HAL-9000 and Time Travel

While I was sick over labor day I had a chance to catch up on the multitude of movies I had DVR'd.  One of the movies in the queue was 2010 which is a sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.  I do love me some sci fi movies.  Anyway, that kind of movie is great reference material for Halloween props.  2010 reminded me of the HAL-9000 unit and I got to thinking about trying to make a similar prop.

Before I get to that, though, I have something else to show.

See?  I really have been crocheting.  The pattern is coming along slowly but it is being made.  You'l have to be a little patient with this one.  The end product is going to be quite large and so is going to take a while to get it finished.  But, I wanted to let everyone know that I haven't forgotten about the whole patterns thing, I promise.  Right, back to the props.

A few weeks ago I had purchased a small clock to take the works out of for another prop but I had saved the clock case.  Good thing, too.  It turns out it was absolutely perfect for what I needed. 

A bit of high gloss black spray paint and a red LED later and voila!  Something that looks like a blend of HAL-9000 and GLaDOS (the computer/villain from Portal, for all you non-nerds).  

There was something in the look of it that wasn't quite right so I hit the white case with some silver.  That didn't do it, either.  It was too shiny.  Since I had some stainless steel spray paint (I really do love Krylon, they have a paint for everything it seems) I put a layer of that over the silver.  Much improved.  Then I got some glass frosting spray paint (Krylon again.  I really did mean it when I said they had a paint for everything) and used that on the clear plastic cover.

This will be closer to how the prop will actually be displayed.  
I plan to hang it from the wall with a command hook.

It really is a great little prop.  I like it so much, in fact, that I'm making a few more.  Since I broke the works in the first clock (it wouldn't stop alarming and the bit I took out was, apparently, the wrong one.  The clock stopped alarming, but it wouldn't tick either) I needed to get another clock anyway.  I picked up 2 more, another good call as I'm still fighting with one of the two.  It won't surrender the clock face insert.  I may need to get boy hands to help me, mine don't seem to be strong enough for the last clock.  I was able to take  the other one apart and use it to finish the other prop and make another HAL-9000 eye.

Since I keep alluding to the inner bits of the clock I figured I should show you what what I did with the works.  Yay, double prop post!

That's my $1 find of epic amzingness, if you missed that post.  I found it at a garage sale a while back and all I had to do was put works in it.  I had a devil of a time finding works with hands small enough for the clock face.  The only ones small enough that I could find are the ones I used, that's why the hands are silver.  It was the only color option and I didn't want to chance the hands sticking or scraping if I painted them.  You're probably wondering why I had to disarm the alarm clock if all I did was use the works.  Well, that's not quite all I did.  You can't see it from the picture, because pictures are stills and I'm far to lazy to make a video, but that clock is currently running backward.  I found an instructable that shows how to make a clock run counter-clockwise.  You can find it here.  It's really very easy.  I've successfully made 3 clocks that go backward without breaking any of them in the process.  Even the clock I eventually broke ran backward with no trouble before I took out the wrong bit and killed it.  Of course, now I can't see a quartz clock and not want to take it apart and make it go the wrong way.  (-:  It's good fun.