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Real Wood iPod

Posted by timothy on Tue Jul 05, 2005 03:18 AM
from the other-people's-hobbies dept.
Hardware Hacking Media Media (Apple) Hardware
An anonymous reader submits "People have tried modding their iPods using wood before, but it took the genius of ZapWizard to create the Real Wood iPod. Hand carved from a solid piece of African hardwood to a thickness of just 2mm, the end result has to be seen to be believed. Wood grain is the new Apple White!"
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  • Real Voodoo Ipod? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ray Alloc (835739) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:20AM (#12983564)
    African wood...

  • Improved Audio As Well (Score:5, Funny)

    by nathanh (1214) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:22AM (#12983569) Homepage
    More importantly, the wood enclosure adds a depth and warmth to the music that simply isn't possible with man-made plastics. The resonant frequency of hardwood reduces jitter in the decoding circuit so the result is a higher fidelity experience.

  • Floating iPod (Score:4, Funny)

    by ppolitop (870365) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:23AM (#12983570)
    Does it float? It would be very useful companion while swimming ;) the doc

  • well.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sv-Manowar (772313) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:24AM (#12983573) Homepage Journal
    How long until we can start getting, say... a mahongany powerbook?

    A pine iBook sounds appealing

    • Re:well.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by _Shorty-dammit (555739) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:39AM (#12983615)
      You mean like this? Actually I think this may have been on slashdot, or perhaps it was hardocp, but I recall seeing it a while ago. http://www.zaverio.net/ [zaverio.net]

    • Re:well.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by niittyniemi (740307) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @06:31AM (#12984033) Homepage

      > How long until we can start getting, say... a mahongany powerbook?

      You can't get your hands on real big-leaf mahogany nowadays as it's very rare and there has been talk of protecting it under CITES [cites.org]. Most reputable timber yards won't handle it.

      The various replacements that are sold as "mahogany" are too soft and not dense enough.

      > A pine iBook sounds appealing.

      Again, too soft. What would be nice is one made out of African Blackwood. African blackwood is used for making woodwind instruments and is jet black and very hard wearing. Doesn't need any finish either and is fairly easy to shape with rasps etc.

  • dremel (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:24AM (#12983578)
    Looks great, but 'carving by hand' does not include the use of a dremel rotary tool.

    • Re:dremel (Score:3, Insightful)

      by vikks (256740)
      ...but 'carving by hand' does not include the use of a dremel rotary tool.

      Which leaves us with only nails available for carving by hand. "By knife" is not by hand as well, right?

      • Re:dremel (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kombat (93720)
        Which leaves us with only nails available for carving by hand. "By knife" is not by hand as well, right?

        In woodworking parlance, "by hand" means without the use of powered tools. "Handmade furniture" is built using hand planes instead of jointers and planars, handdrills instead of a drillpress, routing planes instead of a router, hand saws instead of table saws, etc.

  • Touch wheel (Score:5, Interesting)

    by derphilipp (745164) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:25AM (#12983579) Homepage
    I wonder how the touchsensitive selection wheel does work... Yes i read the article... (perhaps i missed something?)

    • Re:Touch wheel (Score:5, Informative)

      by myukew (823565) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:49AM (#12983637) Homepage
      Yes, the touch-wheel still works. Touch-wheels are capacitance sensors, you can learn about them at www.qprox.com

      • Re:Touch wheel (Score:5, Informative)

        by datafr0g (831498) <datafrog@gmail. c o m> on Tuesday July 05 2005, @05:01AM (#12983805) Homepage
        Cheers for the site!

        Here's the blurb for those too lazy to search the site :)

        QWheel(TM) touch wheel technology can be thought of as a 'capacitive potentiometer', where the wiper is a finger. The electrode consists of a simple resistive ring element placed behind the plastic panel; three capacitive QT sensing channels are connected to this ring, and the signals processed to 7-bits of absolute position. The result is output on an SPI serial interface. The device can be set to sense through panels up to 3mm thick, and even through gloves.

        The entire circuit with the electrode ring can be fabricated on a single-sided PCB for very low cost. In many cases the technology is less expensive than mechanical equivalents, and in all cases is more reliable.

  • Wooden IPOD (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rimberg (133307) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:29AM (#12983593) Homepage
    I expect there is a mrket out there for all sorts of wooden covers. Just think of a phone with a wooden cover.

