Thanks to Bit-Tech some magazine publishers saw some of my cases and asked for them to appear in issues coming out in July and August. So as a thank you I decided to do a full worklog on the HRG Tribute which is one of the projects to be featured. This project is complete so you can read it from begining to end in one fell swoop. The side panel originally had a side mounted fan and stamped grill. I drew the cut outs onto some masking tape so I could erase and make changes and to protect the surrounding areas should the dremel slip. This case is a punishing piece of metal. For a cheap generic steel case the metal is brutally thick and destroyed many cutoff wheels. I got so tired of breaking them that I drilled holes in the panel so I would feel like I made some progress. Originally the plan was to blend some plexi pieces into the sides of the bezel. This would not work in the end because the bezel is very weak and prone to cracking. the bezel mounts by a series of friction fittings made of metal and pulling on them bezel releases them, problem is you have to pull pretty hard and this could make scrap out of the bezel in short order. Here is the bare bezel with the intake hole cut out. The compound curves of the bezel made it very hard to center the hole.
This case proved to be very problematic, my plans to sculpt onto the surface of the steel were nothing but trouble. The original material used was polymer clay. It is molded then heated to cure it to a hard surface. This makes for some interesting science: The metal contracts and expands when heated, this would be ok if the polymer clay cooled at the same rate as the metal, it does not... So when the cooling begins the metal shrinks and the clay seperates from the surface. I tried to control the rate of cooling to help stop this, but each attempt failed. I ended up making a type of putty that would bond to metal, did not use significant heat to cure and is as strong or stronger than fiberglass. I get asked all the time what it is made of but strict rules of national security prevent me from saying.. I sculpted the case in small sections about 6 inches square at a time. It is very tedious work because the tools are very small, i used mostly homemade wooded and wire tools anf a few tooth picks to sculpt with. In some areas there are bits of wire and wood to simulate the ribs and such.
I wanted to hide the panel seams and make it look less like a metal box. I overlapped the scultping onto some areas like in this photo. This is just enough to hide the side and top seam, but does not interfere with taking the side panel on and off. I hate matching cd drives to a mod, what if the drive fails and has to be replaced? no the new one wont match. When I build these kinds of cases I want them to be useful 5 years from now, so I try to avoid matching actual hardware to the case whenever possible. So to solve this I built a door to cover the drives. This door is held on by 3 very small aircraft hinges, you can see them hidden on the right side of the door: For the front intake I wanted to do somthing really different from a "fan grill" I sculpted tentacles to hold a 2" wooden ball. the ball was stained mahogany and coated in resin.
One thing I really like about htis project is how much you can look at it without getting sick of it. I sculpted every square inch and I still like getting close and looking at each area. Every viewing angle brings somthing new to explore. The entire case was sprayed black as the base color. The brown and tan tints where applied over the black, i painted this entire case by hand with brushes. Splatter effects were done with a toothbrush to give it a more airbrushed feel to match Giger's work. Washes of blue and red were applied over the tan/brown base to get the final coloration. I was attempting to match the coloring seen in many many Giger airbrushed paintings.
The final surface color is very complex and cannot be captured by my inferior camera. There are about 15 layers of paint color in all on the case. Thanks for reading the log, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed building it.
that's a great job on the case. the type of putty you're using is Top Secret??? what would the government use it for? patching things up?
Wow that is very sweet. I love the Alien movies and his work made those movies awesome. His designs are wicked.
Mmmmm, awesome! I've been trying my hand at Dremel carving in Bondo, well the hard stuff I don't use thats glued to the cardboard...but WOWZERs...you make me look like a no0b! (I am...just bought my first Airbrush). That is one of the most awesome cases I have seen!
Oh wow. I like it. I want it. I'm sure I couldn't afford it, even if it was for sale! Very impressive.
Awesome. I can even begin to imagine the amount of work that must have gone into this case. How long would you say it took you?
