I've been promising to post up a tutorial of sorts on how to build a Pipboy using the EL sheet and sound amp to create a prop that has a light-up screen and plays music from the game. I finally took some time to build one up last month to have it ready for Dragon*Con. The total build took me roughly 30 to 40 hours. Your build could be shorter or longer depending on whether you plan to include lights and sounds, how careful/diligent you are with each step, your individual skill level, and what demons infest your project (I had quite a few).
I didn't take any pics of the cast at the start, but if you look earlier in this thread (post #251) you'll see a great example of what the casts look like when they come from the mold. They come out of the mold intentionally fairly thick - some people don't cram as much into the inside of these things as I do and want the extra thickness. I, however, spent a good amount of time with the dremel grinding wheel to core out as much space as I safely could. There are a lot of electronics and wiring that I needed to have the space for, plus room for my arm and jumpsuit.
Here's after the first pass of dremel work (about 5 total hours, plus some to fix my goof-ups)
The white stuff on the insides are where I accidentally sanded it too thin and sanded it the whole way through the cast. Whoops! It's a fairly easy fix if the hole isn't too severe... place some masking tape over the inside of the hole, then press some modeling clay on the outside where the hole is. The tape keeps the clay from pressing through the hole and keeps it smooth on the inside. Remove the tape and mix up a small batch of 5 minute epoxy (or resin, if you have it) and spread it over the hole. Once it cures, you can remove the clay (It shouldn't stick) and then sand it smooth. Once it is painted, it will be hard to tell there was ever a goof-up!
Next up is installing the hinge. I used my 1/16" drill bit and dremel cutting wheel to create a slot in the top of the cast. Then I cut short one side of the hinge to slide into this slot:
Then it was time to get the plexi-glass to fit the cast. The easiest way I've found to do this is to use masking tape over the inside of the screen area:
And then use a pencil to trace around the inside where the plexi-glass will go. Then remove the masking tape and you've now got a good starting point stencil to use to cut down the plexi:
I strongly recommend aiming a bit big with your first cut of the plexi. Then use the sanding drum of your dremel to pare it down to fit once you can place it in the cast and see where you need to trim. Once you get the plexi to fit firmly and snugly, it can be used to size the screen print, the green lighting film, and the EL sheet for trimming. Again, you probably want to aim a bit bigger and then trim to fit.
A quick note on the EL sheets - they can be cut to fit, but make sure to preserve the leads on the side. They can be bent, but a crease will break it. The one pictured is one that I creased by accident and broke it in the process.
At this point I started to play some more with how I was going to fit everything inside the cast. My mp3 player was going to press into my arm, so I dremeled out a little recess for it so there would be more room for my arm. You can see here another place where I sanded too much and came out the front of the cast.
Then I gave it a coat of primer and a coat of silver:
Next I cut to shape a spare piece of plastic that I had laying around to close off the gap in the back and glued it down with CA glue.
Then it was time for painting & weathering. I sprayed the inside with Rustoleum black engine enamel. It has a very smooth finish, is very durable, and doesn't flake off if you have to tear out and re-do anything (as I did). Then I hot glued in the screen mesh for the speaker area.
For paint on the outside I used the Sophisticated Finishes Pewter Metallic that I used with my first Pip-Boy (I love this stuff for how well it matches the game) and to weather I used a series of "black washes" using various colors & combinations of acrylic paint diluted in water. I used green + gray for grime, brown for dirt, and black for general dinginess. Next it was time to put in the electronics. First were the LED covers and the screen assembly (the plexi-glass, screen transparency, color films, and EL sheet):
Here's a shot showing the general paint & weathering:
Here's where I ran into my second major SNAFU in the build (the first was breaking the first EL sheet) when a wire came out of the little plastic clip that connects the speaker to the sound amp. To get around this, I just soldered the speaker wires directly to the leads on the underside of the sound amp. This ended up taking up less room than using the plastic clip, so it worked out for the best, but boy was it frustrating at the time. After soldering the wires and making sure the connection was sound, I gooped on some E6000 glue to firmly secure the connection and to keep any wires from coming loose as I positioned things inside the cast.
The yellow LED for the status light:
Here's the EL sheet, sound amp, speaker, and volume knob in a test-fit:
Another angle:
Battery placement. Both batteries are in metal clips that attach/detach using 3M Dual Lock (another product I LOVE). Dual Lock works like velcro, but it doesn't wear out and it doesn't have the give that velcro does. You can buy it on ebay or at Target
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I found that the EL inverter fits best in the upper-right corner, especially once you remove the top of the cast. To remove the case, peel off the sticker on the underside & unscrew the screw. I used E6000 to glue down the 9V power lead so it would fit inside the cast better.
Here's how I have the yellow LED connected into the power supply for the sound amp. I later soldered the ends of the wires to the metal brackets on the sound amp.
Yellow LED wired in:
One thing I did with my build that is a bit unusual is that I wanted to make my hand plate & knob function as the master power switch for the whole prop. The end effect looks really simple, but as with so many simple things, actually accomplishing it is anything but easy.
The hand plate I got from zookone here on the RPF. I did not care for his knob, so I cast my own from a Civil Defense dosimeter re-calibration base. It is completely era and thematically appropriate to the Fallout universe, and it's pretty darn near screen-accurate, too
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To make my knob functional, I drilled through the hand plate and mounted a nut inside. I mounted the head of the bolt inside the knob. Then I *carefully* dremeled out two small recesses where I mounted some micro momentary switches that I had laying around.
The recesses:
The switches, mounted:
The knob & how it depresses the switches:
Getting the knob to not be off-center, and getting the switches to be the same level so the knob depressed them both at the same time was really, really tricky. Each switch serves as a power circuit interrupt; one for the sound amp, the other for the EL sheet. To connect the wires from the hand plate, I just used 9V snap connectors - they are a simple, cheap method for when you need to attach/detach something like this.
Here's the guts of the finished prop.
A closer shot. You can see how I coated the electro-magnet in the EL inverter with hot glue to protect it and keep it sealed off.
And turned on, in the dark:
in the light:
And does it fit on my arm with all that stuff crammed inside? Why yes, yes it does:
I turn on the mp3 player before I put on the prop, then the hand plate turns the whole thing on/off. The knob on the front of the cast is functional and controls the volume, so it is possible to have just the lights on with the sound turned all the way down. The only flaw with the whole thing is that the EL inverter produces an audible hum, and that hum is picked up and amplified somewhat when the sound amp is powered on. If the mp3 player is active the hum can't be heard over the sound of the music, but with the music off it can make people ask "hey, what's that sound?" when it is turned on. I really like the effect of having 3Dog blaring from my arm (and the attention it gets) so the hum is really only the most minor of annoyances.
