38 hours
$ Invested:  $120.60 mn for 3 cans of paint.
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Accumulated Man Hours:
Accumulated $ Invested:

Thanks for dropping by and Saludos and Cheers

Stencil time!  After figuring out what to put, I free-handed a couple of shapes on styrene and started cutting the stencils.



But when I reached for my spray adhesive, empty (or the propellant bled out)! I brought this can from the US, now to see if I can find it here in Cancun. Well, after spending a half a day searching, I stopped momentarily to collect my wits and get ahead on other details. BTW, ordering over the internet here in Mexico, unlike other places in the world,  is frustrating because most vendors make you first deposit the cash in a bank and then they send the order out. Local delivery companies are used because Fedex and Ups charge too much, but are dreadfully slow. Also ordering one lonely can of spray adhesive is crazy, the freight and handling would make you shudder, so I have to find it here locally in some store. Today was not my lucky day, maybe tomorrow or day after.

Well I had to throw out the assembly I had previously made for the power source and the hdd because, after modifying the upper dome, it would not close.  This is what I had previously done, a couple of weeks ago.



Out you go you misfit!

I reinvented how to secure the power source with some epvc corner blocks and 3 velcro strips I had on this computer I'm using to post (replaced the velcro with stiff wire, no messy wiring yet).



Now how to secure the hdd?  I got the idea from Kahij and his Ares Flow mod--use acrylic to make a base! So I searched through my stockpile of left overs and came up with a piece of adequate size but only 1/8" or 3mm thick. If I reinforce it, that should do it.

Bending with my industrial heat gun




Hint: I used an old chopping board which my wife had thrown out because it was not flat anymore. This included its edges which were sort of round.  The roundness of the board caused the bend to pucker up a bit, so if you are going to bend acrylic and want a sharp bend, use either a new piece of wood with a good and sharp 90° angle or use a metal strip or sheet with a smooth and sharp edge. That way you will get nice and professional bends like Kahij's.  Since this is more functional than for looks, I used the piece as is. It wobbles a bit, but is not a deal breaker.



Fan hole made and separator blocks added, and below measuring for screw holes.



The final product with the hdd cooling fan in action. I could have bent the sides if the piece of acrylic had been large enough which I found out while tracing. The sides are glued only which makes it look a little messy. If it were visible, I would have bent it.



Now for a fitting. this should do the trick, good riddance clearance problems!



Time to work on the one and only "window". I have the window but no framework. I luckily found some scraps of acrylic cut very thin so I bent them on my "metal mold" with my heatgun so they would fit the window sides.



which goes with this



to cover this



But wait! I have to paint first before gluing the window in.  Back to the spray adhesive. Hope to find it tomorrow.

Man Hours Invested: 11 hours
$ Invested: $154.50 mn for leds, battery holder, hinges , screws and an ice cream cone
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Accumulated man hours:
Accumulated $ Expense:

Thanks for dropping by, not a lot done but necessary.

Cheers/Saludos

I finally got hold of some spray adhesive, but is was a "loaner" since I could not find any in stores. Local spray adhesive is permanent which is not desirable for stencils. You have to be able to remove the stencil once the surface is painted, thus the need for imported stuff which is more flexible in this aspect.  This or similar was what I needed:



Also I found out that thin styrene is not appropriate for multi-curve (like a ball) surfaces as it is too stiff. It will not hold its shape even taped (it will pull the tape off).



The solution would be to buy mylar which is thinner and more flexible for curves but I still would need the adhesive so that the stencil would hug the surface and prevent "bleeding".  The can of adhesive was so old that it was rusted along the edges and when I sprayed, the adhesive came out in spurts.  Damn!!  No wonder this friend "loaned" me the can, it was old and almost non-functional!

Rummaging thru my storage space, I found a roll of supposedly paper with adhesive backing. Well, it was so old that the glue melded with the paper.  But instead of throwing it out, I thought I could use it for stenciling:



Yes, it was flexible enough and trying out the adhesive (I placed/glued the stencil on the table to remove some of the loose adhesive), it too worked enough to get the blue paint down. The only thing was that it left particles of glue on the surface (when new, it will not do this) and I had to laboriously remove the gum without messing up the paint below. Ahh, to be a modder in Mexico, almost Mission Impossible!  
I let the blue dry overnight and continued with the gray.





