Alright I finally have a week to work on this... Made a shitload of progress on everything yesterday and today - tomorrow I'm going to put the first coat of primer on the case pieces. Once I finish doing primer coats I will put some black paint on it, then finish with a clearcoat. Then I can mount in my buttons (which I made backplates for today with tact switches), then wire everything up. Then once everything fits in the case I can seal the case with screws and be done with the fucking thing.

I've probably put 200 hours minimum into this project thus far - the main time-consumers were the various slot relocations I had to do for the game slot, memory slot, and expansion slot so that it would all fit in the case dimensions. The second most time-consuming thing was fabricating the case from scratch. I take my time so that I end up with something I am 100% happy with. I've learned a lot of ways I could've saved time and effort on this project, but I don't think I will be making another portable any time soon. It has been a labor of love, and it would not be reasonable for me to make and sell a second one unless I charged an upwards of $800 for parts and labor, and had the freedom to take a few months for building... doubt I would find many people willing to pay that, and I probably wouldn't look forward to doing it. Regardless I look forward to finishing this one for myself and enjoying it for years to come. FINALLY I WILL HAVE SOMETHING TO DO DURING BORING FUCKING COLLEGE CLASSES. No more tetris on my phone!

I will try to get some pictures on here in a few days. In the mean time, here's a picture from last month that I forgot to post:

cant wait to see it done . btw don't you have a laptop in class? cant you play some steam game on there?

cant wait to see it done . btw don't you have a laptop in class? cant you play some steam game on there?

The desks aren't wide enough to have a mouse on them next to a laptop, which limits me to a trackpad. I pretty much just sit in there and do my programming homework, then i sit for another hour, then I leave.

Put the first coat of primer on a few minutes ago - will put 5-6 coats on, depending on how it fills.

Trying to decide on a color... first thought was black, but I think that's too boring. I won't want pure white, either. Was thinking maybe a grey? Not sure if I want light or dark grey, but it seems good in my head. Any suggestions?

Put the first coat of primer on a few minutes ago - will put 5-6 coats on, depending on how it fills.

Trying to decide on a color... first thought was black, but I think that's too boring. I won't want pure white, either. Was thinking maybe a grey? Not sure if I want light or dark grey, but it seems good in my head. Any suggestions?

you should do a dark grey, and maybe get some sticker paper or something and make some cool stencils, maybe some red lines. just an idea

Edit: Not exactly what I mean but this is the best example I could find:

You should put racing stripes on it, just so that you can always be reminded that at one time it was the fastest gaming machine on the planet.

Just finished two coats of primer - will sand it down tomorrow and do one more coat.

It's ready for paint (tomorrow). I'm not really concerned about how that rectangular slot looks on the back piece because you won't be looking at it 98% of the time anyway, and it will be slightly covered by the game slot.

It's ready for paint (tomorrow). I'm not really concerned about how that rectangular slot looks on the back piece because you won't be looking at it 98% of the time anyway, and it will be slightly covered by the game slot.

Well I finished painting it today - I'm not entirely happy with the way the paint turned out - won't be buying any Krylon Fusion paint anymore... the spray atomization was terrible - splatters too much.

Going to let it dry for 24 hours and see if it looks any better - if not, might consider buying different paint, sanding it a bit, then painting over it. Regardless as soon as the final coat of paint is dry I will start mounting the buttons in.

Well I finished painting it today - I'm not entirely happy with the way the paint turned out - won't be buying any Krylon Fusion paint anymore... the spray atomization was terrible - splatters too much.

Going to let it dry for 24 hours and see if it looks any better - if not, might consider buying different paint, sanding it a bit, then painting over it. Regardless as soon as the final coat of paint is dry I will start mounting the buttons in.

so excited, cant wait to see

Well, somehow some epoxy got smeared on the front of the case while I was hotgluing buttons into the case... I can't mask off the button holes at this point so I can't do any repainting... 

you going to buy it? 

Ended up respraying it with some blue spray I had sitting around, looks much better now. I'll post some pictures when I'm done painting it and it's dry.

Well this is interesting.. the black Krylon Fusion paint I used did not dry properly at all, and was very very sensitive to knicks and fingerprints... totally not right for paint, and it really worried me. I let it dry overnight and it was still just as soft and useless. The spraycan I used must have been defective, because the spray atomization was totally wrong. It was coming out in thick splatters instead of a fine mist, but I had no choice since I was already in the middle of spraying a piece. Didn't want to spend hours sanding half a paint coat off to an even finish.

I decided since the black paint looked and felt absolutely terrible, I would sand it a bit to roughen it up for grip, and put a coat of blue over it that I had lying around. I noticed some slight imperfections after painting it black, so I put some primer over the black so I could sand out the imperfections.

Interestingly, the primer dried with hairline cracks all over it, similar to veins in your arm or dried out earth in a desert area. It looks pretty cool, actually. I would imagine the primer didn't react well to the paint underneath it, despite me sanding it. Rather than waste even more of my time sanding down the entire layer of primer and paint below it, I decided to roll with the look. I'd already spent 20 hours shaping the case, there was no way in hell I was going to undo that work or waste even more time.

I decided to paint evernything but hte face of the case blue, and leave the face alone. Then after I did that, I decided it would look even better if I did a fade gradient from the blue to the grey primer on all the edges. I think I did a pretty good job of making lemonade from a lemon, tell me what you guys think:




Considering the finish was ruined because of that stupid cursed Krylon paint, I think it turned out pretty well. I used some medium blue Osh brand general purpose spray paint I had lying around and some old rust-o-lium clearcoat that I had, worked fine. I know the Krylon paint is meant to be applied directly to plastic but there was just something fundamentally wrong with the spray nozzle on mine. It was coming out in thick spatters instead of a fine mist. The Krylon clearcoat sprayed fine, but I didn't use it.