Retro Sci-Fi Computer Desk Build!

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] yeah I know it's pure madness [Music] hello guys and welcome to a new episode of the post-apocalyptic inventor in this episode I'm trying to show you the results of about half a year of work and the idea here was to convert an ordinary desk that I had gotten for free from an old office into a computer desk reminiscent of set pieces that we have seen in classic science-fiction films such as 2001 a Space Odyssey or alien from 1979 and this entire project actually started when I was playing the alien isolation video game that is based on alien from 1979 and in that game I saw well a kind of desk and I thought that maybe I could build something like this but in real life with some degree of practicality that would still look as if it came from one of these movies and here is an early concept drawing of what I'm trying to accomplish here we have this funky-looking curvature in the front of the desk then at least two screens one still based on old-fashioned CRT technology and one well a modern flat screen for a modern-day computer and then just random cool-looking light effects added to the front panels so this is basically the concept that I was going for but well as in any creative process this initial idea changed a little bit here and there over time but just stick with me here and let me show you what I came up with so even though this undertaking was about creating something entirely new it is still partially an upcycling project and started with this 1990s office desk made from wood and aluminium parts I acquired several similar desks for free last year when a local law office had closed down and I want to use all of them as the basis for my own furniture creations with measurements of 160 by 6 see centimeters it was not deep enough though to both act as a support for the two screens and still offer enough surface area to be used as a desk and that is why I took a second used sable top and decided to cut it in half it was attached to the desk with two by fours from underneath and because the second tabletop wasn't even long enough I had to complete the surface area with a third time little piece of plywood here now I know that many of the woodwork is among you will laugh about this but it's really started as a first-of-its-kind proof-of-concept approach that was so far running on a non-existent budget so I used whatever offcuts and leftovers I had at hand and in just a few minutes I will show you how I built a proper support for this extension of the tabletop but at this point I really cared more about getting a general feeling for the required size and shape of the desk as well as planning the right size and shape of the curvature in the front pairing this kind of stuff on a sheet of paper or even in a design program will only get you so far the best method in my opinion is to actually have it right before you by the way no design software was used in the planning or construction of this desk at any point in time the reason why I really like these office desks here for this type of project is that they actually have two tabletops forming a type of shelf in between and this will allow me to easily mimic the massive appearance of the desk I saw in alien isolation for that purpose a jig saw was used in order to cut the two plates into the exact same shape now I cut aluminum sheets to the right and I drilled a series of holes into them I'm using these holes to tighten the sheets around the edges of the tabletop with lots of wood screws someone else would maybe have done this with thin plywood or flexible plastic parts and glue but I'm actually more used to working with metal than with other materials and this is why aluminum was my natural choice here later in the video filler and paint will be used to give the front of the desk a more massive and monolithic appearance and like before I took a practical approach to find out if this desk was actually suited to sit at and I did this by playing a video game while using an old CRT that I was planning to incorporate into the design later as well and getting an early impression of what the desk would actually look like with a CRT installed I proceeded by building a console that would sit on the tabletop holding this TV from around 1980 in its front panel in order to do that I took the television apart and drew the outlines of its front on to yet another plywood offcut since I figured that I would be unable to ever get a nice surface finish from this raw piece of wood I also did the same thing with yet another aluminium sheet and we will get back to that in just a few minutes for now I once more use the jigsaw to make a hole that would fit directly around the TV's enclosure and after reassembling the TV I glued it permanently to this new front panel using ms polymer and while the polymer was drying I used the remains of that tabletop I had cut in half before to create these angled pieces that will give the console its stability and hold the front panels firmly in place but before I could proceed to actually install the screens and thus add more weight to the tabletop extension in the back it was time to build a proper support structure and I did the following I removed the old plastic feet from the aluminum legs and then completely incorporated the old desk into a new structure made from planed two-by-fours this support structure in the back will carry almost all the weight OSB offcuts can be used as shelves to carry the computer and other electronics later in the video then hdf boards will be used to hide the two-by-fours and the shelves under the desk now with the stability issues out of the way I could start to install the screens the console holding the monitors is a self-contained unit that can be attached to and then detached again from the actual desk this will make it much easier to move this computer desk around with the adhesive drive the CRT TVs front panel is connected to those angled side walls and additionally stabilized with two by fours and now it was time to add the modern LCD right next to the old television I bought the screen a few years ago as a used item for 30 euros it's capable of 1080p resolution but only has a VGA input I don't care much since all my graphics cards still have analog outputs so it's not a great monitor but well good enough for my purposes but what I never liked about it is the shape of the enclosure and I'm actually happy to have found a good reason to just cut off as ugly Stan because it otherwise would have made it impossible to glue the screen to the front panel and speaking about the front panel it's made from two smaller offcuts and here it really would have been much easier to just spend a few more euros and by a panel of plywood that would have been a little larger I really had to operate that old cheapo jigsaw really carefully to make the two parts of the panel fit together an additional hole needed to be cut in order to reach the controls of the screen as well the two sections of the panel were carefully positioned and then glued to the screen and after another waiting period the LCD was added to the console again being additionally stabilized with a 2x4 from the backside and this is the point in time where I actually made my last update video on this desk a month