Ohh, almost forgot, while the blue paint dried, I went back to how to cover the front I/O hole.   I must admit that Maciel gave me the idea on how to do this.  First some "U" shaped aluminum.



After supergluing and screwing in the aluminum, some bondo to fix the corners.



and the cover, some 1mm thin acrylic cut to the size ($20mn got me enough to make 2 covers, if needed).



I will tint the acrylic to hide what is behind and I know, crummy close ups (my camara lense is very bad for close ups, well what do you expect for $70 usd?)

Tips:  Do not use old spray adhesive unless you are desperate. It is not worth the trouble and extra work for using it (I had no choice), that is if you are willing to spend around $20 usd per can (not me, I need it for food).
Stencils are fine for flat or one-curve surfaces. It is fast and economical, specially for short run T-Shirts, home decoration and such. For this, .20mil styrene is great, if you have it like me.  For multi-curve surfaces like the Ovni, mylar or similar is better (rather obligatory).
When stenciling, lay down the clearest color first (aluminum in my case), then the next darkest (blue) and finally the darkest (gray). The reason is that the stencil has to overlap the color next to it and darker colors will cover lighter colors easily (gray over blue).  Due to the lousy adhesive, there is a slight "feathering" of the colors, but visible only close up. The other recourse was taping, but that would slow me down as the paint underneath the tape has to be very cured or when you remove the tape, off goes the paint.  My stencils are aligned with registry marks and even so, there are a few places that the gray did not cover the blue and the aluminum color can be seen between them (again the culprit is the curves). Hmmm... I will have to think of something to cover it up with.

I will make more stencils as the rest will require a set: one for the leading edge and another for the top dome. If I the adhesive is sufficient, as it is absolutely necessary, I will finish up in good shape.  I plan to top coat the camouflage with a couple of coats of totally flat matte clear for durability (that is if I can find it in a spray can-no luck at Home Depot or Soriana, just gloss clear/transparent).
  
Well, time to eat and drink!!!! Yahoo!!!

Man Hours used:  8 hours
$ Used/spent:  -0-
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Accumulated ham hours:
Accumulated Expense:  This is pending as my home site closed down for maintenance and I did not copy the amounts down before closing.

Thanks for dropping by, all comments are appreciated and will get a guaranteed response. No I'm not bothered at all, like others about answering, I consider myself a social being and in no way above anyone. I am still learning and not afraid to say so, hoping someday to be a Master modder (but not because I say so, that is a label best placed by others in all humbleness). May I burn in hell the day I consider myself better than anyone! (Yup I am opinionated and have a very sharp point of view--must be the age!)

Cheers/Saludos

Well, enough of fiddling around! After stenciling, I saw that in some places where the colors were similar (gray and aluminum) the camoed effect was lost, so I decided to add another "sky" color--white.  My wife didn't like it too much but this is what came out:



It looks a little over the top, but putting it up against the sky (bluish-grayish background with clouds), it does fade into it, like camouflage should! I will owe the pic, as I will take one against the sky when finished.
I had to visit around 15 paint shops till I found my flat transparent automotive paint in a spray can. It is not totally matte flat but will have to do. Only one shop (Comex) had it in the whole city and just in the main store, the other 5 stores did not carry it. It does however give an even finish to the camo paints so, I suppose it is another layer of protection. Now that I have the finish out of the way, I can work the electricals!
The first part was the "legs" of the landing gear. I'm not sure if I will epoxy them in, thus making them fixed, (what about transporting or shipping?). I decided to leave my options open so they will only be fixed in by pressure. Also, leds give out over time, specially if they are on all the time so I had to devise a way to make them changeable, no epoxy or glue gun here.  So I made a notch to make them accessible from the inside (with my handsaw-no Dremel cutting disks here for the  moment in town WTH!) and totally removable if I should have to replace one or even change the color of leds. Tried them out next and found that sanding the plexi with a 400 grade sandpaper, light would diffuse to the sides and not just the end of the leg. Now the round acrylic looks "frosty" like in some fancy acrylic I've seen in discos.





Great, now to wire the leds in. The led "guru" indicated I had to use parallel wiring because of the higher voltage draw of blue ultrabright leds of 4.5v  (I prefer in series--easier):



So to solder (took me half a day) and leave it lit up for the night to test. All came out O.K., I'm happy to report.





