Plasma

I made some progress on the shell yesterday, but I'll post pics when I'm a little further along. For now, though...the plasma ball arrived today! So, I got to work on that immediately.



There's a gap in the molding at the bottom, but I'd planned on covering the seam with something anyway. Not sure what yet; I'll know it when I see it, I guess. I think it turned out pretty well. It kind of amazes me how much this thing is starting to look like my model. Just goes to show how a carefully planned project turns out better for me than my usual approach (making it up as I go based on a loose idea).



A fun shot of the ball in the dark, manipulated a bit. It actually looks even cooler than that. ;-)

I decided to stick Gnome on this machine instead of KDE; the latter is just too much of a hog, and buggier than the last time I used it. Gnome will work better as I try to get some games working in Wine. Guild Wars installed flawlessly using PlayOnLinux, and seems to be working upon initial tests. The only thing I miss is that in KDE, my editor stays in the foreground when I right-click a Picasa photo for the link, and now I have to switch back and forth again. Oh well, what's a little more clicking per post, other than carpal tunnel?

Front panel

Finally got my shit together and posted pics. Also finally got some work done. :-P



The finished frame I forgot to take a picture of. I think if I did this again I'd use 3/4" angle after all, because this one is a touch flimsy, but it should be sturdy enough once I install the drive mounts and such.



For the front panel, I took a side panel from that old case I posted pics of in the beginning and laid out my piece. I used the existing bottom edge of the panel for the bottom edge of my front, and drew the piece with about 1/2" of space to fold the other edges back,



Then I cut it out with the nibbler and folded the edges under. Nibbling took a long time and a fair bit of sweat. The folds aren't perfect, but they're acceptable; best I could do without a bending brake. I will definitely be getting a brake if I do another project like this, though.

I figured some rough sizes for the VFD and DVD openings, then added to them the thickness of the chrome molding. I laid these out sometime during the week, after work one night. On Friday, I cut those out with the nibbler. Later, I went out and picked up a switch (just one for now, to get measurements) and some LED holders, and drilled out their locations. The only thing left to mark off is the plasma ball, and I don't have that to measure yet. So, I moved onto the sanding.



Saturday: I tried several different sanding methods to no avail. Hand sanding got some metal exposed, but even applying heat beforehand, it was way too much work. The palm sander just made paint dust and never actually took it off. I was about to give up and paint the fucking thing, when I remembered my detail sander. I gave it a shot, and it was working! The extra-coarse sheet is what did the trick, I think; I only had one of those, so I was lucky to make it through before it wore out.

Unfortunately, my bending and cutting left a couple of small divots in the front face, and I knew I'd never get those sanded evenly. Oh well; most of it is at the edges, so it shouldn't be too visible once the whole thing is together. The other spots will hopefully just make it look a little used/aged.



To get the remaining paint out of the deeper spots, I used a Dremel wire wheel. Rather than get out the Dremel, I popped it in my drill, and it worked very well, but this is what it looked like when I was done. Glad I have more of those!

After that, I block sanded it with 100-grit to get the grain looking right, and went over it again with a wire brush. I polished it a bit with some rubbing compound, and the end result is pretty decent. You'll see that in the next pics, although it needed to be cleaned up again by then. It should look pretty good when I'm ready to assemble.



The chrome molding went on next. It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. I might try something else, or at least come up with something to cover the corner seams. That molding is a modder's friend for covering roughly cut edges: it's flexible, self-adhesive, and cheap. However, it doesn't do well on 90-degree corners, and always leaves the seams to deal with. It's perfect for a blowhole, though, especially if you're putting a gril over the top of it (one of the screwhole legs will cover the seam nicely). Next were the LED holders, which I ended up liking even better than my original lamp lens idea; they really look like they belong there, I think. I added the one switch I bought for the pictures. In the closeup of the LED holders, you can see the grain on the stainless a little better, too.

Today, I'm either going to work on the drive mounts or the outer shell. Probably the shell, so I can get to painting before the warm weather is over.

