Luciel

The front is awfully plain in this case, which really is to be expected on a low end case. I do like the start button though so I´ll leave that as it is. I won´t worry about the bays since they will be filled. But I do feel like adding some detail to it, following the rest. Remember to set your dremel to low speed when cutting plastic, as high speed will just melt it and make a right mess of things. The bad thing, in my oppinion about most simple cases is that the right side tends to be awfully plain and there´s not that much you can do with aside from a nice paintjob, which won´t be seen much in most cases since the window side is the one facing you in most cases. Lucky then that this case has a modern chasis design and has the opening under the board, so hey, why not make a window? I tend to use number 420 on the dremel line of discs (Heavy Duty Cut-Off Disc). And for this thin metal sheeting, it´s like slicing through butter with a hot knive. Regardless, remember not to push the dremel or you´ll burn through discs. Right so let´s see it all put togueter with all cuts cleaned up (I don´t remember the specfic term in english, but it´s a sanding wheel for the dremel, that´s the way to go, personally I use the same cutting disc on it´s side to cut off all remnants and shave it down, and then I blunt the edges to prevent cutting). The problem with the front mini-window is that, right behind it there´s a pseudo dual-fan mount, which makes the window look ugly and a bit pointless, so let´s cut it. And now... ...much better! Ok, now we´ve got to sand down everything that´s got paint in it, so in this case, all panels, as you can see the interior is bare in this case. Once done, clean it all up. I personally use distilled water, but you can use alcohol or any kind of non-corrosive cleaning product. Now wait for it to dry, specially if you´ve used any kind of chemical to clean it (i´d stay away from that option, just in case). Now that it´s prepped, it´s painting time. Remember to always use a breather, this stuff is nasty in your lungs! Not to mention a well ventilated place, but not outside as you will get crap on your fresh paint, and you don´t want that. A couple of notes about paint types. I´ve had quite a few discussions about this in several forums with all sorts of people. Some use x product and works fine for them, others say don´t use x product because of x reason. Personally, I use acrylic paint, which is water based, it´s dries very quickly, so you don´t have to wait hours between coats, and it´s good for sanding down between coats to get an extra smooth finish. I stay away from sinthetic and plastic paints, for several reasons which I won´t go in to but regardless, if you want to take my advice, go for acrylic paints, be it in spray can or compressor & gun. Right, down to it. First a coat of primer: And now a base color as the effect I will be using (pearl) is almost transparent, so it needs a base color first, in this case, white. And that´s it for today, more tomorrow. As a small spoiler, no, the case won´t be all white, it´s simply easier doing it all in white and then painting on top as needed.

thanks guys : )

they work fine here, you can´t see them? :S

??

Hello, The aim of this tutorial project is to put togueter a series of smaller tutorials/how to on individual things. Customizing a fan controller, painting a drive, and so on an so forth. All of these mini-tutorials will be posted as seperate threads. This thread will be the main one focusing more on the whole build. These are an initiative of the main sponsor, Lamptron. Other sponsors that have helped out with this project are: Thank you all, specially Chris @ Lamptron and Teseo @ Benchmark Hardware for their never ending support. Right, so let´s start! We will be using a very basic case, the entry level "Isis" by B-Move: And we strip it down: Edit (note by Burnout21 over @ Bit Tech): A good idea is de-rivetting the top side, that way we can trully get all the panels off which will make for a better finish. I didn´t on this particular case as all areas where easily accesible, but this isn´t normally what happens with most cases) Edit (note by nagyizom over @ Bit Tech): Another good idea is to remove those ugly fan grills at the back and replace them with our own. Obviously this a matter of your own personal taste, it´s easy enough to do and won´t cause you any major troubles). This may or may not give you better noise reduction and airflow (depending on the specific case of course). The first change I´m going to do is prepare the side for a window. If you feel you want a normal square window, there´s nothing wrong with that, go ahead, you can aply the same steps as I will be doing. Personally, I like something different, so I´m going to be doing a series of triangular shapes. There´s many ways of doing this, but I´m going to explain the way I do it. I tape out the area to cut, in order to use the tape as a guideline, you can use drawn lines if you like, personally I preffer this way as with a normal line I end up not being able to see it due to the sparks that come when cutting. Edit (note by nagyizom over @ Bit Tech): If you´ve never used a dremel, you will provably find it easier using a jigsaw, it should also give you a nice straight line. Personally I find tape for guiding and a steady dremel hand is good enough, again, it´s your choice. Ok remember to ALWAYS use safety gogles when working with any kind of power tool. I use a dremel for this kind of modification, but really any kind of rotatory tool will do as long as it´s the right size. Edit (note by DeathPrincess over @ [H]ard Forum): Thank you very much for reminding me of this!! I forgot about mentioning it. For this specific job I use the dremel discs line number 420 (Heavy Duty Cut Off wheel), you can get 20 of these for about 7-8€ in your local hardware store. First section cut off: And the rest... Now, it still needs to be cleaned up for smooth edges but I felt like testing it on the rest of the case to get an idea of the look: Yeah, I quite like that. Edit (note by RustyTool over @ KustomPCs): RustyTool has a decent point here. Notice how part of the triangle windows are right on top of the bays. Depending on the case and on your intentions for interior design, you may or may not choose to do these as all you can see through them are the bays. On a personal note. If you´re using older cases, make sure that you have enough space between the window and the chasis to fit the plexy. More soon : )

