As previously, Jake gave a wonderful starting point for my work again. The hundred years old Victorian gas lamps are really cool! It must have been made with sand-pouring, looks fabulous and matching perfectly to the style.
In parallel, I started to work on the frame, like at the keyboard, the most time was spent on the preparing of the frame. Photoshop, some test printing, then a lot of working hours again: rasping, sanding, polishing and putting it together.
After soldering, it was put together on a wooden support for me to see how it looks actually, and I needed to determine the precise size of the support. It was made of solid black granite with a weight of 8 kg. Thanky for the precise measuring, the LCD panel doesn't wobble or tense in the frame… Fits perfect!
The whole backside, which was made of galvanized iron (cca. 4 elements) should be brass plated, that was done in a nearby galvanizing mill, in double layers. Clad elements mustn't be polished, because it will deteriorate on the sides in a minute, before varnishing you should use metal polisher (e.g. Sidol), and only by hand with smooth cloth.
When the scanning was done, I tried to redraw the side-fixings as it should be remodeled later. That was my first time using a lathe, and later in the case of the control panel.
It's a child's play to etch a PCB (printed circuit board) by photo-technique, nowadays. Sprint-Layout is the best and easiest program to make a PCB for simple cases like this. The responding leds are left out this time from this project.
After soldering, lacque coating and painting were on the list!
Scanning this time as well, then Photoshop-work as done before. I rearranged the order so that the power-button could be in centre... it's much pretty. But of course it must be considered at the drawing of the schematic plan and at the PCB, too.
The brass elements and the granite support after polishing with wheel.
The granite block while pasting with special glue.
Technical specification about the characteristics of the LCD panel.