Now the light-show, legs only:



and the 25 cm fan in place also.



Too much light?

Now to paint the upper dome and see what I come up with.

What no hurricanes where you live? Gilberto hit wind speeds of 390 kph and Wilma only 340 kph, both with "rain" (really seawater picked up by the winds-everything wilts for several months except trees).

Man Hours Used:  13 hours
$ Invested: $71.60 mn for 2 cans of spray paint.
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Accumulated Man Hours:
Accumulated $ Invested:

Thanks for dropping by and looking. Cheers, good luck and Saludos!

Continuing on the project, I moved up to the "middle part" which houses the computer components.I sanded and painted the housing, but since I left a small window on the underside, after seeing all the light produced by the landing gear and 25 cm. fan, I began to worry that folks might not see the motherboard on top.  The only lighting on the motherboard will be that made by the heatsink CM fan and the smaller CM fan on the chipset cooler.  This is not a case of not having enough light, it is more a matter of calling attention to the "suspended" mobo on the "ceiling" of the housing. Hmmm....????  Rummaging through the closet (mostly stuff stored by my wife), I found a couple of rolls of shelf liner with adhesive (very popular brand) with a chrome finish. Great for reflection!  However my wife warned me that it was over 10 years old and would probably not stick. Well, let's give a try, so:







Hint: This liner is vinyl so it is similar to applying vinyl "skins" to a pc's surface. I sanded the surfaces (remember, it is epvc sheeting), primed then painted (the adhesive clings better the smoother the surface), sanded again and finally washed with soap and water before applying the vinyl. Remember that even the smallest speck of dust will prevent a total adhesion and will leave a lump on the vinyl. That would be a pity if you spent $60-200 usd on a skin and it had "lumps", plus air trapped inside will eventually loosen the adhesive around it leaving a sort of blister, not good!

Now to test it with a flashlight (led lights):



Good reflection! It should let the led fans be noticed and with them, the mobo and vid card.  Now to attach all the components somehow and see what gives. Taking my time here, like the Satella, the hard drive and power source will be on one side of the "floor" and on the other the mobo. I hope the epvc is rigid enough to hold all this weight!

Well, I expectto finish this part this weekend.

Thanks for looking and dropping by. Lots of luck and we have to speed things up guys! Stop watching TV and drinkin' beer, hit your projects!

Man-hours Invested: 7 hours
$ Invested: -0-
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Accumulated man-hours:
Accumulated $ Invested:

Cheers/Saludos,

Since the components will share the same "floor" and I had just made it large enough to fit the micoAtx mobo, things had a way of butting into each other. To fix the power source and hdd, I had to epoxy in the nuts to be able to screw in from the other side and not have to take the mobo each time I had to do this.



the nuts.Wow, what veiny hands!  This guy must be suffering from high blood pressure!  That looks scary!



the bolts to hold in the mobo. Here the nuts will be exposed so that just the mobo can be removed (like when I get a sponsorship-fat chance this year!)

Next to pop in the cpu, the southbridge cooler and in goes the mobo, but....  here is the cpu, do you see the problem?



bent pins!!!

You can see it a little better here (I hope)



To sum it up, there were bent pins all over. Spent most of Sunday trying to straighten them (jeez, those pins are tinny) and we are talking of an Athlon x64 X2 +4200 for a socket 939.  Nowadays pins are even smaller! So take care of your cpus and their pins like your life! I gave up after several hours and today in the morning, after checking the pins again, I gave the cpu a shove and it popped in!  I hope it works or I'm up the creek with no functional cpu!



Anyway, crossing  my fingers, I dropped in my to CM components: the heatsink with the swapped fan and the northbrige cooler used on the southbridge. Why the SB? Because the heatsink fan blows air over the good mobo heatsink of the NB while the SB is bare. This setup also lights up the other side of the mobo so that when you see it thru the window, I hope it will call attention to the mobo.



Time to let glue dry out and assembly tomorrow, one day behind schedule! No that shabby and bad. :oops:

Man-hours Used:  11 hours
$ Invested: -0-
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Accumulated Man hours:
Accumulated $ Invested:

Later guys.

Cheers and Saludos