Actually I´ve only ever joined 2 contests and they where national, so this is my first international one, so I´m quite excited about it too!! And finally getting space to work is a great feeling, been there, enjoy mate!

Thanks a bunch nikolaj, there more the merrier really, personally I am joining, not so much to try to win but to give some international exposure to my work as I´m sure most of you are as well : )

lol :P

In deed! I always try to use any leftout or partially damaged hw I can : )

thanks guys! : )

thanks!

Welcome momod, I´m a fan of your work and it´s nice to see another international modder : )

good luck! And if you need any help send me a private message : )

Hi Le085! Thank you very much : )))))

Acrylic paint (water based, with no disolvente), because they are mostly water, they do not prevent the heat from spreading out (like plastic or synthetic paints do) so it does not affect the performance of the heatsinks.

Diabolo took 6 months, but for different reasons I guess, and a lot of people hated it so... : / the project I will be presenting to the tournament will provably take me around 1 month, depending if I get the parts I need quickly (already have the hardware and all the sponsored parts, but need some extras like a second 360 rad, a custom reservoir and the copper piping

I actually had an offer from a local store to make several of this, the problem is, if you bought new parts to do this you would void their guarantee, so to sell them in a shop is a bit of a risk.

thank you sir : )

I honestly didn´t have nvidia in mind when I was doing it, but several people mention it, it´s also the last chipset nvidia did for motherboard and I´m using nvidia gpus on this mod and the color scheme fits so I guess so yeah! : )

Thanks, you can now find most of my worklogs on the modding section : ) I won´t be uploading the diabolo one however as it causes a lot of grief (some people love it, some hate it with a passion, but you can find the worklog on my website).

