That picture took too long to load, save to say Bush sucks but I'm over it.

For Meg's 19th birthday, I made her a duct tape jacket. It's pretty rad, I consider myself a connesiur of the duct tape arts. Here is my tale.

Supplies. Notice the virgin jacket I pulled out of the thrift shops. Perfect size for Meg.

It begins, like the mirror covering Neo's arm in the Matrix!

You can keep drugs in the pockets.

Flash forward to when I'm done covering it in silver tape. It's awesome.

Slightly closer.

Poof! Outlined in green to give it pizzaz!

Pretty badass, huh?

The back.

It's the details that make this thing pop. Hope you appreciate my work!

I used to use the Xecuter 2.3b lite mod chip, but recently the good people at team Xecuter came out with the Xecuter 3 mod chip. Installation is so much easier, especially from the software side of things. There's a lot more features, and much more possibility for expansion. So, since I install chips for so many of my friends, (though I never install them past the illegal software stage) I got a pristine board to show you a full X3 installation.

To install, unscrew the 6 bottom screws with a T-20 torx wrench.

Using a T-10 torx wrench, remove the screw from the middle of the hard drive assembly and the 2 from the DVD-ROM assembly. Pull out the cables from the back of the HDD and DVD-ROM, and pull both devices and their plastic trays out. It's important to note who makes the DVD-ROM, since different ones (I think there's 3, Samsung, Toshiba and Panasonic) have different strengths to be aware of.

Remove all the T-10 screws from the board, remove the fan plug from the board, and remove all the controller/power supply plugs and finally remove the boars from the case.

This is the LPC BUS with the solder filled in. This is only a factor on the 1.0 version of the board, but if you have this, you need to remove the solder. No worries, not too hard, google "solder sucking."

See? Clean!

With the chip is a pin header. One pin needs to be removed (on the left column, notice 2 are out, the top one and the second from the bottom) and then it needs to be placed in the holes. This is on the top of the board, it'll only fit in in one way. Tape this to the board temporarily using any tape.

This is the bottom of the board before the pins get soldered. The tape is to hold the pin header during this process.

Properly soldered joints. If you have a 1.6 or 1.6b board, Microsoft moved the actual board contacts that connected to the LPC BUS, in order to deter modders. The LPC must be reconstructed, and the points to do that are listed at www.team-xecuter.com. It's not too complicated, I imagine Microsoft left the LPC BUS there since it was easier to stamp a board the same shape. Makes it easy for us!

Three more points are important on the back of the board: The contact for the HDD indicator light, the contact for the LAN indicator light, and the d0 point. The d0 point grounds out the original BIOS chip that we're replacing when the chip is enabled, it's essential.

Soldered points with the appropriate colored wires, this wire harness comes in the kit. The board can now be replaced in the case and all motherboard screws can be installed.

This is the little board which should be stuck on the inside of the front of the case. There is a yellow wire which controls the power and eject button and the LED's, that goes into this and the multicolored plug on this goes into the motherboard. The red wire goes to the X3 chip to the only plug it fits.

Looks like this when all together, the green board in front of it is the controller port control board that is unique to the 1.0 motherboard, but the little board still fits behind it.

You can see how the X3 fits on the pin header. There's some black wires that come with the kit, those can go to the front indicator which also comes with the kit, although for most people I find it's not something they want. If you want it, just feed the black wires out the front and use the sticky tape to put the panel on the front of the board.

Pop the chip on the pin header and you're good to go!

So I painted my Xbox, and I think it looks wicked. It was a bitch to do, since it's so complex. First, dismantle the xbox, you can figure out how to do that. There's a few pieces, the top, and the front, and the front is a bitch to get off, use a screwdriver to get the edge of the front off and then pop the clips on the inside front. Finally, remove the piece around the buttons. That's a lame description, but you'll figure it out.
So, I did 3 colors, and some heavy masking to get a lot of detail. First, I painted the top and main front piece (not button piece) with a black, glittered paint. I chose the glittered paint since it went on metallic looking and really catches the light well, drawing attention to it. It also came out looking very subtle in low light, making it look like it's just the color of the plastic. Afterwards, I masked the parts I wanted to stay black, and painted everything else (including all of those crevaces) with the metallic green, once again with glitter and all. Finally, I masked the little crevaces (Made U-shaped tape pieces and stuck them in there with a flat head screwdriver) and gave it the silver. I painted the button piece the silver. You can see the green areas include the controller ports, the controller numbers (with silver highlights) and the the jewel hole. The silver is on the xbox word on the drive tray. All in all I think it turned out really nice, and though it was a ton of work would do it again all the same.

God, this project was almsot not good. I'd post pictures, but I'm too embarassed, the reason that I had to do this at all was that I tried to take the original jewel, sand the back off and have a clear one, but when I did that I accidentally melted the jewel. So, I pick up what was left of my dignity and ordered a new jewel from www.gameconsoleskins.com. Notice that's not a link, I'm not so happy with them which you'll learn about soon. I decided to get a platinum jewel, since I had already done the paint job and it matched. Let's see what the sent me:

Notice anything odd? Look again:

THERE'S A HUGE HAIR IN MY JEWEL!!! I mailed them and they said they'd send me a new one but never did, so screw them!!! I also didn't know I would have their ugly insignia in my jewel forever, and didn't know that the thing wasn't rounded but basically a cylindar. Plus, the letters "XBOX" aren't carved but etched, so you can't even put it on the old spot, since the old carved letters used fit on the little ridges on the case. All in all, a complete waste of 10 dollars.
I'm not one to waste 10 dollars, so I set out to improve it. First, I peeled off the sticky and that lame silver pad, so that the jewel is just the silver and the etched letters "XBOX" which are actually clear when the silver is gone. After much thinking, I decided to light it with green LED's. I made the circuit of 4 of them, alternating above and below each letter. After soldering them and bending them into place, I used hot melt glue as a way to hold them there, and to disperse the light. Finally, I made a plug and soldered that on. Here's the result:

And Again:

So, to have a jewel with lights, you need power. I tapped the 12V from the HDD power plug. You can see, I made a little plug for it and soldered it to the wires, which I eventually taped over to shield them. Pretty simple.

So this is what the Jewel looks like with the power off:

And, finally, on:

In order to mount the jewel, you need to cut a hole, but you also need to leave a lip for it to sit in. Notice the ridges the original jewel fit on but the new one just sits on top of.

Here was my sketch of the cut.

And this is after my professional dremel cut (I did this in my kitchen and ate plastic particles for like a month)

SO, finally, this is what it looks like with the jewel in place, and the Xbox on. I think it's tight, and it matches the silver and green theme too. Plus, the contrast of the letters hides the hair in the front, which is obviously visible if you look (though hard to see int he pics)