Getting down to it

I hope to get a lot done this weekend. Pics of the most recent work will be posted later today (front panel has been cut out and is marked for cutting holes), and the most recent render is in the pane on the right.

Since I soon have to disassemble the PC for test-fitting into the mod, that's probably going to be the last render. I'll be setting up the old PC again so I can continue to browse and post while I'm working, but it just doesn't have enough power to render the model in it's current state anymore (unless I let it run all freaking day). I think I've got it where I want it now. The VFD got moved to the top so the DVD and HDDs can be mounted together and in the right place (also helps airflow to the blowhole), and the ball got moved up a bit so it clears the motherboard components (don't know what happened in the render with that steel face inside the ball at the top; I can't find it in the model). Fixed the USB ports which I noticed weren't showing up for a while. I'm not entirely sure about the mounting of the USB ports yet; I might use some kind of chrome faceplate or something.

Here's today's optimistic to-do list:
1a) get some 3/4" angle again, to use for drive mounting and such
1b) assemble drive mounts into frame
2) start cutting on front panel (finish when plasma ball arrives; need exact diameter before cutting hole)
3) start sanding/bending/cutting on the outer shell so I can paint it soon.
4) test the PAE-SATA adapter before tearing PC down (it arrived yesterday)

Assembling the frame

Here's what got done last night.



I fit the pieces together and broke out a piece of plexi for the bottom. This was a quick test fit to check my measurements. Note that it just fits within the frame...



...so I had to notch out the corners to leave room for the vertical pieces to fit. Nothing fancy, just took the Dremel (generic rotary tool, actually) with a grinding drum to it. Sorry for the crappy pic, but you can see what I did.



Duct tape is a wonderful thing. Here you can see the bottom taped together (it will be riveted in the end) with the plexi sitting in place and the vertical pieces...



...and the same with the top frame taped together. Looking good so far. With all the test-fitting done, it was time to rivet the plexi to the bottom.



You have to be careful working with plexi. You can take all the precautions in the world, but your drill bit can still pull it up and crack it. I was almost done drilling when this happened, right next to a clamp (removed that one before taking the pic). After a smoke break to consider my course of action, I decided that even though this wouldn't be seen, it would bug the hell out of me if I didn't replace it, considering I have plenty more plexi lying around. Also, I'd never forgive myself if it cracked the rest of the way through.



Having decided, here is the new piece, safely drilled and riveted in place.

Right now, I'm working on drilling out the vertical pieces and will rivet the whole frame together. I thought of taking pics of the process, but it's very tedious and boring. Basically, it involves drilling the top/bottom corners, fitting the vertical piece into the appropriate corner to mark the hole, then drilling the vertical. I tried clamping it down to drill through all at once, but it wasn't going so well; this is longer, but easier. I'll post one pic when it's all together and I'm ready to move on to something else.

Plexi tips

In a futile attempt to find some kind of mesh that wasn't outrageously expensive, I decided to skip it. It's really not necessary, and it would have required the motherboard mounting tray to be raised above it. I decided just to rivet plexi to the bottom frame, and the board will be mounted directly onto that.

Here's the plexi trick that I learned while building my arcade cab. I've heard many different opinions on the best way to cut/break plexi, and they're all tricky and rarely work for me. So, I came up with my own way. I'm sure I'm not the first, but I haven't seen it elsewhere, so here it is...

Step 1: Measure and lightly score where your break will be, and line up that score line with the edge of your workbench (or a good, straight board edge). Place a board on top, also lined up with the score line. Clamp it down tight. It's best to have the scrap end outside, so that your desired piece is protected. When you break, if it happens to stray from your score lines, it will happen outside the edge of the board.

Step 2: Score deeply along that line. I got this handy little tool for it, but a sharp razor blade works just as well. Make sure it goes quite deep, and that you go all the way to the edges of your piece. If you skimp at the edges, you'll have some filing/Dremel-ing to do, and unless you're really good, it will probably never be quite even.