Hi Everyone, As I mentioned in my Fallout Cause SP, I was done for the season modding wise. This project is actually for a client who has asked me with quite a bit of detail exactly what he wants. Since it was simple enough and not to expensive, I figured it´s a cool way to do a sort of tutorial about painting and light modding on a budget for those of you who want to get in to modding but have no idea where to start. This project should be done in a matter of days, and well, I hope it helps you newbies to get ideas of what to do for your first project. For those of you more experienced and hardcore modders I invite you to comment on this thread giving suggestions on things newbies can do and of course feel free to correct my way of doing things if you feel yours is better or simply easier for newbies to do, I will be using my methods which I have learned out of trial and error over the years. Because it is meant to be a budget mod I am going to be using spraycans as opposed to my usual compressor and gun to show you that you can get a decent finish even with cans. And that at the end of the day most of us buy compressors and paintguns to do fine detailing and to save money (paint is much cheaper if it doesnt come in a spraycan). Things you will need for this mod (hardware and accesories not included, that part is really up to you). 1: Sanding paper of two kinds. First a High gritt to remove old paint from the old chasis and a low gritt to sand down between paint layers (this last one is not essential but you will find you get a much smoother finish by doing so). 2: Spraycan Primer (Acrylic based, not plastic, sinthetic or any other kind), I will be using a grey primer but really any other color primer is fine. 3: Spraycan Paint, (Acrylic based, not plastic, sinthetic or any other kind) 1 400ml can should be enough for a mid-size chasis if you do it right but get 2, just in case and of course extra cans for any other secondary colors. 4: Spraycan Clear Lacquer (Acrylic based, not plastic, sinthetic or any other kind), once all is dry you need this to seal the job and prevent paint from peeling off and scratching due to use and abuse. 5: An old chasis, the older and cheaper, the better. 6: Masking tape or Painters Tape, the second one gives you a cleaner finish but the first one is much cheaper, so it´s up to you. Total Cost in my specific case (this may vary) 60€ Optional: A Dremel rotatory tool. Get the wired one, not the wireless one. If you go for the most basic one (the 200) it should be enough for what you need for this project (i.e. the cutting discs it brings) Total Cost in my local store: 40€ // Let´s get started. First, the chasis, this specific chasis was given to me by the client, he wanted a cylon inspired chasis, just slightly, nothing to fancy to have as his lanbox, Becuase of the old-school curves and handle, this old chasis makes a perfect candidate. We have to dismantle everything that can possibly come off, as it will make our lifes easier when it comes to sanding and painting, not to mention a better finish. Once that is done we need to sand it down using the high gritt sanding paper, this will remove any superficial paint and all the dirt that has acumulated on the surface over the many years. Once that is done, we need to clean it, personally, I use distilled water to do so, others use alcohol, it´s up to you, just don´t use normal water. Now that it´s dry, it´s time for a coat of primer (I find one coat is enough, again, it´s up to you). The great thing about acrylic based paint is that it dries in no time whatsoever, you can go ahead and do the second coat in a matter of 15 min if you don´t care about the light gritt sanding in between, in which case I recommend waiting 20-30 min before doing so which is what I normally do unless I want a dirty finish, like I wanted on the fallout cause sp project.. Ok Now we´re ready for some paint. Because of the theme chosen for this project, I´m going for some gun metal, although any alloy wheel metal should do the job! As for the inside of the case, I suggested dark red to the client as I remember the inside of cylons being bionic but I might be wrong here? Aniway, the client wants black, so black it is. To match the outside, I´ve gone for a glossy black, for newbies however I recommend matt black as glossy basically shows every single mistake you have and will ever make. Not to mention any irregularity on the case´s surface. And that´s it for today, more tomorrow! // Hi Guys, Second day of the tutorial