A Mac inspired by Datamancer's fantastic work...

[mateo4x4]

     Greetings from a new member!  And yes...I too was inspired by the work that Datamancer did on that fantastic laptop and had to try my hand at it as well.  I started with the Lexan store bought cover and...well, it just went from there.  The advantage of a 'snap on' cover as the base is that I could work on the mod in the shop, but leave the laptop safely in the house.  I've seen how horrible I usually look when I come out of there...I can't imagine the horrid fate that would befall my Mac!

     In my other moments of spare time I build musical instruments, so I had a wealth of leftover woods to choose from.  A nice 'ribbon' mahogany was my choice for the main body with the framing around the 'window' done in a hard wood called 'Purple Heart'.  Would you believe that this is the natural color of that wood?  Amazes me every time I use it.  The window looks in on the guts of the beast itself...a collection of hand cut metals and various clockwork bits and pieces.  The final touches were put on it this past weekend after cannibalizing an old clock from the local thrift store.  Please enjoy and feedback is always welcomed...do be a bit gentle, at least at first.  

Oh....and please pardon my photos...and my lack of pic posting skills.  It has been a long day...a long Monday, even.














-Matthew

[Khet Thelonius Maxwell]

Well, a fancy case! Though, depending on how attached you are to your mac (would you risk busting it somehow?) I'd take things a step further and start replacing some of the keys and such, repainting the silver casing to a gold or brass color. You'd be suprised how much it would fit with the rest of the laptop with a gold painted casing and typewriter styled keys. But then, I'm a PC user and know nothing about ripping the keys off of a laptop but I can't see why it wouldn't be possible.

[Burr]

Is overheating ever an issue with these sorts of modifications? I'm surprised not to have heard any such complaints so far.

[mateo4x4]

After a bit of trimming where the top and bottom meet, when the lid is up, fixed a small heat issue.  All the rest of the vents are left open.

Adding some color to the stock case might be an option.  Keys on laptops aren't too bad to work with...but I am pretty attached to the way the keys light up when it gets darker in the room.  :-)

[Khet Thelonius Maxwell]

I can sympathize there. My own keyboard is back-lit and it'd be tough for me to get rid of it unless I could figure out how to have back-lit brass keys.

Burr, with proper thought and care overheating would never be an issue. You can either cut out around the vents (which it looks like that's what mateo did) or, which I would prefer myself, you could drill holes where the vents would be. This allows sufficient airflow without revealing the actually laptop case at all. It doesn't matter what you put around a case, whether it be for a laptop or desktop tower, as long as there are holes and fans that can reach outside air, overheating won't be much of an issue. If, for some reason, you would cover up the vents completely... then you have an issue.