Well, was at it again this weekend. Was working on finishing the front, back and top of the vertical section. Here are most of the milled up blanks. Still had to cut the keys for the top. You can see the keys in the foreground. Here are a couple of the vertical pieces, just held up with the backs in place. Here is an inside shot of on of the "fins" It was easier to assmble each part and then join them together Here are two shots of it assembled Since the Cray-1 is a hexadecagon (16 sided) and the internal angles were 22.5' each key had to be cut to 11.25' and each of the end keys cut to 5.625'. So... all the pieces fit. Now they are just dry-fitted together, but still rather sturdy.
Looking forward to se how this turns out. Its imo a rather weird combination of materials. The brown boards you are using is in Danish called masonit. They tend to break very easily. How are you gonna strenghten them ? Maybe its just that i need unbreakable design around me when i get home form town drunk as a Greenlander.
I don't know much about wood, but it looks like that wood is at least 1/8", wouldn't that be thick enough to prevent most damages/bumps,etc?
Its hard to say depending on what pfaffen is going to do next. They look like they are some 4mm which is rougly 1\8". The material that i think its looking like is quite fragile in that thickness. However it should be said that having looked at pfaffens other builds, im pretty sure he knows what hes doing.
Yes, the hardboard is 1/8" thick and is brittle in with a horizontal load. See below It does not take alot of pressure to break it this way, however, all the hard board in the case is not load bearing. While it does provide some stability to the piece. All of the load is carried on the 1/2 plywood. Here is the painting station for the pieces. The old Coca-Cola box just was not big enough anymore. Here is a close up.
I can seal it up and pull in filtered air to help dry. I don't have a clean room to paint in, so this was as close as I could get.
I see what you were talking about. There are three 1/2" plywood supports inside the case. I should have pictures later tonight.
I can have both depending on the use. I found that pulling the air through worked better over time, but I can force air in and the filters catch all the dust in the air. I also have much better filters to catch finer dust and particles. I am going to try out the super high HEPA filter, it says it wall catch odors. I'm hoping it will catch the paint smell.
I'm thinking of using the same color scheme as the Cray-1 at the Smithsonian in DC. The Red, White and Blue. Actually, more burgundy, cream and navy blue. Here is a pic. There are requests to use plexi, but not sure what I can fit in the vertical fins. In the real computer that was the computer and the bottom was for cooling. Here it is in reverse. I may look at a liquid cooling system or look at a ton of radiators. Here is a better close up of the colors. It will take some playing around with paint to get it to look right.
Wait... they have the Cray in the Smithsonian??? I live near DC (~25 minutes away) and didn't know that lol.
Here are some more shots of the vertical fins getting painted aluminum. Here are two shots of the inside supports. This is the front center support This is one of the side supports. This is a shot from the center back looking in.
Spent alot of time in the paint shop today ... Well, yes alot of time but in the paint box is more like it. Here are some of the shots of the paint jobs. Here is a shot from the back. I was hard pressed to make it look like the thousands of wires in the real Cray-1 but think this mix of silver, blue and reflective paint gives it the same look.
