Tag: farnsworth

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More than just an oversized IPhone

This is my final wrap up post for my Altoids tin Farnsworth.

farnsworth - front

 

I’ve decided that for projects that span more than two posts, I want to give more of a real goodbye.

Both the projects and I deserve it, in my humble opinion.

Here are the links to each post, in order from inception to completion.

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Oh Farnsworth, my Farnsworth

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Busy Bee

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Elbow Grease

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Loving the Fugue

farnsworth - left

I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with the horse

farnsworth - top

Proceed with the splaining.

The Farnsworth has fascinated me since I started to watch the show. I’m not actually a smartphone user, so at the time, it was really neat to have a communication device that was more face to face.

Yes, I know that there are apps like Facetime and Skype that will let you talk face to face, but I’m not quite up to date with technology.

Some of my thoughts on the construction:

Next time I want to make an altoids sized prop, I should weigh my choices better. If I’m going to cover the lid with something, like felt or paper, then an Altoids tin is fine, as the embossed lid will be covered. But if I’m just going to paint it, then I should find a tin without embossing.

It’s very neat that underneath the covering of the tin is a somewhat glossy coat. It didn’t even feel all that scratchy even with the sandpaper.

Rustoleum smells. But it does cover well, and I really enjoy the shiny coat from the glossy black paint. I do need to buy a few extra paint brushes next time. Or decide to do painting like this when I have a sink that is not white to wash the brush in. White porcelain and black paint don’t exactly work together. In my previous experience, at least. I decided not to wash out my one paintbrush, so each time I did a new coat the brush bristles were less and less bendable.

Wire requires proper tools to bend and work with it. I have bought some since, but I now definitely know that eyeglasses cases and nail clippers are not suitable.

Check the shipping address to make sure you aren’t sending your purchase to one of the other many addresses you may have on file. It happened to me… three times now. In the past month?

Realize in advance that cardboard is a wonderful substance, and though its not underappreciated, it should be acknowledged more often.

Glass can be quite heavy.baby-farnsworth.jpg

But all in all, the Farnsworth looks really good in my hand, and even in its diminutive state compared to show-accurate ones, I think its a pretty good build!

Onwards!

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Proceed with the ‘splaining

Did Claudia’s Farnsworth not disintegrate in the penultimate episode of this season? And then reappear in the season finale?

farnsworth - front

Well, whatever happened, I’m finished my version.

farnsworth - lens

I received my lens yesterday, which nearly completed my prep.

I still had not managed to solve the problem of the combination lock, as I needed to see how big the lens would be within the tin before I could move on to cutting up the microphone tip and making a combination lock.

farnsworth - tools

There were a few circles of the microphone mesh, and a few ideas about the lock that circled through my head.

With a little work from my gold paint pen, I ended up using a rubber piece that I had cut off the microphone while I was taking it apart.

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The plan came together quite quickly last night.

farnsworth - notebook cover

 

First the cutting out of the black plastic piece. I had the cover from an old black Fivestar notebook handy, which I use to keep wall decals safe as I travel to and from dorms and college and such.

fansworth - mic cut

I had some extra space in the bottom of the tin that I could raise the plate structure up, so it looked more 3-d and still manage to close. I did this with a few layers of cardboard. I had to cut out a space for the wire mesh, though, so it would sit flush with the cardboard surface.

Then I cut out the circle to reveal the wire mesh, and glued on the “tuner.”

farnsworth - lens glue

The lens needed to be glued to some paper, to give it that blank screen look.

The assembly continued, and all pieces were glued together with super glue, which currently is my only adhesive option.

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And I got my finished product! Do you like it?

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Edited: As of right now this is the end of this project. Follow it from its inception, to further planning, to sanding and painting, to the wirework, to the gold detailing, to (this) the gluing of all the components together.

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I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with the horse.

So I’m continuing work on my Farnsworth as I’m waiting for my new serger to decide it wants to sew.

If I have the option of not handsewing, I’ll avoid it.

With very few exceptions.

So I got the wires all glued in, though I’m not sure how permanent the super glue will end up being.

We’ll see!

farnsworth - left

I received my gold paint pen, and almost immediately got to work on some detail work.

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The handwriting inside is a little too off center for my liking, but it will do for this project. If I ever redo the Farnsworth, I’ll be a little more exact and a bit more careful.

farnsworth - mic

Feel free to ignore my artsy photography choice above. I’m working on it.

Also I took apart a broken microphone, and will be using the microphone wire mesh for the same basic purpose on my version.

I just need to figure out how to cut it.

Perhaps I need some wire cutters.

Edited: As of right now this project is finished. Follow it from its inception, to further planning, to sanding and painting, to the wirework, to (this) the gold detailing, to the gluing of all the components together.

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Loving the Fugue

I’d certainly not want to clean out the Warehouse’s neutralizer annex.

My first coat of paint is complete!

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Yesterday I had completed the coat on the outside of the tin, and today I painted the inside.

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Here’s the wire that I had bought to imitate the squiggle pattern on the left side of the Farnsworth.

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Did you know there are 13 of those squiggles? I thought it was clever.

farnsworth - cutting-implements

I did my best to straighten the wire out, and then I clipped a piece off. I don’t have my wire cutters on hand at the moment, so I grabbed my scissors and tried my best. Then that didn’t work out, so I brought out a trusty craft knife (which I was super careful with, by the way). Still needing something stronger, I used my nail clippers, which did the trick with some bending at the connection point.