Step 3: You only see one of my hands here, but you'll want to use both hands. Place your hands in positions at which the pressure will be evenly distributed along the break line. I find it easiest to have the heels of my hands closer to the score lines, with my fingers curling under the edge of the piece. Now, start to apply pressure, then push down sharply. I wore the gloves here to get a good grip, since I was breaking off a pretty small piece.

You should get a lovely, clean break every time. The key is the board on top applying pressure. I always hear people say you just need to apply even pressure on both sides, but for longer breaks, it will still crack outside your score line. If your piece is about 6" wide or less, you can probably get away without the board and use one hand on each side of the line.

D'oh!

That piece of mesh isn't big enough. Could have sworn I had more left than that.

Oh well, I'll find something else.

Starting the frame

I was a little peeved to discover that the mini chopsaw won't even do the 1/2" stock...not at a 45 degree angle, anyway. So, screw it; I went to Menards and got the 8-1/4" one they had on sale for $40.



It's not bad. The only (minor) problem is that 8-1/4" is a somewhat non-standard blade size, so my choices are kind of limited. I got the only one they had at Menards with more than 40 teeth for $11. I still came out ahead of getting a $75 saw +$5 blade. Got it set up and started cutting pieces.



After cutting out all 12 posts, I had a fair bit leftover. That's good, because I'll need some for drive brackets and such. I did a whole shitload of filing and test-fit the bottom together.



That's where I'm at this very moment. Next, I'm going to cut out the mesh for the bottom so I can start assembling the frame.

By the way; sorry for the small pics. I found that Vignette (for Android) is 10x better than the stock Droid camera app, but I need to get the paid version for higher-res. Will probably do that soon.

Flattening & Render 2.0

OK, before I move on to today's activities, let me get you caught up on what I did the other day with the bread machine.



Here is the piece as flattened as I got it by bending. Clamped it down and went to work on it with a mallet.

Then, using an old case panel clamped to it as a straightedge, I got it down to this with the nibbler:



Here is the render I promised yesterday. This is pretty much final. Certain componnents will probably move a little when I start physically laying them out, but it will basically look like this.



Also, remember that the DVD bezel is going to match the front. I'm just having trouble getting rid of the UV map in blender so I can use a texture; not worth the effort at this stage in the game.

About to get started

I fucked up in my measurements somewhere along the line. Not sure where I went wrong, but I intended for the thing to be 9.5" deep all along. When I went to start laying out where to cut/bend the sheet metal, I measured the depth again and got 10", which is what I remembered from the first time I measured. I looked at my model for reference and saw that I had made it 12" deep. That's not cool. Upon further investigation, I realized that it can't be any less than 10".

So, I reworked things, as opposed to going out and finding another appliance to tear apart that would give me a big enough sheet. I shrunk it to 10" and eliminated the protrusion, replacing it with chrome trim (I plan to use the stuff they sell for car doors; it's cheap and easy to work with). Since it would have been too much, I eliminated the existing chrome I had on the front and sides. I think it turned out OK; I'll post the render later, or tomorrow (don't feel like it right now).

I also measured out on the sheet where the pods and window can go, laying it out so that I can cover up one set of vents already in the sheet, cut out the one above it for the window, and leave the top set in place. I updated the model with the new positions and added the vents. Then, I used an old case panel as a straightedge and nibbled the sheet down to the length I need, leaving about a 1/2" margin to bend over (more than I need, but I wanted to make sure I had enough).

Bending is going to be a pain. I wonder if I should get a brake. I might be heading to Cedar Rapids again tomorrow anyway; might make a quick HF stop if I decide I need one.

Back to it tomorrow!

Tomorrow, I'm finally back to modding. I'll continue flattening the bread machine, and start work on the frame.

Tonight, I added the little "current status" pic on the sidebar of the blog. I updated my render a bit to show more accurate window dimensions, since I realized I hadn't resized it when I moved the molding up. Not 100% sure on that, but it's closer to what I want.



