Project : XTC Retro Laptop

[Munty]

It seems I've neglected this thread longer than I thought but I've only just sat down to progress on it so not much has been missed. The only thing I did some time ago was to start putting the apples on the trees! It's a very slow process but it looks perfect so it's well worth doing. Here are some typically bad pictures of the first few I did but I now have half of them finished. I used little 0.5mm fimo beads which I painted in a dish before individually securing each one with some simple PVA (white) glue!

Here are the tiny beads I used before they got painted a nice dark red...

And after! Forgot I took this pic...

And finally here's the end result of the first few trees.

But anyway, that was done a long time ago. I've been working on the Mammoth Tank project lately so this has been sadly neglected! Some of the guys on the X-Com website have been bugging me for progress though so I thought I'd have a go at the screen. It's come on pretty well but it has practically no detail so far. Just the easy bits done...

Here it is anyway, I'll explain the steps as I go! First off here's a shot of what I'm trying to recreate. It's the in-game graphic which surrounds the map of the tactical levels, though I've resized it here so it fits my screen without looking totally out of scale...

I started off where I left off a few months ago when I'd cut a couple of pieces but not done much with them. One long straight piece needed to be curved and fitted to the backpiece to create the left most part seen here.

This is a closer shot of that same piece and it also shows a few metal pins that I've used to replace the screws in the two left holes. They'll be sandwiched between the top and bottom parts of the case and the open ended locating holes on the screen will simply slide onto them like locating lugs!

Here's a shot of the top piece which had corners at both ends. It took a great deal of holding and clamping and such and no small amount of patience on my part!

On the right side of the case is a wierd looking wirey type thing. I have no idea what you'd call it... For me though it looked kind of like convoluted plastic tubing so I tried that first. It probably would've been ok but isn't too easy to work with as it comes off rolls. Not ideal for making straight lines! Thankfully I was sent some pressies by a very generous Frenkie after I commented on the metal pipes he was using for Project Charge. So I cut a length from one of them and used that instead for a perfect result!

Next I decided to cut the most complex pieces of the casing, the darker grey part on the right hand side which enclose the pipe and displays and such. These parts form a primary handhold (in my opinion!) and are thicker than the rest of the assembly so it took a few layers to make it right. I ended up making one bottom piece to extend the grip out to the rear and a second piece to form the top of this side of the case with a third one to go atop this one and form the front of the grip.

Here's what I mean by the two top pieces, the larger one forms the whole side of the case while the smaller top piece is just part of the grip.

The top front piece of the casing was easy to make and can be seen here. The funny angles I cut into it can be seen on the adjacent image so they were necessary. The image also illustrates the purpose of the gap which will house a display (which will be artificial)

I started to think a little bit about the various detailing next and that includes the buttons on the left, the power (OK) button on the right, 3 pieces that look like lights, the '0' display and it's neighbouring mechanical part and finally the blue stripes... I figured the blue stripes are raised friction material or similar... I went to the cheap shop in town and picked up a few bits for the mammoth tank and got hold of something that was intended to put hot pots on I think... I chopped a few strips out of it to get the material I needed and this is one of them in place (mock only)

About this time I decided to continue building with the screen in place. Here it is with the cable plugged in but not much else.

This is the bottom after a lot more work has been done. The left side piece will clamp the lower pin in place and the piece visible in the middle of the picture is the bottom piece. It's removed here to show where the wires run. The 2 for the power switch aren't in place yet.

I seen to have skipped a few steps but here is the current state of affairs and I'm pretty pleased with it! All of the sides are in place (though I'll fit a final piece behind the metal pipe as there's a gap right now) and all the top pieces are cut too. It's all about detailing now so I'm going to get on with that now.

HEre's the right side where I faced the most serious curve of the project! I left it overnight and it's not bad this morning, will need a little fine tuning though... These wires are way too long so will need cutting again and soldering shorter. I'll add the wires for the switch at the same time but right now I don't HAVE a switch... The silver thing seen to the right is the innards of a 'dog clicker' used for training I think. I was hoping to use it as the top part of a switch but it's too big and would be in constant contact with the earthed screen. While I could make that work I'd rather keep it as a separate circuit and use a simple 2-wire switch so I changed plans...

Last image of the day, this top piece will need some filling and shaping as it appears to be a vent or speaker in the graphics. It can wait till later though!

Will update again when I manage to figure out the switch and buttons and such. I can't really finish assembly till those bits are done though and I need to be thinking about painting too but that needs the whole assembly to be complete so I can fill and sand it to a nice finish first.

Meh, I'm off to dismantle some hardware for switches anyway! That's something I'd like to get done as soon as possible. Will post progress when I have some but I'm working on the tank as well so won't be too soon!

[billygoat333]

damn man, you are very skilled with modelling!

[Munty]

Thanks Billy! Certainly most of this build does come down to modelling as the components that can be considered the actual 'case' were relatively simple, especially with an old lappy to start with!

I've actually updated this worklog on the X-Com website since my last post here so I'll share it here as well seeing as I'm posting anyway Prepare for some Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V action!

I finally ran out of patience in my search for small keyboard buttons or similar for the up/down level buttons and made them from 2mm plasticard. I cut and shaped them first...

Then carved in the appropriate design and painted them accordingly...

They came out pretty well but I need to thicken the lines that make up the ladder at some point.

Here's my new switch held in place by something called sugru which is a kind of moldable silicone...

I continued with the detailing by creating the small red lights of the design. I cut away some material from the plastic pieces and then used parts of an old cd case to make the 'glass' bits. The back of the pieces then got painted red, a lighter colour first for the 'highlights' seen in the graphic and then darker red to finish the job. It's possible that the backlight from the screen will light these pieces but it's unlikely. It wasn't part of the plan anyway so it doesn't matter either way...

In addition to the top-left light there is also one under the level indicator on the right which is presumably a power indicator (as it has 'on' written beside it) I made that one in the same way and then added the indicator above it. I cut a hole from the top piece of the case (not the top of the grip) and fitted anotehr piece of plastic cut from a cd case for the display screen. I used the LED panel from my template and then backed it with some card to keep the whole thing together.

Moving on I figured I could recycle part of the lappy to make the 'screw' fitting nearby. The reusable part in question was a round sticker which had initially covered a screwhole in the laptop case. I cut it in half to create an imitation screw head and then drilled a shallow hole to accomodate it flush to the rest of the grip. I cut the marks into the grip for the selection indicators (for whatever this screwy thing is!) and that was it.

Also in the above shot is a shot of the vent/speaker thing which is almost finished. I cut a notch out of the topmost piece of the grip and then filed a chamfer into the edges. To finish it I need to drill 4 rows of tiny holes on the next piece down. Another job I did which I didn't take any pictures of was to secure the metal pipe in place. I happened to have a long narrow piece of styrene that fitted snugly through the entire length of it and then glued either end of this to the back of the case. It's now totally secure.

I tried desperately to get a new picture of the overall appearance because I've gotta say I'm pretty chuffed with it! My crappy camera was just giving me bright white shots though so I failed miserably. In the end I used a 'splatter screen' bought for use in the mammoth tank to diffuse it slightly and got this half-arsed image to show...