proyect. Everything in the case except the base chasis is made out of plastic like a lot of old cases tend to do, specially when they attempted to modernize them by not making them a simple square case as making these curves in steel would be a lot more expensive for them. This, for our purpase is good and bad, bad because making clean cuts is quite hard as the plastic melts when using a dremel or any other kind of automatic cutting tool, however doing it by hand wouldn´t give us a very clean finish either, so we use the dremel (obviously for those of you who decide against buying such a tool or similar, you can either try to do it manually or skip this step all togueter) and once done, we sand it down using the high gritt, and the low gritt for the surface after the cuts are done. I´ve made a diagonal cut that will go with the black strip design in order to further down the line add a red cathode, I sanded it down and did as clean a cut as possible (to my skills) being entirely made out of plastic: While that dried I´ve gone ahead and I´ve pà inted the top gun metal and covered everything except the handle witch will match the side strips, in order to paint it black: While we wait for that to dry, I´ve painted what we´re going to be mounting on the front, in this case, the dual dimm version of the NZXT Sentry which I´ve taken apart (only 4 screws hold the pcb and lcd to it´s casing) in, of course, a gun metal tone. Now that the side is dry I´ve gone ahead and masked everything that will remain gun metal with masking tape, for the border between gun metal and black I´ve used painters tape, to give us that perfect line. I´ve repeated the process on the other side and it´s dry now, I´ve also gone ahead and given it some war wounds and remember when I said plastic had it´s good and bad side? well this is the good side, because plastic melts it´s so much easier to give it a burn effect, hell it ain´t even an effect, we literally get some matches or a lighter and go ahead and burn the borders of the hole done with a dremel. Once done, we get the black spraycan and spray very gently and right next to it sideways so only traces of paint get on the surface, this gives us that burned effect on the rest of the side: While I´m at it, with the high gritt sanding paper, I´ve gone ahead and given it wear and tear on the borders and lightly scratched the hole surface (but be carefull not to go all the way down to the plastic, we still want to keep that gun metal color. If you mess up, don´t panic, just give it a light coat of gun metal, wait for it to dry, and try again ; ) Now I didn´t quite remember if the original cylons had something similar to blood inside, but I remember the modern cylon ships did, but it wasnt as red as blood, it was quite darker with a tone of brown. So I´ve gone ahead and made him bleed through the wounds with a blood red, giving it a rust brown slightly on top so we still see red tones. It also helps it give that dry look, like it didn´t just happen, it´s been like that for a while. While all that dries, I´ve gone ahead and re-assemble the nzxt sentry: Waited for a couple of hours and put togueter the whole thing to give you an idea of how it´s going to look, no hardware inside or lights, just the bare paint, except of course some other symbols and paint details which will do further on. That´s all for today : ) // Hi! Third Day of the tutorial: Today I did the Cylon logos on the case, I wanted to use the classic one on the side and a modernized version on the front. Instead of the classic green I´ve gone for some purple. Now, this is what happens when they dont have the usual detailing tape your normally use and trust, you go for another brand which says it does the same thing... except it didn´t, the paint went under it and created a slight mess, but no problem, I will be touching it up tomorrow, and this way since this is a tutorial you can also see the things that can go wrong and how to fix them! In the next 4 photos, you will see the preparation and the unfortunate result: That´s all for today, more tomorrow! // Hi everyone, I can´t do much till I get some more gun metal paint on Monday, so for now, I´ve done some illumination testing, for this I figured you really need a video, so I apologize for the quality as I had to use my phone (It´s also the first time I do a video with it, not a big fan of phones :P). Aniway, enjoy! [video=youtube;c2Z-7P06QyE] PS: I am now taking a break over xmas, will return with a last stage update on the first few days of january : )