I'm still a little torn on the molding. I definitely like it, but it just doesn't meet the front edges right. I might do a render without the molding on the sides, and a totally different window shape, assuming I think of something I like (or someone suggests something...).

I also did a quick render from the side view, through the window. This was just for fun; please don't mind the imperfections in my model that are very obvious here. :-P

Discovering and resolving problems

Today I found out that I was being a moron when I read the part about the mini chopsaw on Troy's site. He had specifically said that it wasn't big enough for the 3/4" alum angle, and I didn't see that.

So, rather than drive an hour to return the chopsaw (which I'd have had to do to have enough extra cash for a bigger saw), I returned the alum angle to Menards and got 1/2" instead. It's small enough to fit in the mini saw, will still be sturdy enough for a frame, and was a fair bit cheaper (spent $10 for 16' as opposed to about $1/ft for the 3/4"). I also got some post screws and faucet washers to use for mounting the motherboard.

Rather than drive all over hell (Dubuque) to find someplace I could walk in and buy sheet metal, I took one more look at Menards. Man, that shit is expensive: 24x24" of 22ga steel for something like $40. Are you kidding? For that money, I could buy an appliance with more metal in it than that.

So, I did:



Well, I didn't spend that much, of course. Went to Goodwill and found this bread machine for $7. Perfect. The outside of the machine is fucking filthy, but that's Goodwill for you. (Clean up someone else's old crap before we sell it? Why?)



So, apart it comes. There, in the first pic, is everything we won't be needing (well, I'll save some of the screws, and that LED display might be fun to play with sometime). And, in the second pic, the one thing I do need.

And...I cut myself on a sharp edge in the process. This, boys and girls, is why we should wear the fancy gloves we just bought. Oh well; nothing serious, but rest assured I'll be wearing those gloves for the next step.

I even almost got out of re-bending it, but it's a little too narrow one one side and way too wide on the other. Certainly, I could re-design my case and fit everything into the bread machine case as-is, but that ain't how I roll. So, it's time to flatten it out and plan the cutting!

I think I like the vents being there, but if they don't line up right when it's cut down to size, it's Bondo time.

Here we are, gloves and all, ready to pull the thing apart at the seam.



I got some of that crap out of the way to start with. That's a flat-lock seam...that'd be a bit of a bear to get apart if I didn't know the trick.

I had a really nice tool for this at a factory I used to work in, but for a small job like this, a good metal putty knife works just as well. Just work from one end to the other, prying it up a bit...



...and it comes right apart. Now that piece will be easier to work with.

Last thing I did tonight was to start the flattening process, mostly to get an idea of the consistency, to make sure it's what I want.



You can see the edge has a bit of a lip on it. I nibbled it out at the corners so it will flatten properly, and filed them just enough to knock the edges down (even with the gloves on, I don't want a saw blade sticking out of my workpiece).



There it is, carefully opened up. When I get back to this at an hour at which pounding it with a mallet is acceptable, I'll work on flattening it the rest of the way.

That's it for tonight; gotta go back to work in the morning. Thursday or Friday I'll be back to it; I'm getting anxious to start cutting and piecing the frame together.

Nibbler

couldn't resist trying the nibbler ZOMFG THIS THING IS AMAZING why didn't i buy one of these a long time ago and what else around here can i nibble MWAHAHAHAHAAAA

Today's Booty!

Today's Harbor Freight haul (woohoo!):



Have I mentioned I love Harbor Freight? Yes, these tools are cheap, but in my experience, they're much higher-quality than you'd expect, and they get the job done. Same goes for the Menards brands, actually. They're for the hobbyist like myself who's working on a budget, not necessarily professional-grade (though they do have some higher-end stuff as well, for very good prices).

So, here's what I got, starting in the back: mini cutoff saw (main reason for the trip), heat gun (cheap, and may be handy when forming the plexi), smallish vise (cheap, and I still didn't have a vise at all until now), cheap tap/die set (mainly needed a tap for threading the motherboard standoffs), 1" painter's tape (already have some 2"), extra corner clamp, half-round file, mini bar clamps, and some extra epoxy (I already have some industrial-grade stuff, but it's kind of hard to work with in some situations).

