What finish will the shell, wings have? Will you be coating or spraying or do you have something special in mind? In the original picture it looks like a chrome finish, just wondering how you will achieve this.
If it's not too much trouble mashie, could you post a pic of the bug with say, a coke can or a CD case, so we could get a relative size comparison?
The shell will be coated with nickel-sliver powder mixed with lacquer or epoxy like this test piece (mouse) I did a few months ago:
What exactly is a "computer" supposed to look like? A beige box? That's kinda the reason why modding is modding; so that our computers don't look so much like "computers". If it looks like a bug, a truck, an ammo case, or Michaelangelo's David, it can still be a computer.
Time for a little update again. Both wings was coated with a mix of nickel silver powder and laquer. After a lot of sanding and polishing the result wasn't even close to what I had hoped for This was probably because the use of laquer instead of epoxy to make it easier to apply... After ignoring the bug for a few days I finally opened the bottle with cellulose thinner. A few minutes later and any trace of the mess was gone. I don't know if it was the view of clean wings or the fumes that made me most happy. To move the project forward I went for an old and trusted technique - carbon fibre coating. To get the classic carbon fibre look clear resin will be added at a later stage so until then the wings will look a bit rough. Another reason I went for CF in the end was simply because a lot of people have asked me over the past year why I always use CF on nonvisible parts and not where it can be enjoyed for it's beauty
Neato, very interesting. Carbon fibre coating...I think that you may be handling to much of that stuff...isnt its dust leathal? Nice progress.
Yeah it is extremely dangerous, do not try this at home kids. The saw dust from cured CF laminate is not good for the health but if you can control the dust you will hopefully live a little bit longer. Since dangerous stuff is fun lets do some more. The front did also get a layer of CF added. I'm happy I did the t-shirt lamiante first to define all edges since the double curved bends are close to the limit where the CF fabric start to fold (no stretch what so ever).
Oh yes. I think I can see that doing it justice. Good choice. It's nice to have CF bits in places people may not see but to have it for the shell too is just meant to be.
Nasty stuff, eh? How easy is CF to forum around say, round objects (pop can, CD spindle, etc.)? Does it stay well durring curing/after completion or cause problems? Also, how expencive is the stuff? Looking good mashie
It is not worse than most other unhealty stuff but you really don't want to get the dust in your nose or anywhere else since it itch quite a bit. It is fairly easy to shape CF around round curved objects as long as they ain't curved in two directions (like a ball). The problem is however to get it off the mould. Linear learned the hard way when he tried to make a duct around a paper tube (that tube still have the CF around it btw). I have heard prices around $45 per square meter plus epoxy resin in the US. I got my CF for around GBP20 per square meter.
at my local lowes they sell this adhesive reflective sheilding, it looks exactly like chrome and it comes in these big 3 foot by 3 foot squares, then you cut it to the size you want and peel the back off and apply. it's thick enough that it's not tape like, thin enough to be flexible and conform to shapes, when applied to a hard surface it looks exactly like chrome, in fact one of my friends used it on the entire outside of his case to make it look like chrome and I use it occasionally on scale model cars to add chrome effects. not that carbon fibre is bad, and it will make it look way more bug-like and probably much cooler in the end, if you wanted to stick with the original sketch you could have used some of that.
The work continues with the internals... All wires out from the PSU were cut to lenght and prapped with 3mm wirewrap. The PSU has been attached to the body with zip ties and work like a charm. The water tubes are in place as well. I have finally decided that the space between the mid and bottom baseplane won't be covered with plates of any kind. It must after all be some external hint that it is a computer inside The remaining parts of the watercooling has been assembled for a leak test. The water got some green UV dye added, unfortunately I don't have any UV lights yet to test if it works well or not. With the use of a header tank on the pump it was extremely easy to fill the system. Just power on the pump and fill up until no more air is in the system. The only problem with using a 12V pump is that you need a separate PSU for the initial bleeding to not fry any componenets due to no water in the blocks.
