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.