A Gift for a Seven Year Old - Painted PS2

So my friend's little brother turned seven on December 5th, and I wanted to give him something special without breaking the bank. His family lives in a trailer and consists of two older sisters and his Mom who works full time at Meijer barely keeping the roof over their heads. His father had just walked out of the house and left him about a month ago and he is hiding any sorrow very well. Yeah, the kid is tough, but is still a kid nonetheless. Considering his Mother could not afford much this year, I decided to soft mod his PS2 for him so he could play some of his favorite games without the discs. It has been about 4 years since I did anything with a PS2, so I was surprised to discover FMCB, which has come far from the old MC exploits. Of course, it took me about 4 hours to get it working due to having a non-compatible flash drive, but I finished it.

He only had one controller and its up button did not work, so I bought him three more, a multitap, network adapter, eyetoy, and provided my own flash drive and hard drive for the boot, oh, and paint, totaling $45.

No need to talk much about the boot, I just got him a couple games, put SEGA, Nintendo, and SNES on it and customized the menu to say 'Bareck's Games', which is his name, and made them green. The real feat in my opinion was painting the case, which he could care less about.

I had planned to write his name on it, but failed and decided to go the easy route and make lines with some striping tape. I only had about 40 minutes to tape it so I had no chance at making any cool design with no experience under my belt.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g3...a/SAM_0097.jpg

I then used fluorescent green paint to coat the PS2, network adapter, and the controller ends (so he knows which are his when playing with friends).

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g3...a/SAM_0100.jpg

The end result was fine, but after so many coats, the paint felt like tape so I decided to put a clear coat over it to smooth it out and protect it from flaking off. This part scared me as I had NEVER used canned clear and I was painting in 30 degree weather. I put a first coat on and it looked great going on, but after three minutes, it was doing something weird and became bubbled in a way. I crossed my fingers, put on more coat, and went to bed. This was the result in the morning.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g3...a/SAM_0103.jpg

It says to let it dry in normal temperatures for around 24 hours to avoid finger printing, but I did not have the time and had to put it together at 20 hours in. As I was putting it together, without knowing, I left a large thumb print on the side, but it still looked okay.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g3...a/SAM_0113.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g3...a/SAM_0114.jpg

This is the END result. I was kind of upset that I ran out of tape and was unable to stripe the network adapter and tape off the memory cards and multitap, but the 7 year old could care less.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g3...a/SAM_0117.jpg

The end all was fine, I just wish I would have had more time. Of course, I was the one that decided to paint the thing the day before his birthday... Haha, well, if anyone ever attempts this, just remember to let it dry for a LONG time after sealing it with gloss. Oh, and have fun doing it, I know it did.

-Cody T.

Also! The stripes are on both the front and the back and it was painted to be a stand up PS2 and my mind did not think that a 7 year old would be better off with it laying on its side, but whatever, it is still a nice looking piece of machine.

That is some nice work for an amateur :)
I hope the kid is ecstatic with his gift.

Just one question though.......why green? :p

Cody_T, you are one of the good people on this earth. You effort and kindness moved me alot.

It's a cool looking PS2. Bareck will for sure be a happy kid.

Very cool indeed, I wouldn't have the patience to do that considering it's recipient, but that really is a nice thing to do for a kid at christmas!

Why green..? It is his favorite color. I planned on using just a regular Krylon Fusion green, but my local hardware store only had dark forest green colors that would not have shown up too well on the PS2's black background. I am not a big fan of green either, but it was his gift. When I had my PS2 I did a black and white scheme because I love colliding contrasting colors.

NBK64, thank you. He had no idea what to think of it when I gave it to him over the weekend. At first, he had his friend over who is not too nice and his friend drilled it in his head that he was not lucky and that he should not be grateful for it (his friend is 9 or 10); so after Bareck said he was so lucky and happy for it, and being shot down by his older friend, he kinda just looked sad. I had to explain to the little guy that his PS2 is now his own and that it is okay to be somewhat proud of it and to feel lucky. Now he is just confused, but at least he has some fun playing it.

Xeauron, that is exactly what his older sister said, but I was bored and I wanted his PS2 to show that even though his friends may have more money, more toys, more whatever, he can look at it and remember he has someone looking out for him especially since his Pops left.

By the way, I am 19, as too dispel some creepiness, and I hang with his older sisters and his family a lot. His drunk father came up to me one night, brought me outside, and said that he might be going away and that I NEED to look out for his son and be like an older brother/father; so I am doing what I can to at least be some kind of male figure in his life that has a positive influence on his life instead of his drunk and high father.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cody_T

Why green..? It is his favorite color. I planned on using just a regular Krylon Fusion green, but my local hardware store only had dark forest green colors that would not have shown up too well on the PS2's black background. I am not a big fan of green either, but it was his gift. When I had my PS2 I did a black and white scheme because I love colliding contrasting colors.

NBK64, thank you. He had no idea what to think of it when I gave it to him over the weekend. At first, he had his friend over who is not too nice and his friend drilled it in his head that he was not lucky and that he should not be grateful for it (his friend is 9 or 10); so after Bareck said he was so lucky and happy for it, and being shot down by his older friend, he kinda just looked sad. I had to explain to the little guy that his PS2 is now his own and that it is okay to be somewhat proud of it and to feel lucky. Now he is just confused, but at least he has some fun playing it.

Xeauron, that is exactly what his older sister said, but I was bored and I wanted his PS2 to show that even though his friends may have more money, more toys, more whatever, he can look at it and remember he has someone looking out for him especially since his Pops left.

By the way, I am 19, as too dispel some creepiness, and I hang with his older sisters and his family a lot. His drunk father came up to me one night, brought me outside, and said that he might be going away and that I NEED to look out for his son and be like an older brother/father; so I am doing what I can to at least be some kind of male figure in his life that has a positive influence on his life instead of his drunk and high father.

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I take my hat off to you mate I really do, that's an amazing thing to do. It takes a real man to stick to his convictions, it's a shame there aren't more fellas out there like you my friend.

My brother has taken on a kid who's father run off, and after a lot of daddies his mum went out with my bro is the only one who spends time with him and teaches him about life ect. He had one of the most memorable Christmases last year and he's slowly becoming a happier, more outgoing kid.

You can't imagine the impact a decent male role model can have on a young lad.

This is a cliché, but kids can be so cruel. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that there's a huge portion of jealousness from his "friends".

I understand that he's confused right now. But as you said, he has some fun playing it. And in the long run he will shine, sparkle and enjoy his new cool PS2 to the MAX. In his eyes you're way cooler than both of his "friends" combined.

Cody_T, I'm happy that this world have people like you. As Xeauron said; I take my hat off to you.