Hi Guys, I´m currently waiting on some materials to arrive in order to complete the last stage of diabolo (Thread also on here). I´ve been given a netbook that was run over by a car, as you can imagine it´s pretty screwed, casing, screen, ram, hard drive, all gone, surprisingly, the motherboard didnt have any physical signs of damage, so figured, for what it´s worthed, might as well try to see if it works, so took the whole thing out and plugged it in to an external screen and a usb keyboard. Surprisingly, it starts!, went to bios to check everything, even run some startup tools with diagnostics in them, and... it checks out, seems to be in working order. Obviously, buying the parts to fix this netbook would cost as much if not more than buying a new one, and even if it didn´t, I don´t have the need for a netbook. So had a look around the workplace, seeing what spares I had and figuring out what I could do with it, posted on another thread here looking for ideas, but nothing quite convinced me, and then I saw an "old-ish" 17" TFT LCD, bit dusty, but working perfectly. I though, would be cool to integrate the motherboard in to the screen and make an all in one, apple mac style. So I took it appart (the screen) and as it happens, there is enough space inside for it, but figured it would heat up to much, now the backplate of the mobo, i.e. the bottom side of the netbook, was damaged but fixable, i.e. twisted plastic but no cracks. So I fixed it, and put it on the back of the screen, and it seems like a perfect fit, so marked where the holes for the screws would need to go, just to make sure there´s no screen hardware behind them, and, yet again, it matches, quite lucky. So I´m going to be doing that for the next few days, paint wise, I was thinking, either pearl white, or in the same style as my fallout project. Maybe radioactive green, not sure yet. Another idea would be to reconstruct the back of the screen, add new mounting points and build the thing inside with some micro liquid cooling, which would (I think) solve any heating issues. Aniway, here are some pictures: First I took the screen (the 17", not the netbook´s, that was done before and didn´t take any pictures) apart, this is the back cover: The actual panel with it´s other components: The netbook´s motherboard, note that the middle pcb striple is removable, would be interesting to find out what kind of connection it is that uses and can I get a cable of it, so I don´t have to use an SLI style piece of plastic to connect both sides, i.e. taking more space than needed. This is the fixed, netbook´s rear casing which will be used in the case I go for an outside mounting. And this is what it would look like mounted on the outside (bare of course, covers have been removed, etc, etc, etc). // Hi Guys, Finally had some time to go round to my local suplies shop and bought the dremel drillbits I needed for this (didn´t have the right size for the screws I wanted to use, normally I´d say, use different screws, but I decided on the screws normally used to mount fans as the grip very well. This surface being thing and plastic, can use all the grip it can get). Furthermore, I´ve decided to mount it outside for several reasons. Looking in to obtaining power from the usb (5v) I could only find a few led strips that did the job, unfortunately they where (god knows why) stupidly expensive and I wasnt even sure how they would look (if they had been cheap I would´ve gotten them even if it was just to experiment with them). Reason 2 is, the enclosure is a perfect fit on the back of the monitor, and it seemed like a waste not taking advantage of this. The final reason is, I have to finish diabolo, this, and yet another small project in 2 and a half weeks, so I want to streamline it a bit and I personally think it looks great on the outside, while doing it inside would be more for the challenge, at this point I don´t think it´s needed. On another note, I will be adding to the setup the philips ambx, of course with a paintjob to match, and seeing as I´ve decided to go for a white paintjob with black details, the light emited by the rig should add a very cool effect to the paintjob. So as I said, I got the right drillbits and made 4 mounting holes: Also used the original netbook´s mounting holes but made them big enough for the screws while not going over it´s original design, so it looks factory standard. Sanded everything down and gave it a coat of primer: And after it had dried and sanded it down a bit, the first coat of Icy White: I am now waiting for it to dry in order to give it it´s second coat. PS: I came up for a name for the project, it is now named Project: AIO AL (as in All-In-One AmbiLight) // Update time: Second coat of icy white done, unfortunately I wasn´t happy with how it turned out as it had bubles in some places, at first I though it was just trapped air, but when I sanded it down and re-painted it, it appeared again, I noticed some other imperfections on the rest of the screen, yet not on the netbook so it can´t be the paint, aniway, sanded it all down, got rid of the paint, reaplied 2 coats of primer just to make sure, white, same thing happened, must have something to do with the material of the screen, no idea, aniway, since at this stage I am not discarding this screen I´ve done my best in disguising the imperfections. Aniway, covered the parts that would remain white and started on the black parts: Once dried I removed the masking tape, there is some detailing work needed but no problems, it´s easy enough : ) Figured I´d do a test mount of the backplate: Unfortunately found out that it wasn´t as perfect fit as I though but no problem, sanded down certain parts in order to make it a perfect fit and... Pretty perfect fit no? ; ) So marked the backplate, following the black patern, took it off and started painting it: 2 coats done, now have to wait for the second coat to try, mount it, do some detailing where the black has gone in to the white a bit, lacquer the whole thing and we´ll go from there. Next update hopefully tomorrow : ) // Update: Painting of the center unit (screen with mounted system) is finished, line detailing is fixed and all has been lacquered with a clear glossy finish. Next update will be of the system put togueter and the start of the painting of the philips ambx system. // Quick update: I´ve put all the hardware togueter plus some test ram and test hdd (not the final components) and I´m about to install windows and do some stress testing to monitor stability and temps. Luckily, it all started the first time : ) PS: Don´t worry, no HDD was in at the time of picture ; )

