The New Black - 05 Sept 06

[Constructacon]

Sleek. Stealth. Elegance. That's where this case is headed.

I've had the idea of this case kicking around in my head for more than a year now and I'm now in the position to build it. My final goal is to build an invisible case. As much as possible everything will be hidden from view. What isn't hidden will be clean lines and smooth. This will involve touch buttons, tinted windows and slot loading DVD burner for a start. You'll see exactly what I mean a little bit later.

Ok, let's begin. Insert donor case here.... This was a freebie I got from someone throwing out a couple of old boxes. This one came with dual Pentium 2 goodness, about 32MB of RAM, no power supply and no drives. Perfect.


The first items I bought were an 80mm Aluminium fan and an 80mm rainwater downpipe adaptor which I got from my local Bunnings. It even has a flange to bolt the fan to later. Just what I needed.


After tracing the pipe onto the bezel I cut hole and hot glued the pipe into place. Later this turned out to have insufficient stregth and was subsequently bondoed into place which seems to have done the trick.


Using a just a hacksaw blade I then cut off the excess. This did leave some unsightly marks but as I'll be smooting the whole surface this isn't a problem. From my technical drawing days I've always found intersecting curves beautiful. This is the reason I chose this case over others I had. Even though this caused problems later I still think it's the best choice.


The bezel was debadged, had the buttons and LEDs removed and was filled. 3 1/4" drive slot was also removed. You can see some of the scratches around the blowhole.


Primered, sanded and then spray puttied.


Here you can see the first of the problems encountered. The bowhole pipe was only hot glued in at this stage and separated from the bezel. This is what prompted me to aply the bondo remedy to this.


As there were still some pretty major imperfections in the surface that the spray putty did not fill, Stop Putty was then applied to a large porton of the lower half of the belzel. This stuff was setting in less than a minute straight out of the tube and was pretty difficult to work with cleanly as you can see.


A light sand and things appear to be better.


I did say "appear". Another coat of spray putty and sand and we see that all is not well. Where the bondo meets the plastic there is a definate line there and you can feel it if you run your finger along the surface. This is not good enough for the finish I am after. After about another 5 of 6 coats of Stop and Spray putties this effect is lessened somewhat but tiny ridges at the edges of the former power button are still visible. This is frustrating me.


Keep tuned in the next day or so for more of the work that I've done. Various aspects of this mod are up in there air still so input is more than welcom.

Catch you soon.

[Constructacon]

Well on to the update. Not a huge amount to report though. I took the stripped out case and marked out the area to clear around the front fan.


A bit of speedy work with the Demel gives us this. I decided to leave the section accross the bottom to help maintain a bit of rigidity.


A test fit shows there'll be plenty of clearance once the fan is fitted.


I finally got to use my new compressor for spraypainting. I bought it about 6 months ago for working on my car and today I cracked open one of the spray guns that came with it. :clap: It made painting soooooo easy. Going back to cans when I have to will be a drag.


I gave my perfectly smooth bezel it's first coat of black paint and it's starting to look like what I imagined it would. After years of reading car magazines and hearing about the problems associated with black paint I should have been expecting what I found. Prior to painting I would have sworn that my hours of surface preparation had resulted in a perfectly smooth surface but after painting you can (without too much difficulty) see where the old button used to be. If you're painting black - your prep work has to be perfect.


Also this week my new dual layer slimline DVD and adaptor arrived by courier. I knew they were thin but I didn't realise that they were this narrow. This thing is tiny! This will now lead to having to fabricate a way of mounting this to the existing drive cage. I have a few ideas so far but nothing solid.


Well that's it for now. Until next time.....

[Constructacon]

Small update time. I appologise for the lack of focus on some of these pictures. My camera isn't liking the low light for some reason.

After much work I've finally beaten the constantly reappearing shadows of the bondo'd work from underneath the black paint. After each wet sand the outline would emerge when the piece dried out. Believing water swelling to be the cause I let this dry with another coat of spray putty in full sun for 4 days then dry sanded with increasing grits until smooth. Then resprayed black. Not really exciting I know but after doing this about a dozen times I'm glad it's done.


I drilled out all the rivets and dismantled the case then scrubbed all the grime out ready for painting.


The top was the first metal panel to get a touch of the black. I must say the result was great. I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest turns out.


I've cut the piece of 3mm smoked acylic that will be the front display.


PSOne screen stripped ready for installation. After a fair amount of reading I've found that my video card (nVidia 6600GT) doesn't have CSync out so I'll have to build the adaptor to combine HSync and Vsync. Fortunately it's something quite simple so this wont be an issue....... I hope.


The back of the front window is masked up ready to paint. Unfortunately in the middle of the worst drought in recorded history here - it's decided to rain for 3 days straight (but not near the dams). I'll have to wait for the rain to clear up before I can paint it.


While I'm waiting for the rain to clear up I couldn't help but fitting the window for a bit of a sneak peak how this will look like. Obviously the screen will be showing through the acrylic where the tape is.


Also this week I've been trying to start on the circuitry for the lighting (based around a flip-flop) but am having nothing but problems with it. I'm kind of going back to the redesign stage for this circuit.

Well that's it for now. Until next time.....

[Primüs]

Nice work so far

Subscribed

[Protius-X]

That paint job is excellent, when I start my case mod wanna paint it for me

[atOmicShplade]

Looking really clean so far mate, keep it up

[GooSE]

If you need help with the lighting circuit, make a post in the Modding & Electronics main forum. You're sure to get some useful suggestions there.

[TrennaHowar]

looks good so far. Can't wait to see the finished project..

[Frag_Lord]

Looks great so far mate!

Cant wait to see the finished case.

[ice_cool]

looking really good m8. i think this looks really good. I like how smooth the front bezel looks and the nice black paint on it.

Will be following eagerly.

[ener]

the close up of the front looks spectacular, the rest is going to look better... good luck

[whitehat67]

looking good mate!!


is it your first mod??

even if it is not, 100% job so far

[woodys_world69]

very nice
subscribed!!!

[Constructacon]

Thanks for all the positive comments guys.

@whitehat67. No this isn't my first mod. Got Milk was my first. Since then I've accumulated a lot of tools and skills that will hopefully make this one a world apart from the last.

This week I've been spray painting the dissasembled chasis and mobo tray. Note to self and others - if you are hanging items to paint, make sure the rod is fixed solid so freshly painted items can't drop on the floor and scratch :doh: I ran out of paint before I could finish so it's off to autObarn this weekend.

[Modafroman]

Looking good
*subscribed*