I love my M Class, it's been a rock solid mod since I bought it on first release. Unfortunately it has suffered the same fate as many from that first run.
Well I got sick of looking at it, and was looking around for options when I saw dr_egenius' thread on reddit.........
SX Mini Veneer Project Complete! • /r/electronic_cigarette
And the accompanying imgur album..........
The minute I saw it I knew it was what I wanted, and he left just enough breadcrumbs for me to work out what he did.
The first step was disassembly, I couldn't get enough heat into the negative solder joints without heating the whole thing up too much, so I just snipped the two negative wires.
Then, using a linisher, I slowly took off some of the thickness all the way around to accommodate the veneer. I found I could completely remove the contours without running out of material. This provides a nice even surface to bond the veneer to.
I then cut the veneer oversize, and, ensuring both surfaces where clean, sprayed both the sleeve and the veneer with contact adhesive.
Then I applied steam to the veneer using a hand held steam cleaner. A steam iron or even a boiling jug will do the same job. This makes the veneer very flexible. With the veneer on a flat surface, I then pushed the spine of the sleeve onto the centre of the veneer, and rocked it to one side, then the other, ensuring the veneer bonded to the sleeve smoothly. Then clamped it up for about an hour.
Trimmed, shaped and sanded.
I then applied a CA finish, sanded and polished with micromesh. Soldered the wires back and..........
Now it's not perfect, but this was the first time I have attempted anything "wood" since High School, and I have never done CA before, so I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. It's not up to dr_egenius' standard, but infinitely better than it was.
This was completed over 4 days, however there wouldn't be more than 2 1/2 hrs work in it
I'm not a redditor, but if anyone reading this is, I would appreciate if you could poss on my thanks to dr_egenius, as without him, this would never have happened.
Well I got sick of looking at it, and was looking around for options when I saw dr_egenius' thread on reddit.........
SX Mini Veneer Project Complete! • /r/electronic_cigarette
And the accompanying imgur album..........
The minute I saw it I knew it was what I wanted, and he left just enough breadcrumbs for me to work out what he did.
The first step was disassembly, I couldn't get enough heat into the negative solder joints without heating the whole thing up too much, so I just snipped the two negative wires.
Then, using a linisher, I slowly took off some of the thickness all the way around to accommodate the veneer. I found I could completely remove the contours without running out of material. This provides a nice even surface to bond the veneer to.
I then cut the veneer oversize, and, ensuring both surfaces where clean, sprayed both the sleeve and the veneer with contact adhesive.
Then I applied steam to the veneer using a hand held steam cleaner. A steam iron or even a boiling jug will do the same job. This makes the veneer very flexible. With the veneer on a flat surface, I then pushed the spine of the sleeve onto the centre of the veneer, and rocked it to one side, then the other, ensuring the veneer bonded to the sleeve smoothly. Then clamped it up for about an hour.
Trimmed, shaped and sanded.
I then applied a CA finish, sanded and polished with micromesh. Soldered the wires back and..........
Now it's not perfect, but this was the first time I have attempted anything "wood" since High School, and I have never done CA before, so I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. It's not up to dr_egenius' standard, but infinitely better than it was.
This was completed over 4 days, however there wouldn't be more than 2 1/2 hrs work in it
I'm not a redditor, but if anyone reading this is, I would appreciate if you could poss on my thanks to dr_egenius, as without him, this would never have happened.
