Merry Christmas!

[der_george]

I built a little project for Christmas.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/22_450x600.jpg

As you can hopefully see, I tried to build Father Christmas’ hat as a PC case. Jep. A PC in the hat. I started to build it for Christmas last year, but it didn’t turn out to good so I decided to redo it.

The whole thing started out as old piece of MDF I found in the garage. I cut all of the pieces for the frame out of it with a jigsaw. Glued and nailed them all together and when it had dried I filed and sanded it all it to shape. When I was pleased with the shape and look of the Frame I painted it red.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/1_800x600.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/3_800x600.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/4_800x600.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/6_800x600.jpg

Next up was the hat itself. The first version was made using an old cheap Father Christmas costume. That’s what it looked like as well by the time I was finished.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/7_800x600.jpg

The best part was the on-off switch in the ball-ball. I glued a normal power-button into a squash ball so that when you squeeze it in your hand the PC will switch on and off. I then glued some fur around it and sewed it onto the hat.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/8_800x600.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/9_800x600.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/10_800x600.jpg

When it was finished it looked like this:

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/13_800x600.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/12_800x600.jpg

But I wasn’t really happy with the result. I wanted to redo the hat because the material looked and felt very tacky. Walking through the big Swedish furniture store I saw a red blanket, that was perfekt. It is very good quality and best of all the price is unbeatable. I still needed some fury white stuff some Velcro and some of that iron-on material to make the hat a bit stiffer. Those little bits were the most expensive parts of the casemod by far.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/14_800x600.jpg

My girlfriend and I then worked out the cuts for the hat. She then sewed it all together, because she’s really good at it and I’m a noob at sewing. The hat still needed the strip of fur at the botton. That took a while because you can only sew that on by hand so her mum helped us out. With four hands sewing speeded it all up.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/15_800x600.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/16_800x600.jpg

Then all I had to do was redo the On/Off switch.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/17_450x600.jpg

It wouldn’t really be something new if I didn’t upgrade the hardware so I stuffed some “new” stuff in as well. Just the PSU is crap. The old one was way better. The new one sounds like a swarm of birds chirping away with added fan clacking… Be replacing that one with a decent one as soon as possible.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/18_800x600.jpg

Well this is what it looks like finished:

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/21_450x600.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/x-mas/22_450x600.jpg

Thanks for reading, if you got this far! Hope you liked it a bit.

So long

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

:0)