Project is finished, and while it was a week project, somehow managed to do it in 3 days. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Mod in a Week // Giving new life to and old mod, newly renamed to "Acid Burn", enjoy. PS: You´ll notice that depending on the pick, it´s one shade or another, this is because in some I didn´t use the flash so the leds would show up, so the real color are the ones with flash (i.e. the greener green). Thank you all for reading and watching as the mod went from start to finish, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did doing it and I´ll be happy to answer any questions about it and the process. I will at some point post new picks are the are some minor alterations I will eventually do when I can get to it, for now, my feet hurt to much :P

It´s 14.00pm It´s taken me a while to update as I had a crysis, it seems that a part of the masking tape on the front side hadn´t stack down well so paint got under, so i had to re-do the coats on the surroundings + lacquer in order to fix it, but all well now! And the rest of the parts: Time for lunch and I have to go out afterwards, but for this evening I will get rid of all the masking tape on the case, assemble it, and do cable management + mobo. ///// It´s 22.00, The exterior of the case, aside from a couple of details, is done and all pictures from now on are taken with the better camera, notice the difference? Also, the inside of the case is NOT stained, that´s just a reflection, don´t worry : ) I´ve managed to save the plexy for now, until I can order a new one (using heat to clean really hard stains and fix most scratches). Now painting the 3 HDDs (again, just the safe side), the casing for the front end of the x-fi, the casing for the WC pump and the mobo heatsink. Also, the current look of the gpus without cooler (being painted), one of the GPU coolers and the mobo without mobo heatsink (being painted). Feeling tired but I think I´ll prob do a bit more before dinner, it seems I´ll be using the laptop tonight. // It´s 00.25am A quick update before I get some dinner and go to bed. HDDs are finished. So is the sound card frontal unit. And here a preview of how the case looks with the psu, dvd rewriter, memory card reader and sound card frontal unit in it. See you tomorrow! // It´s Wednesday the 1st of June (White Rabbits!) 13.00 Today, after a day withouth sleep and another falling KO way to early and therefore waking up at 6.00am, I finally had a good night sleep. So I woke up at 11 and went straight to business. In the last 2 hours, I have finished all the painting in this project, now all that´s left is putting it all togueter in the case! First, the ASUS EN GTX 275: The Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatality The eVGA 790i Ultra SLI nForce motherboard The water pump in it´s frontal casing And finally for now, what´s behind the front door of the case. That´s it for now, see you in a couple of hours with more updates, if nothing bad happens, I think I could finish the project today, so really it should be "Mod in 3 days" : ) // It´s 18.00 Things are starting to take final shape... (in order of progress) Cable management in a case that´s 10 year old, not designed for this or this hardware or liquid cooling is a complete and utter :banana::banana:, also, wish I had cable sleeves. Next update, should be the final picks (if all goes well that is)