I managed to get the plastic coating off of the wire with the craft knife, and started bending. I ended up using a glasses case for some leverage.

farnsworth - bending

I’m only using seven squiggles because my wire is thicker than I had thought, and this many provides the right aesthetic appeal.

farnsworth - finished-squiggle

If the paint was dry enough, I would have arranged them on the tin for you, but unfortunately its still a bit wet.

I still haven’t quite decided how I’m going to imitate the tube from side to side and the rubber washer like thing, but I will be working on that.

Edited: As of right now this project is finished. Follow it from its inception, to further planning, to sanding and painting, to (this) the wirework, to the gold detailing, to the gluing of all the components together.

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Elbow Grease

It’s hard work to sandpaper the finish off an tin.

Satisfying, but it requires a fair amount of elbow grease.

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I took a trip to the hardware store yesterday to pick up some supplies.

I started using the sandpaper on the tin, starting on the bottom, which cleaned up fairly well.farnsworth - dsc09333

 

The sides of the tin were much harder, with the curves and the lid hinges.

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I gave up mid-way on the sides and started on the top.

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Once I was finished with the entire outside, I scored the inside a bit with sandpaper.

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If you haven’t gotten altoids in a while, you may not know that the top of the tin is actually raised, both with the banner, and the word Altoids. I want to have a Farnsworth, not a Farnsworth masquerading as an Altoids tin.

I tried lightly pounding the tin with a mallet to lower the raised part. Key word being tried. I think I flattened it a bit, but I decided to stop when it wasn’t working out very well.

farnsworth -

 

Then I started the painting.

I looked at Claudia’s Farnsworth a little more in a few different episodes and realized that the casing is entirely black, inside and out,  so I had bought some Rust-oleum paint and started working! I’ve got the first coat on the outside, and tomorrow will be working on the inside. Maybe two coats, and it’ll be good to go!

Then comes the inside work, which will be the fun part!

Edited: As of right now this project is finished. Follow it from its inception, to further planning, to (this) sanding and painting, to the wirework, to the gold detailing, to the gluing of all the components together.

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Busy Bee

So you know when you’re buying stuff on Amazon and you just need like twenty cents to get your Free Super Saver Shipping?

That was me today. So I bought one of these. And I don’t know what it is. Or how I’ll use it.

But I will find a way to!

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I bought an altoids tin, and am working on eating the candy up, so I can use the tin.

We’ll see how long that takes!

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Do you see that tiny looking lens in the center of the Farnsworth? I’m assuming that is the camera lens, otherwise I would have to wonder how the image is projected to the other person’s Farnsworth.

I’m hoping to use a scrapbook bubbles for that lens, on top of of a mirror-like paper piece. This will then attach to the black plastic I’m hoping to use for the black top layer of the right side of the device.

By scrapbook bubble, I mean one of those little lenses that you can put over pictures to make that part of the picture a little bit magnified.

Well, I’m sorry to report that I haven’t worked on the sweater. But I will. It’ll be happening. I hope.

But I’m happy to report that I’ve finished the altoids, and I’m ready to start working on my Farnsworth!

Edited: As of right now this project is finished. Follow it from its inception, to (this) further planning, to sanding and painting, to the wirework, to the gold detailing, to the gluing of all the components together.

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Oh Farnsworth, my Farnsworth

So I want to make a miniature Farnsworth for my Claudia costume, because I’ve always adored them. They’re fantastically intricate and such a cool idea, and Claudia’s is the coolest.

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Artie gave Claudia Farnsworth’s Farnsworth. The creator’s personal creation!

It has such lovely black smooth finishes and gold/copper details, with what looks like a combination lock cover as a dial, and the top of a stage microphone for… the microphone.

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My Farnsworth will not be full sized, as I don’t have the funds for a larger scale endeavor, and I’ll probably make it out of an altoid’s tin, or something like one. So a much smaller scale, but still pretty fun.

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There is this wonderful tutorial from TLC about de-finishing an altoids tin to create a steampunk tin.

I’ll be painting the left side black, while leaving the right side as is, with a black piece of cardstock or a stiffer plastic sheet for the center divider line.

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I’ve had some luck with making glue “lenses” in the past, though never on this scale. Normally it’s just a bit of Elmer’s glue that has accidentally dropped on a table or something while I’ve been crafting, and it comes up as one nice circle. An alternative could be finding an eyeglass lens, or perhaps the lens from a kid’s telescope or kaleidoscope.

I’ll be getting some copper wire to recreate the pattern on the left, perhaps with a black rubber pipe fitting. I’m not quite sure what to use for the tube right now, but if I take a trip to the hardware store, I’m sure I’ll find something.

For the inner workings of the Farnsworth, I’m planning on raiding the hardware store for wires, washers, dowels, etc. I’m hoping to get hold of a real used watch battery, but I’m planning on faking the other batteries with dowels and little blocks of wood.

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I’m planning on getting either a metallic Sharpie, or some other sort of metallic marker to write and draw out the lovely details of the Farnsworth.

So that’s my Farnsworth plan. I’m hoping to start work on it soon, even if it is just in patches. I’ll keep you updated!

Edited: As of right now this project is finished. Follow it from (this) its inception, to further planning, to sanding and painting, to the wirework, to the gold detailing, to the gluing of all the components together.