For my first modding adventure, I wanted to make a Macquarium. I know, I know, not very original. But hey, its my first real project so cut me some slack. I won this dead 1988 Apple Macintosh SE off of eBay for a whopping $7.50. For the most part, it is in good condition, but one corner has piece chipped out of it and a crack about one inch long. Thankfully, the piece that has chipped out was saved. It seems that all I have to do is stick it back in and glue it back together. More on this later. Ok, so here we go! My beautiful 16 year old Apple Macintosh SE in all of its glory. Note the burn in image of the Apple GUI on the Screen. Apparently, the Macs of the form-factor are notoriously hard to open. They have 4 screws holding them together, two of which are buried way down under the handy-dandy handle. I tried for hours to find a combination of bits, extenders, and screwdrivers that would work for this problem. The solution finally came from a BIC ballpoint pen! It had the perfect inner diameter for the special Torx bit I just happened to have. I jammed another bit in the other end so I could attach a screwdriver to it. Eureka! I pulled back the case to find amazing 1980's Technology! Next came discharging the dangerous CRT. I don’t think there was any charge left in it, but I wanted to be on the safe side. I wired a screwdriver to the ground screw of the screen and then touched the screwdriver to the anode lead. No sparks, no crackle, nothing. Oh well, just playing it safe. Out comes the screen and Analog board to reveal an ACTUAL HARD DRIVE! WOW!! The dirty shell desperately needed a bath. She cleaned up pretty well. Now to that chip on the top of the case. I have never worked with plastic like this, what would be my best route to repair it? Maybe epoxy it back in and then sand it down? Speaking of, there are a lot of little chips and nicks on the case, can I use a super-fine sandpaper to sand them down? I am a perfectionist and I want this project to be done right. It may take some time, but I hope that we all will be happy with the results! Thus Begins Housing Nemo!
i like the idea..... for that nick i would epoxy it or bondo it..... bondo will sand down easier than epoxy for little nicks.... it depends how little..... if you could stick a piece of pencil lead in it.... then you might want to use some type of spot filler or bondo and then sand it down.... but anything very very fine (mini scratches, etc.) then sanding it down a bit will work fine
If you arent planning on painting the exterior, epoxy or fiberglass it on the inside. You could also bondo the outside or fiberglass it..
Thanks for the advice. I will try and use some super-fine sandpaper on the little scratches. I don't want to paint the exterior. Ill try some epoxy from the inside. My goal for this project it to make it look as stock as possible, besides the fact that there are fish swimming around in the screen! I have a lot of ideas to make it look like it is a functional computer with just a very nice screensaver.
Lol this looks like a funny one.. great idea though.. I never really thought of using an old arse mac for a fish tank..
This is going to be great! I've always thought about trying to do exactly this, but never got around to it.
looks like a good idea, although how would you go about getting to the fish once you put the tank in there?? Are you going to put a nice hatch or something like that onto the top. Any way nice work dude
I just couldn't wait to work on this project so I ran out and go some epoxy and sandpaper. I started sanding little scratches on the case and it worked fine except for the fact that it was taking off some of the "Old Yellowing" from all of this computer's years. I got to the big problem area, the broken piece. I glued it back in and as well as that worked. Now it needed to be sanded down. Once I started sanding, it became apparent that I was taking off A LOT of the yellowing. While the crack looked better, the top of the case looked horrible. I continued to sand the top part down so it was at least even. I do not want to paint this case; but this looks really bad. It looks like the top is made of two different types of plastic. It would be great if I could remove some of the yellowing from the rest of the case as to balance this out. Does anyone have any advice as to how I can do that? I would rather not sand it down because sanding also removes some of the texture. Here is the repaired crack. I hate being a perfectionist.
I am still working on this part. The case has this very ingenious handle that takes up a substantial amount of above the screen. I think I am going to have to cut it out so I can fit the glass tank inside. I want to leave as much of the top intact as possible so I don’t know where or how to cut. I will post a picture of the handle's "footprint" ASAP.
Have you tried a pressure washer? Rent or borrow a pressure washer from a friend and try to blast that stuff away... It might or might not work lol
Here is the footprint of the handle. I want to cut out the smallest amount possible in order to make room for the tank. Ideally, I would be able to make a flip up hatch with the pieces I cut out.
Poor Mac... I really like my 5 SEs... I have seen this done many times before... My friend did one like this out of a mac classic... Keep it up, looking really good. Don't you just love superior computer technology Suscribed...
i wonder if anyone has taken an apple 2, then made it into a top of the line pc, with as little visable modification as possible?
ahh macquariums gotta love them. Anyways did you try some scrubbing with soap or dish detergent to and maybe a little steel wool to get the yellowing out? that might solve your problems as they are a lighter abrasive then sand paper but still heavy enuff to grind away the surface. Looks like the plastic might have been bleached by the sun, in which case you would hafta sand of the bleached layer