Big and Ferrouchsly cool idea Amigan!
"I have now gathered all important pieces of hardware, and have set about to make my own custom laptop case using a mold made by myself and resin, I have thought of using fiber glass or kevlar reinforced glass to create a smooth and paintable surface."
I make composite Robot parts and you seem comfortable with complex layups also: I fancy my next Amiga Laptop physical design will from a hand-made Silicone mold in Epoxy/Carbon Fiber under vacume. I made a mold of a silicon chip in siliCONE rubber, then pulled a 2HR epoxy male that would defract light like the origional: WOW its accurate!
Smooth indeed!
" My goal is now to be able to replicate my desing for others but that is a very long way off as the proof of concept model is still in pieces."
Keep at it! Make massive with no mind to show intermediate steps in foam/balsa/plaster/paper/plastic prototypage!
Wait till until you've revised it many times better...
P.S. Misc DIY advise: Extract brass screw threaded inserts, fill with nylon and Epoxy into Laminate. "Lost Foam" Vacume bagging. Kevlar has no value nor place in laptops.
Seriously. Not even in <50 Kg Robotics.
Carbon Fiber definately does, as does that showy metalised Fiberglass. I'm sure you'll also find that better attention to molds and propper curing are far far more impressive in the consumer electronics cosmetic perfection areas.
P.P.S. A decade ago I thought I had the ultimate mold of a Top cover to an Amiga1000 mouse in plaster all ready to pour molten pewter into --> As I finnished filling it from the red hot crucible, it suddenly-without-warning split in half, splatting out leaving half a mouse solidified and a silver waterfall and sploooshing flat frozen record of my disaster. Totally motivating me to do better in the process!
:-)