And last, but certainly not least, back over on the right: a nibbler. I searched high and low around town and couldn't find one (besides a very expensive one at Ace); HF saved me from having to order and wait for one, and saved me a few bucks in the process! I have a feeling I'm going to wonder, "Why, having done at least 4 relatively major case mods, did I not take modders' advice and buy one of these a long time ago?" I'll find out tomorrow, when I get to play with most of this stuff. :-)

Also, a couple of goodies from Goodwill:



Yes, that's a potato masher. I think the design of it fits my theme, and it would make a pretty snazzy fan grill for the top. How snazzy? We'll see when I get the render updated; I figured for $0.88, I'd take a chance.

The tripod isn't strictly related to the mod, except in that I might start using my regular camera (instead of my phone) for the pics, and for about $5, I thought it would help. It's in reasonable shape, just needs a bit of screw-tweaking to tighten the leg hinges.

Render 1.6b

So, have you guys seen welders and stuff where the top/side edges protrude a little past the front face? They usually have rounded edges, so I've been thinking about them while working on my model. I'd been convince that all the edges rounded would look better, even though it would be incredibly difficult to pull off and make the seams look right.

Today at the hardware store, I happened to walk by the welders, and they happened to have one assembled in that manner. Upon seeing one in person again, I decided that was actually the perfect look. I also decided it would be cool if the front face had a brushed aluminum/steel finish. What do you think?



Sorry the inside doesn't look like much from this angle. I added some stuff to the inside for reference; the big, round block you see there represents my CPU fan/heatsink.

In person, the protruding edge will obviously have some thickness to it, and will look a little better than that. The only thing bothering me now is the interference between the protrusion and the chrome. Should I just leave it this shape and skip the protrusion? Or should I make the protrusion shallower (by about half), and let it pass through the chrome molding (I had it that way before and liked it, but it was hard to see the protrusion in the render)? Hrmm.

I also removed the antenna to check the look; damn, it does look better. Now, what to do about a handle?

EDIT: Oh yeah, pretty major difference: it's taller. Since the size is not limited by the dimensions of the case I hacked apart (back in the first couple of posts...yeah, changed my mind about that, by the way) originally, I decided to make it closer to a cube. By making it about an inch taller, the height is now the same as the depth (not including the front protrusion) of 9". The width is 10.5" due to the size of the motherboard; I could scale it to a cube that size, but that would be just a hair bigger than I want.

Shopping Trip!

Mod-related items from today's haul:



Following the advice from Troy on materials, and some painting tips from the guys at MNPCTech (the only place worth ordering modder's mesh from, by the way), I did some shopping today.

I followed most of the painting tutorial on a test piece once, and was quite satisfied with the results. I never quite got to the "mirror finish" stage, but their tips are valid for any great finish. I've read that epoxy primer is better for metal that has already been "etched" (sanded, treated, etc.), but I think I will trust these guys on it. The etching primer is supposed to provide a nice, smooth surface and bond well to bare metal. Then there's a painnstaking process of paint/sand/paint/sand/paint/sand -ing; the sanding will be done with the 600 and 1500 grit sandpaper in the pic. After that's cured well (about two weeks), it gets buffed with the rubbing compound. About a month after it's done, I'll get some glaze and carnuba wax to finish it off.

The PVC pipe is going to be used to create a form for molding the acrylic sheet (an idea I stole from read about in Troy's logs). That will be for the "pods" on the sides of the case. The acrylic piece you see in the back there will be more than enough for the pods, and it was a scrap at Ace Hardware that cost me $0.50 (w00t!); I have plenty of other scraps of plexi for the windows. I'm hoping the pigskin gloves there will be good enough for working with the hot acrylic. This will be my first attempt at anything like this.

