My Most Ambitious DIY Yet: Frankenputer

This post is about the most ambitious salvage yet! I had a laptop that dropped dead.... So, I was very fortunate that someone I knew was getting ready to dispose of an old Gateway 450ROG laptop. So, after the hard drive was wiped, I was given this. So.... Here's what it looked like, scratched and blah.

 

CNet's Review of Gateway's 450ROG.

I went to the Hobby Lobby in Millville, NJ and bought a can of "German Silver" spray paint and some Testors Contour Putty. They came from the model making section, and were labeled as "plastic safe".

I filled in the Gateway logo with the molding putty.

I let it dry and then sanded it and buffed it down.

I sanded and buffed the rest of the top of the laptop. It helps the paint bond better.

Then, down goes an old cardboard box on my deck.

Then, I covered the cardboard with a plastic bag from the local store. I didn't want any spray to go through the gaps.

Next..... the whole can of the German Silver spray paint.

Then, on went a couple of coats of stone texturing spray paint.

I did a sketch and scanned it into a .jpg, enlarged it and printed out to be a custom stencil.

 Then, I cut out parts.......

I centered it.......

Then, I rounded up some nail polish I had in my collection. All are Revlon.

The red went in the heart cut outs, and some pearly white on the pearls.

I took the stencil off.....

Now, to be adventurous.... free hand filling in the heart more and free hand painting the little heart.

Then, I found a black detailing nail art polish. Outlining with the black makes it look a little like tattoo art.

I found some cute butterfly nail decals. I figured they'd add a little bit to it.

I randomly placed them in the empty space.

I let it all dry a bit, and then added 3 partial bottles of clear nail polish. I want to preserve all that art.

Now, to the insides of the computer... I yanked out the two 256MB of SD RAM and replaced them with 1G of SD RAM. I needed that RAM.... I spent $16, including shipping, from a seller on eBay.

 Then, I replaced XP Home Edition with XP Pro. Then, I removed all the unnecessary programs, and added a bunch of stuff I wanted. So.... not bad..... it cost me $6.73 for the paint and putty, and $16 for the SD RAM. Wooo!!! A bargain for a pretty stylish laptop, and a very functional one, too!

Saint Salvage strikes again!!!!