  • Steve Jobs iPod Collection (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:30AM (#12983596)
    Steve Jobs has a 10 x 10 iPod wallhanging in the hall by his office, there are about 25 made with various woods. (Hi gloss maple looks ..killer.. with white buttons.) This one would seemingly fit in but looks to be executed to lower quality than those in the display.

    My absolutely favorite were five iPods in a row done by Dale Chihuly in his Macchia [chihuly.com] glass patterns. Insane !! priceless is more like it.

    • I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)

      by green pizza (159161)
      I call BS until someone posts a photo of this wallhanging. Seriously. If it's really that cool, someone would have taken a snapshot with their cameraphone by now.

      It's not like Steve Jobs invented the iPod or the MP3 player concept himself anyway. The Diamond Rio was one of the originals and AFAIK, Apple outsourced the iPod development to a freelance EE.
    • "This one would seemingly fit in but looks to be executed to lower quality than those in the display."

      Low quality? This mod is phenominal. If you had a team of designers and millions of dollars, you could have what Steve Jobs supposedly has. The rest of us will admire what one guy has done.

  • Lotsa Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nmb3000 (741169) <nmb3000@that-google-mail-site.com> on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:36AM (#12983610) Homepage Journal
    There's enough pictures on there that this could easily go down.

    Here's a Coral Cache [nyud.net] of it to help ease some of the disappearing server Slashdot magic.

  • Termites (Score:5, Funny)

    by axonal (732578) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:41AM (#12983618)
    Great, now I need a termite protection plan for my iPod.

  • Apple wood (Score:5, Funny)

    by sita (71217) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @04:00AM (#12983675)
    I guess apple wood isn't hard enough, but it seems like a natural choice for this particular application.

  • Already exists ! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Arthur B. (806360) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @04:01AM (#12983680)
    woody ipod is nothing new, I'm not impressed. But if the guy showed a sarge ipod...

  • Mmmmm (Score:4, Funny)

    by maharg (182366) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @04:12AM (#12983710) Homepage Journal
    you've got wood, haven't you !

  • Too much time.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Eminence (225397) <akbrandtNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday July 05 2005, @04:12AM (#12983711) Homepage
    Some people have clearly too much time on their hands. Some of those put it to good use and we call them "artists". :)

  • Full SFF Case (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gometro33 (767428) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @04:27AM (#12983740)
    You can check out some of this other work here: ProjectRedwood 3.0 [bit-tech.net]. I've been following it for a while and he says he has to finish by August so expect big updates.

  • technology (Score:3, Funny)

    by Blaaguuu (886777) <blaaguuu@gmail. c o m> on Tuesday July 05 2005, @04:35AM (#12983756)
    Im just waiting for technology to increase enough so we can build these things out of plastic... that will be the day. Now dont get me wrong... wood electronics are great... but wouldnt plastic be awesome?

  • Would you do something like this? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Reverant (581129) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @05:34AM (#12983859) Homepage
    Because I know iWood!

  • durability (Score:3, Informative)

    by real_smiff (611054) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @05:45AM (#12983890)
    nice, but isn't the long term problem that the wood is likely to crack or split, either just naturally or from impact. he said it already split four times when making it. 2mm thick wood, i'm not sure how tough that "would" (ahem) be. i guess there are ways of treating wood to make it stand up but how reliable it would be to mass produce i don't know... looks nice now though :)

    • Re:Wood Ipod (guilt) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by axonal (732578) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:34AM (#12983605)
      Plastic isn't any better, its made using oil.

      • "No War for Hardwood!" (Score:5, Informative)

        by billstewart (78916) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:52AM (#12983648) Journal
        Actually, deforestation really is a serious problem, and decorative hardwoods are often from much more environmentally sensitive areas than pine and some of the other softwoods that grow efficiently in tree-farms. People who like fancy guitars and other musical instruments have to deal with this issue also.

        Some softwood types are also sensitive - old-growth redwoods forests and high mountain areas. Forest Service roadbuilding typically costs about 10 times as much as the value of the wood that gets logged using those roads, so it's essentially subsidizing the destruction of old-growth forests; the Clinton administration belatedly got around to banning it in many areas, and the Bush Administration rapidly re-authorized it.

    • Re:Wood Ipod (guilt) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by onion2k (203094) on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:56AM (#12983663) Homepage
      Wood is a lot easy to sustain than plastic. You can plant new trees and harvest them in 20 - 100 years. What's more, chopping down trees and planting new ones is actually better for the environment than simply leaving the trees there. As a tree grows it generates more oxygen and takes up more CO2 than an old tree.

