BaDassumption Part 1

Painting

I can't begin to describe how difficult it is to start painting something like this. The reasons to put it off until a later date are endless. What colours? What patterns? Is it too early in the process? Is it over my head? Should I hand it off to a professional?

It actually got resolved with a wager. My buddies claimed a nice paint job can't be done with "rattle cans". Well that was that. If they say it can't be done, I'll try it. I won't bore you with the trials, but can say this much, it was a good thing to have some spare pieces to test out different paint styles on.

In the end, I used House of Kolors Snowhite Pearl and Tangelo Pearl, with Deep Violet fogged in with an airbrush. It was all done with rattle cans, except the airbrushed stuff.

The parts were well sanded and then painted with Dupli-Colour self-etching primer. Then painted with House of Kolors white base coat. After that, it was the House of Kolors Snowhite Pearl.

The fun started by taping out some scallops, kind of reminiscent of old salt flat racers, and painting them with House of Kolors Tangelo Pearl. Using 1/16" wide striping tape, a simple pin stripe was left on all the edges.

The edges of the scallops and stripes were fogged in with an airbrush, using House of Kolors Candy Deep Violet, to give some added depth to the colours. Amos Graphics in Sonora, California laser cut some pin striping graphics in vinyl and the colours for them were laid down with an airbrush.

Finally, everything was wet sanded by hand, up to a final sanding with 2000 grit, then polished with 3M Finesse-It II using micro-fibre cloth. I won the rattle can wager.

Extending the Power Supply Pod

When the PSU Pod was first built, this rig was intended to be running with a rather normal set of components. In step with that, it was built to handle a PC Power and Cooling 510W SLI power supply. It was rather straightforward, only needing a special cover plate in back to make it look all together. Rectangular holes were cut into the PSU pod and the main pod to get wires through.

As things started coming together here, the suppliers of PC components were coming out with some pretty cool stuff and it occurred to me that with some of these newer components, BaDassumption could be built as a stomping workstation. Three video cards, quad core processor, lots of memory, three 30 inch monitors, etc. So plans changed and the new ideas would need some more power.

The trouble was, the pods were essentially done and painted. So the challenge was to figure out a clever way to make the PSU pod longer without rebuilding it entirely. On the left of the first photo below is the new PC Power and Cooling 750W Silencer that was beautifully modulated and sleeved in orange by a company I won't mention (they turned down a discount request). To its right (in the same shot) is the original power supply that I designed the pod for.

The right picture illustrates my solution - a series of 1/4" thick aluminium plates and spacers that add a couple of inches to the overall length of the pod.

The back plate itself needed a bit of work to accommodate slightly different plug and switch locations, but nothing major.

And the best part? The paint never got scratched.