 |
We started with this representation to work from |
 |
Also a rendition with light glowing from it.
We needed to keep the mod battery powered rather than turning it into a
110V lamp. |
 |
The outer pattern our vinyl cutter used to make
our paint masks. |
 |
The colors were pantone matched by our paint
supplier. The burgundy was dead on, the pink seemed to be off a
tiny bit. But closer to 177 than any of the other chips in the
pantone book. |
 |
The entire surface of the lunchbox was hand
sanded. By the way this is the most flimsy lunchbox we have ever
laid our hands on. I believe it is the same one as sold at
lunchbox.com for
$12.75 they note "While this black or silver lunch box is great as a
lightweight tote or for promotional packaging...." it is a flimsy piece
of tin. (okay I said the flimsy tin comment, they would have just
tried to sell you a better one) First we
painted pink and then masked what needed to stay pink and then painted
burgundy |
 |
Burgundy painted and mask removed |
 |
Pearl flake clear coat applied and hardware
masking removed |
 |
Painting is done, 5 days remain! Now we
just need interior fabric, panels to adhere the fabric to, an
electronics setup, a space to hide the batteries, and a real bulb
hollowed out to allow us to install our flashlight bulb. |
 |
We did many trials with several kinds of
incandescent bulbs. We found using a benchtop vice we could crush
the bottom metal threaded part of the cheapest of bulbs take out just
the glass bulb. Over 20 bulbs lost their lives to this project and
we ultimately shipped only two completed bulbs. One method of bulb
disassembly allowed us to have a complete glass portion and then be able
to paint the glass. What turned out to work best was to use a
punch to obliterate the black glass like insulator at the bottom of the
bulb leaving the metal attached to the glass, then through the hole chip
away the glass until the filament and glass supporting it were small
enough they could just be dumped out. |
 |
Once the hollowing out was complete we spray
painted the bulb and even added a little, bulb like text. This is
by far the smallest thing we have ever done on the vinyl cutter, it was
impossible to retain the interior portions of the A's and B but the O's
we were able to keep the center portions. When using the mask
material we find that if the cuts are small enough there is not enough
adhesive surface to stick to the wax backing.
With many broken bulbs in the garbage we ended our
bulb bursting adventure with 4 hollowed out unpainted bulbs. Whew,
four good ones! Alright! But then, one shattered when attempting
to rough up the surface with a sandblaster. Another one I was
holding, it was all painted and looked great then out of nowhere I heard
a tink! and the bulb broke right above the metal threads and popped
right out! This left us with only two blulbs, one in the lunch box
and one as a backup. |
 |
To evenly and brightly illuminate the hollowed
out bulb we used 4 AA batteries powering a MagLight flashlight krypton
bulb. This baby is brighter than anything we could have done with
LED's. Radio shack supplied several momentary open normally closed
switches (push down its off let go its on), sockets for the bulb and
even the little battery box. As seen in the photo we soldered the
flashlight bulb, flashlight socket, and copper wire to make a little
sculpture that could be sandwiched between the hollowed out blub and the
full size bulbs socket. We then just ran power to the big bulbs
socket and there was light! |
 |
The white silk in the brain pattern, this is
something outside of what we are good at so we found a buddy that does
car interiors. He was willing to take on the project with only a few
days to complete it. Check out
www.oldskoolkustoms.com to
see the kinds of things they do there. |
 |
On Sunday we had a full set of fabric. All
the interior panels were complete and even the bulb situation had been
sorted out. |
 |
We cut sheet metal panels for each of the
interior pieces to be upholstered. The fabric was painstakingly
applied using 3M super 77 adhesive. This works great just spray it
on each of the pieces you want to stick together let it setup and get
tacky then stick them together. |
 |
The bottom was made up of medium density fiber
board (MDF). Half the fabric was adhered to the MDF and the flap
that covered the fiber board was made from another piece of sheet metal.
|
 |
We added a tabby to the door to help open the
battery compartment and a magnet to help keep it closed. |
 |
As we installed the interior we also added the
switch to turn the bulb on and off as the lid is opened and closed. |
| All done! |
   |