ago but still a lot needed to be done to finish the desk okay so why was it in the first place that I had left free space on the left and right side of the screens rather than leading the front panels all the way from the left to the right edge of the tabletop well let's take a look at some examples from film history to explain why this desk from the Sevastopol station in alien isolation has an angled side panel so that's this console from the cockpit of the spaceship Nostromo and so does this one and then take a look at these things here to the left and right of these seats in a spacecraft from 2001 a Space Odyssey from 1968 I didn't even realize it consciously when watching these films but when I designed my own desk I found that having interesting geometrical shapes added to a piece of furniture makes it look much more extraordinary and futuristic it also allows you to reach more control pounds from your seat compared to one large flat front panel and that is why I decided to add these side panels or shoulders as I have referred to them before these shoulders are again independent units that can be detached from the structure while the lower less steeply angled portion was supposed to hold control switches jacks and maybe some signal lights the upper section is designed to hold the LED matrix panels that I built for this project a few months ago and just in case you haven't seen that video let me briefly explain what these panels are I took some scrap aluminum cut a number of folds into them and glued 10 millimeter LEDs inside those holes one panel has 100 the other 200 LEDs then a programmable matrix driver board was added and connected to an Arduino the panels were specifically designed to add an unusual-looking visual effect to this very computer console the shoulders themselves really nothing more than wooden enclosures made from plywood offcuts the hardest part was getting these irregular geometrical shapes just right and I admit that it would have been much easier with CAD software and a CNC router rather than with pencil paper and an old jigsaw at the end of the day this is what this channel is about making something cool using simple inexpensive methods that on the other hand can only be made up for if you're willing to learn and put in extra work every step of the way in the next few steps aluminum sheets were cut out and glued to the front panels to allow for a more resilient and uniform front panel then filler was applied where it hadn't been yet and after it had hardened it was ground of trying to get smooth rounded edges wherever possible as an intermediate step poles were then also cut in the lower sections of the shoulders where then these already cut to shape aluminium panels would be installed and the idea was that additional switches or jacks could be installed here making the desk maybe more usable in a real lab environment and after that the shoulders were painted using a paint gun and after cleaning the desk it was covered in paper and tape in order to protect vital parts before here a white paint job was applied as well and now the paint needs to dry which took a long time here in the faint November Sun so while the paint was drying I focused on finishing another vital part of this project the mysterious red light what light you asked well don't you know that every supercomputer or AI needs a mysterious red light that allows you to stare right into the abyss that is it's cold and calculating mind in case you didn't see my video on that one either let me explain what I did here and by the way this and the other video with the matrices in the video description I took this red signal light and then prepared a circuit board with a hundred or so self blinking red LEDs forming random complex looking patterns which my opinion is further increased by the reflexes in the diffuser lens of the signal light and I have decided to install the mysterious red light on top of the console and hence I will have to build another enclosure for that again plywood offcuts are cut with a jigsaw and connected together filler in paint are applied and left to dry the red light is later glued on in the meantime white hdf boards are used to give the support structure a more monolithic look and to hide the electronics that will be installed in the back and now that everything is dried it's time for the big day all the tape and paper is removed the surfaces are cleaned shoulders panels and the mysterious red light are installed and everything is connected [Music] you [Music] so guys that was my first attempt at building retro-futuristic furniture that might still have some kind of use and if it's only recreational use in the real world and well I for one I'm really satisfied with it there are a few things that we still have to cover a few things to be improved for example well I could talk a little bit about the actual technology involved I still have to build a better computer for this and one of the LED panels is actually not active right now because I have well kind of misplaced my other are the we know I just can't find it at this moment so that could be something that we can talk about and maybe one of the next two episodes and and there are some things still open here that I haven't decided on yet see these panels here these aluminum panels on these side shoulders I first thought I could install some switches in here or maybe a power supply it's why I have these banana Jack's down here but then I found out that it's actually very good as just like a storage compartment here that's the Nintendo GameCube inside and well it's actually very practical to store things away and not like disturb the very clean and simplistic looks of this thing so what do you think should I do with these panels what would you integrate into these side shoulders here please just let me know in the comment section and if you like this little video then please let me know it and I would really appreciate a little feedback here man I put so much work into this and I don't want to say it but if you dislike this then please never show up again well if you like this give it a like if you want to see more of this kind of stuff then visit my patreon on the patreon com dpi and maybe support this channel and I really hope to see you soon guys good bye

Channel: The Post Apocalyptic Inventor

Views: 99,790

Rating: 4.9267111 out of 5

Keywords: Alien, Alien(1979), Aliens, Star Trek TNG, Star Trek, 2001, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Science-Fiction, Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi Art, Set Design, Set Pieces, prop, props, propmaking, sci-fi prop, Alien prop, casemodding, Fallout, fallout 1, fallout 2, fallout 3, fallout 4, fallout new vegas, fallout 76, hobby electronics, diy desk, diy prop, retro desk, diy retro, crt, game cube, retrofuturism

Id: 8YcKcyEtShk

Length: 17min 26sec (1046 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 10 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

The use of LED's is ingenious. What a cool result.

[u/olliec420]

Damn, that’s sick. The crt is a great touch.

[u/IMR800X]

The end result is more '60s Dr Who than Aliens.

[u/JohnIan101]

"I see the problem here [below the unit].

Under these motherboards was a hidden dip switch. It was switched to Evil. And not regular Evil, but Chaotic Evil."