Troy is the only one I've found so far who has built shuttle-style cases from scratch, so I'm finding a lot of his techniques very interesting. The other one you can see evidence of in the pic is the aluminum angle stock (there's also an 8' section not pictured) for the frame. Another idea I got from him is to ventilate the entire bottom of the case; I'll be using a piece of modder's mesh I have leftover from my last mod. I decided that should be filtered, so I picked up that package of cheap heating vent filters you see there.

That's it for today's loot; I'll be making a trip to Harbor Freight tomorrow, and coming home with (hopefully) the same cutoff saw Troy was using (it's the perfect size, and cheap; I love HF), as well as a nibbler and probably a bunch of other toys I don't really need. ;-)

New render coming up in a bit. I think it's very nearly done.

Research

Checking things out before my trip to Menards this weekend for supplies. I came across this guy's site (can't believe I haven't seen it before, though I had seen pictures of the Cenobite mod). His work logs are a great read. The small "shuttle-like" ones he did are interesting to me from a technical perspective, as he built them from scratch much like I plan to do. I got some great ideas from this and plan to rip them off completely incorporate some of them into my mod. Other than that, while the results are very nice and clean, they look like little more than slick little black boxes. (No offense intended; they are awesome mods, just very minimalistic compared to what I'm going for.)

The Cenobite mod is amazing. This is where Troy comes through as a true artist. I had seen pics elsewhere on the web (a few years ago, probably around the time it was originally finished), but hadn't read the worklog or seen the details. Amazing work. Very inspiring. I see that he has it up for sale now; $50k isn't such a bad asking price for a unique work of art.

Render 1.1

Some updates to the render.



I got some great suggestions from Ond on BYOAC; whose amazing Retro-futuristic arcade cabinet (check it out if you haven't seen it) is being done in a style very similar to what I'm going for. He's one of many builders on those forums whom I truly respect for their talent and efforts, so I was grateful for his advice.

I'm really torn on the "spring antenna." I agree with a couple of people who have said it doesn't seem to fit. Although it's definitely part of the era's "decor" when it comes to these things, it's really part of a more distinct style that my design doesn't embody. However, I thought it would make a cool handle. And I still think it does, but probably not for this case.

The problem is, I definitely want a handle on top. Anyone have an idea for something more fitting? I'm kind of at a loss; guess I have to look at more pictures.

As for the other mods, Ond had suggested rounding the edges (which I had originally wanted, but only today thought of some methods for building it that way), moving the fan to the center, and replacing my "glowing orb" with a plasma ball.

The front edges will be rounded as well as the top (assuming my ideas work out), it's just really difficult for someone at my skill level to model in Blender after the base cube has already been modified. My "orb" was going to be a sound-activated thing, which I still think is a cool idea, but I think the plasma ball would be equally cool so I thought I'd stick it in the model to have a look. My model of it looks like shit, but you get the idea. I wonder if one of those lumin discs would be just as cool; I'm a little apprehensive over putting glass components into my case. Either way, I just need to find one about 3" in diameter.

Moving the fan wasn't an option before, since it wouldn't have cleared the DVD drive. Moving the drive down and finding a slim fan would have just made it, but the airflow would still be blocked. I had previously considered going with a slim drive; I revisited this idea and decided on getting a USB case to convert my old laptop's drive.

Any other thoughts/questions?

EDIT: I know the DVD drive image is squashed; I tried cropping the UV map in blender to just the drive tray bezel so it would look like a slim drive, but it didn't work. Also, note that I plan to paint that bezel to match the case. That will be in a future render.

First render

Here is my first draft (finally).



The render isn't 100% perfect, but you can't really notice the worst of it from this angle anyway.

Suggestions welcome!

EDIT: By the way, it's hard to tell, but that pinkish stripe on the side is supposed to be glowing red. It's going to be a back-lit strip of translucent plastic. Really hard to make the lit-up pieces look right in Blender. The orb on the front is kind of the same way; the inside lighting is going to be UV.

