collinE's 360 lappy almost done (pics)

[Al9bob]

No, im fine with bondo, i perfer it but im wondering if that is what it was made to do? But if anything i want a cheap material that i can use as a case. Im planning on have some steel reinforcements inside of it, but not much.

[snowpenguin]

Go with whatever you can find, often hardware stores will sell plexiglass and you can get scraps cheaply.


Also, you probably should ask all these questions in your thread as hailrazer said, this 360 laptop is kind of a big deal and we don't want to stomp on collin's glory do we?

[Al9bob]

Opps, lol, i got carried away, but really that is a great laptop, Ben Quality. You should put NOT made by Ben Heck on the bottom so people wont get confused by who made it.

[collinE]

I don't mind the thread jacking it's mostly what I would have said anyway.

yeah, sorry I didn't get back to the thread sooner. it's the komatex/sintra stuff. I didn't know you could do thermo forming with it. I'd love to see someone use it for that. You can get it online from a number of places. the place I used sells it in 4' x 8' sheets, but they cut it down to four 2' x 4' sheets for ups shipping. and it wasn't too expensive.

I just used bondo on all the cracks after using super glue to put it together. The case itself was pretty lightweight, but it's pretty heavy with everything inside.

[snowpenguin]

What thickness are you using?

I've thermoformed the stuff before with 1/8", and I don't think the results I got were quality enough to be used without bondoing them a ton to fill all the imperfections that happen.

[Al9bob]

Where did you get it, my luck i would pick a place that i would get ripped off from.

[snowpenguin]

Well, check all the places that sell signs or make them in your area, often they have sheets of the stuff.

[collinE]

I used 1/4" for the walls and the top and bottom, 1/8" for the screen face and the face with the buttons. The screen is pretty heavy, but it puts all it's weight around the edges so it doesn't bend the 1/8 plastic at all.

The place I ordered from is called San Diego Plastics. Here's the page for the Sintra. There's a price chart further down. You have to order from them over the phone and if you don't have them cut the plastic smaller for UPS, then it costs a few hundred for them to truck it to you . I have more than I'd need for four 360 laptops and I just ordered two sheets. Maybe you don't have to purchase a full 4' x 8' sheet... I didn't think to ask.

And snowpenguin's right. My step-dad does printing for businesses and he said for the sizes we'd need, you could buy scrap from the sign shops for pretty cheap.

[Al9bob]

Thanks again both of you, i'm gonna go to the sign shop in town to see if they have scraps or plastic material, if they do ill see which will be cheaper, then go off of that.