Wood Veneer Laptop Mod

Step 9 Finishing Touches/ Troubleshooting

After the the polyurethane is completely dry you can add the finishing touches, I added a copper pendent to the center and some corner accents that i picked up from hobby lobby.

I painted them with gold paint and super glued them into place.

To finish the edges on top where the wood meets the plastic i cut and bent a brass rod and glued it into place.

On the back of the laptop I used some rub-on Old English lettering for my name and glued some rivets into place over the screw holes.(Note: Keep in mind that this may cause problems with upgrading later on)

Then apply one last coat of polyurethane to each side to lock in everything.

And your done!

Troubleshooting:
You can fix small mistakes with the placement of the wood with wood filler, be sure to stain the wood filler so it matches.

If you get super glue where you don't want it, invest in some de-bonder to clean it up.

Leave me comments on what you think,

Good luck!

Comments

[MattosaurusRex]

I just found an old iBook from 2001, think it needs a wood veneer! Thanks for the Ible!

[s1dh]

THIS is an awesome tunning operation , CONGRATULATIONS !! I would like to have a feedback about Wireless : did you notice wireless reception decrease performance ? (As the antenna of your wireless NIC is behind the LCD screen , the back of your screen act as a receiver. If you add wood on this side the wireless signal could be lower ...)

[thinkpadt30]

Extremely professional-looking job! It looks like a high-end custom laptop done for a celebrity or a CEO. Pat yourself on the back!

[msw3113]

Is that an 8500?  Nice result, well done.  Work to be proud of.
What's next?  Veneered iPhone?

[DracoGT]

It's a old Dell Latitude d620.
Love to do the iphone if i could afford the 100 bucks a month to own one.

[sqeeek]

LOL exactly why I don't have one :D Great instructable btw, thinking about using this on one of my old laptops... I have an Inspiron 1100, and a Tecra S2...

[sqeeek]

Nice one, I might have to try that. I'm looking for a way to make this old Inspiron 1100 I just got look a bit better...

[hinoai]

Very cool! A less time-consuming (but less impressive) possibility would be to try it with wood-grain contact paper, maybe? When my laptop comes back from the shop, I'm going to give it a go!

[hascher]

What about using the stain that already has poly mixedin?  That might solve the issue of applying poly by itself -and you only have 1 step instead of two.  Love the look!!! Thanks for the great idea!

[cthiele]

Great job for the first instructable!  The firstl look gives the impression that it's much harder to do.  What was the total price of all the pieces?

[Benson1]

It really all depends on the quality of veneer you get.  I know ofsome veneers that can cost up to and over 5000$......But that's veryhigh quality, and in bulk.  You can get a pretty good idea on costby looking up a local veneer place.

And the prices of stain and such vary depending on what you get.....I'mbasically answering your question by not answering your question, sorry.

[kellychap]

This is a great idea and a great instructable.  Thanks - I'll have to see if I can conjure up the courage to do this one!

[Kryptonite]

Yeah I see what you mean, looks amazing but what happens if something goes wrong?

[DracoGT]

The safer approach would be to skip the polyurethane and just sand it, as mentioned in step 8

[Kryptonite]

I'd love to do this but trying to let my mum or dad mod one of their laptops is a near-to-zero chance.

[TechNerd1012]

it seems like you could probably design this into a sleeve-like thing too, so that you can remove it if you ever needed to great instructable btw!

[Wolfin]

The only problem then would be a question of how would you keep them (top/bottom veneers) connected over the hinge.. Maybe could stitch on some fabric but that'd probably insulate the fan exhaust.

[TechNerd1012]

Thats true
Maybe stitch it onto some stretcy fabric, and put some kind of thin mesh (like window screens) over the fan areas

[conrad2468]

 thad prevent it from the emp blast.....but id suggest an old crate or a very large cigar box...

[axydlbaaxr]

Love it!  I've been thinking about something like this for my netbook for a while now.  Great to have some tips!

[adam adkison]

Great Instructable!  Simple and consise. 

[Kai-12]

This is awesome. Somehow I always thought it would be harder to do this, but now I'm seriously considering giving this a go. One question, though: When you put the soaked veneer over the laptop to let it dry in shape, wouldn't that be risky? Would it be possible the laptop would get water damage from that?

[DracoGT]

I dried off the excess water so it was meerly damp, certainly not dripping wet, i was concerned as well... thanks for the comment, ill update this instructable to clarify. I also forgot to mention that its a good idea to remove the battery....just in case.

[Descon]

this is great! I might have to steampunk my laptop now...

[tavetski2701]

Awsome!!! i always wanted to do this but had no idea how.... THANKS

[drhoff]

that is sweet. looks great.

[tomstedham]

That is pretty sweet! I'm thinking about doing that now...