      Plastic, which comes from oil, takes a bit longer. Recycled plastic is a possibility, but that doesn't generate new oxygen or decrease CO2 levels. It still takes energy to do the recycling process.

    • Re:Wood Ipod (guilt) (Score:3, Informative)

      by bmo (77928)

      Plastic: Made from Oil.

      Metal: Mined out of the ground, heated with electricity generated from Oil, or Polluting Coal, or *heavens* NuCuLar energy, or River Blocking Dams.

      Wood: Actually a non-perishable resource, if the right species are used. Maple is good.

      That said, you can obsess over whatever you want, that's your right, but be aware that there's no such thing as "clean" technology. Even if you go back to making plastic out of wood pulp, that is not guilt free.

      And forget about going tech-less. The

    • Re:Wood Ipod (guilt) (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Inda (580031) <slash.20.inda@spamgourmet.com> on Tuesday July 05 2005, @04:41AM (#12983765) Journal
      I used to use mahogany at work to make full size models of car parts. Lots and lots of mahogany. Lots and lot of waste (although a great deal of it found its way into my home).

      People used to say similar things to you about harming the Brazilian rain forests but it's simply not true. The mahogany from the rainforests was never good enough for making models; it was only good enough for making crap furniture. Our wood came from plantations and this was 15 years ago.

      I think its all been given a bad spin. Most of the time Pine is used and you can almost watch that grow. ...I also used plastic. Horrible nasty stuff full of carcinogens. Expanded polystyrene made flies go docile. Scarier than wood.
    • That's why I like plastic.


      Because it's made from oil?

      • Re:Wood Ipod (guilt) (Score:5, Informative)

        by rah1420 (234198) <rah1420@gmail.com> on Tuesday July 05 2005, @06:02AM (#12983938)
        There's not a way to make plastics without oil, but there's a way to make oil out of organic wastes [kantor.com] which can, of course, be used to make more plastics.

        This was some pretty cool stuff.

        • Re:Wood Ipod (guilt) (Score:3, Insightful)

          by patio11 (857072)
          OK, basic conservation of energy: unless you're feeding the process with juice from a nuclear plant or some other semi-renewable energy source you're just transferring the energy expenditure from the non-rewewable fossil fuel you used to make the plastic to the non-renewable fossil fuel you used to provide the energy to make the oil to make the plastic. Except you lose efficiency on the intermediate steps.
      • "Immediately, as a result of this rather provocative article, there will be a rush of people going to go buy rare wood."

        "These people and their iPods are killing millions of people and destroying the Earth."

        Oh spare me, troll.

        And how much wood do you need to make an iPod faceplate? A few cubic inches?

        You deserve to be tweaked, but good.

        I want one of these. I haven't justified the price for the 92XL...yet.

        http://www.gerstnerusa.com/Exotic.htm [gerstnerusa.com]

        But look at the prices!

        The following 3 chests are avail

    • Re:Not sure about this. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jawtheshark (198669) * <slashdot@noSpam.jawtheshark.com> on Tuesday July 05 2005, @03:54AM (#12983655) Homepage Journal
      I'm sorry, but I find this lack of respect. I have some carpenters amongs my wifes family, and what they make is very much different than the IKEA stuff you can get. (Of course, it is way out of my monetary league). I think that they'd love this. I'll probably show them this next time I see them. One of them was even interested when I opened his computer and showed how easy it was to assemble. He immediately thought of a wooden custom made case... go figure, you have geeks in every segment ;-)

      Carpenters can make magnificent things out of wood. Okay, wooden objects (like this) are for everyone, but some people want wooden inlays in their cars too. I think that would be comparable.

      I think it's a great mod. Still, I wonder how the wheel works. (As others have already posted) I don't have an iPod myself (yeah, a Shuffle, but that doesn't count), so I don't really know how they work.

      • "Okay, wooden objects (like this) are for everyone, but some people want wooden inlays in their cars too. I think that would be comparable."

        Wood inlays consist of thin slices of wood covering a substrate. Wood inlays are generally used for decorating a flat object and it is possible to have curved wood inlays. This iPod case is a three dimensional carving made from one piece of wood, not an inlay.

        Wood carving and wood inlays are both techniques that can be used to create beautiful works of art, and both

      • Re:Touchpad? (Score:3, Informative)

        by jayzee (734710)

        Nope its a 4th gen [mp3.com]. This is from the creator in the article discussion:

        As many have mis-read. This is not a old generation iPod with a scroll wheel. This is a 4th generation iPod with touch click wheel. It is held together by little tabs.

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