The system

So, here are some pics. Again, nothing too special:

- Biostar T-Series board; mATX, and happens to have a lot of cool BIOS overclock settings
- Pentium D 3GHz (dual-core with 2x2MB cache)
- cheap-brand CPU fan and heatsink (quiet and moves a lot of air, but I'm not convinced it's keeping the CPU as cool as it should, so I may upgrade)
- 2GB DDR2 6400 (1GB is G-Skill that I already had; the other GB from that pair died, so I saved the heatsink and put it on this new cheapie one)
- 512MB GeForce 7900 (from my stash)
- 320GB WD Caviar Green (from my stash)
- APower 420W mATX power supply (all the cables were pre-sleeved...sweet!).



Just for the hell of it, I threw in a pic of the case it's in right now. That was my first "daily driver" case mod; all I did was the top, though (the handles and blowhole, and there used to be a gold chrome grill over the blowhole; that black thing up there is my little 250GB external drive). It's not looking too impressive these days, but it's still a cool case. I took out the VFD in front for the shuttle build. The blowhole and the vents in the lower front sides used to glow red from the front fan LEDs, which was pretty cool. Anyway, the case got abandoned a couple years ago when I undertook a slightly more involved mod on a bigger case, which I'll see if I have pics of as well.

I'm happy with the way the new PC is performing so far, other than the relatively high heat (is 50C+ too much for a Pentium D? I'm kinda used to seeing around 40C). I know the Core2s are more efficient, cooler, have a faster FSB, etc., but they also cost about 3x what I paid for this guy, so I'll hold off and decide if I really need something better later on. This chip is easily enough for what I plan to do with this system. Rendering my model in Blender (pics when it's done, which will be soon, I think) is taking less than half the time it was on that old 1.8GHz Sempron I was using (it's just a basement machine :-P). The only other thing that's bugging me is that the BIOS seems to detect my 800MHz RAM as 533MHz (yes, the board is dual-channel...yes, they're both 800MHz...yes, I'm sure); looking into that soon.

It's a computer

My package did get here yesterday; who knew? Naturally, I built the machine last night (into an old case) so I could test all the components and get Windows/Kubuntu installed. It will be easier to finish my Blender project with this one, too (building a sweet 3D model of the case before I start cutting and grinding).

Will post gear pr0n later tonight. (You might call it "softcore," since it's nothing terribly fancy.)

I can has parts?

I got shipping notification on Monday. FedEx tracking page said that it shipped 7/30 (before I even ordered it), and estimated delivery date was 8/6. FedEx tracking page now says it shipped today, and estimated delivery date is 8/7. 8/7 is Saturday. FedEx doesn't deliver ground on Saturday.

So...do I get it this week, or what?

Pics

I did take the pics when I said I would. I just didn't post them yet. ;-)



There is a case I've had for roughly 10 years, unused for at least half that time, finally fulfilling its destiny as virtual scrap metal.

Parts ordered

I ordered the parts for the PC build this weekend, and they shipped today! If I'm lucky, they'll arrive by Friday. I'm dying to take some more precise measurements of the board so I can start cutting! :-)

I've been trying to draw inspiration from 50s sci-fi for the case mod. I found a great repository of one artist's pulp covers and saved some favorites here, and have been watching a few movies as well. I'd love to see more ideas if anyone has them. Pics would be great, but a written description is cool, too. Here are a couple of particular selections that I really like:



The movies are so interesting from a cultural perspective; the "ultra-progressive" inclusion of a token educated woman, the anti-Soviet attitude, the sexist behavior of the men that often borders on abuse, the sheer whiteness of it all (did you know that native Martians are identical to Americans?)...this was definitely a distinct era of Americana, especially visually. I've always loved the distinct style of these things, represented in futuristic fiction as well as the automobiles and other decor of the time. Everything is so rounded...unless it's pointy, of course (like the tail fins--or the women *ahem*)...and somewhere around '55, suddenly there's chrome EVERYWHERE.

I promised to catalog my progress, so I'm going to take some pics of the disassembled case tonight.