As the title says, I have decided to do a full project (mostly painting) in a week. I will be using my first ever non-beige computer case that recently came back to my possesion. (I had given the pc to my sister around 8 years ago and she finally got a new one). I originally bought the case around 10 years ago and was my first self built PC. You might be asking, But Luciel, why use that old piece of crap when you could be using an awesome modern case? Well, I would say nostalgia and a way of getting back to my roots and "upgrading" them to my current skills. I have no idea of what the case´s brand or model is, I bought it in a computer fair in the UK back then when the whole pre-modded case market was starting. The idea came to me last night (or, this night if you´re picky about it technically being the same day) when I was lying in bed from 3am till 7am with no success in sleeping (Spain) is bloody hot right now at nights. So I decided to get up, get down to my workbench and start it up. I will continue the log as soon as I upload the pictures (on a rather embarrasingly slow connection here) and detail everything I´ve been doing. Enough to say I have dismantled the old crappy hardware inside it (although the ASUS A7N8X-E was pretty epic bac then) and the case itself, cleaned it as best I could (the age really shows) and will proceed to sand it as soon as the shops open ( it´´s 8.45am here) and I can get some sanding paper! and prepare it for paint which hopefully I will start today. The hardware that´s going to be used in this build is the following: eVGA 790i Ultra SLI Q6600 4x2 DDR3 1600 Corsair ram (yes I know it will create a bottleneck, but this are second hand parts I have laying about). 2x GTX275 3x Seagate SATA2 750Gb 1x dvd rewriter 1x memory card reader Thermaltake bigwater b770 CPU wc system SB X-FI platinum pro I will also be ordering an MCP water block as the mcp in this board gets notoriously hot in SLI configs (right under one of the cards) I will also be painting the gpus, sound card, hdds, and dvd drive casing to go with the design. This system will be replacing my current main PC (the fallout case project shown in this sites case gallery, which, if anyone´s interested I´ll be selling, just the case) As my P67 asus board is being RMA´d so will be using the LGA 775 for now, and I will sorely miss my i5 2500k). Again, I will be updating this thread with info and pictures of the whole process as the day goes by (I need to buy everything needed this morning as my car will be in the garage for a week getting fixed and re-sprayed). As a last message for now, I encourage anyone to try the one week mod challenge, It´s not my first time and it can be a lot of fun : ) (even if its just to ebay it afterwards). Thanks in advanced for all comments and suggestions : =) // It´s now 11am, I just got back from leaving the car at the garage, and apparently I may get it back before the end of the week (awesome)! But more importantly, I got back from buying the paint, and other supplies I needed for this project. So, here it goes (excuse the crappy camera, I have already asked a friend for his much better camera that he will bring down tomorrow): I went down to my work-area and, admitedly, I hadn´t been down there for a while, as most computer related work I´ve done in my room recently as I´ve had nothing major. Problem with this kind of thing is that, if you need to store something, you end up putting it there and thing, ah I´ll sort it out when I need space to work (lol, yeah right). So, rather than actually try and sort things out (it´s 7.30am!!!!!!!!) I figured I´d just "relocate" stuff off the workbench. Sorted... So here is the case, with the original pc still in it, now, as you can see, it´s not in the best of shapes and it´s had a hell of a lot of use and while it has been taken more or less care off, 10 years doesn´t do any favours to a pc tower. So, first thing, dismantle the whole thing and... most likely throw away that old hardware, most of it is on it´s way out aniway. Dirty, let´s clean the whole thing up. Well, that´s as clean as it´s going to get, at least the chasis, I will be sanding (is that the right word?) down all the panels and getting them ready for painting. I shall be doing this as soon as I press submit reply on this post. On the side window I have opted to get rid of the acrylic, which is in really bad shape (brown with smoke and scratched to hell). I could replace it with some left over acrylic I had from another project, but I´m really liking the idea of mesh (i´ve used it before for a sidepanel and loved the look, the only downside is that the insides aren´t as visible as with acrylic, although I guess I could try and find some really fine mesh, any suggestions on this? Until later! // It´s 11.45am, I have finished sanding all the parts, I hate sanding, plus I could never get it quite right when there where imperfections in the original paint to begin with ¬¬ (removing them), I had to use some dissolvant to remove the sticky pads left behind the original neons (back when they where actually neons, as opposed to cold cathodes or leds). The fumes... weeeeeeeeeeeee :p Ok, it´s 13.30pm, nearly time for lunch here, and I have now given the 3 coats of the base color (in this case, black) to all the parts of the case (a big thanks go to whoever invented fast drying acrylic car paint, a bit more expensive than normal acrylic, but totally worthied if you don´t like waiting for paint to dry, and let´s face it, who does). Right well, I think I deserved lunch, plus, I really needed fresh air after that, awfull fumessssssssssss, plus, stake for lunch, After lunch I will proceed with the next stage of painting. // It´s 15.00pm, I´ve now prepped and base-coated 2 of the devices in the case, the dvd rewriter and the memory card reader (with bluetooth, because, everything is better with bluetooth). I am currently preparing the case, as a whole for exterior painting (using masking tape from the inside on any holes so paint does not get inside the case). Short update due to me having to come up for the backplate of the mobo, might as well paint it with the case since I´m at it (rather than having to paint it seperately later). // It´s 16.30pm, I have assembled the case, taped the stripes I want to remain black (more on that at a later point), and given 2 coats of the radioactive green (surprise! or not if you guessed due to the mobo design, if so, kudos!), here´s the first coat, to which I, before anything, added a few loose drops (squirter cap) of alloy silver, and while the pictures, due to ****ty camera just show blobs of paint, I assure you, the end result is random drops of extra shiny radioactiveness. // And the second coat: As you can see, this is why I used a black undercoat, because if I had used white, it would look pale and matt as seen on the masking tape. However the problem with this is that, also as you can see, it still has a few coats to go, acrylic paint needs loads of coats to become one solid (or like I´m aiming for here, almost solid color, and since it´s a dual layer color (this color includes an extra base coat and the color itself) it takes twice as long to dry, so 25 min between coats. // It´s 17.45pm I have now given everything 7 coats (yup, 7) I can´t believe it took that much to actually get to the final color in an even way (I decided to go fully even, as the shades I tried didn´t quite live to my expectations with this color). I really hate how this camera doesn´t do it justice, it kind of makes it look matt, when it´s completely metallic but ok. I will now give it one hour to settle, I will then proceed to give it 3 coats of clear lacquer, normally I will only give it two, but considering the ammount of coats it needed, I feel it really needs a third, this whole process should take about an hour, once dried (another 30 minutes on top) I will remove all the masking tape and take pictures with a much better camera so you guys can see the real final result on the paint outside. While there´s a few details I want to add on the black parts (the stripes, again, more on that when it´s done) at least you´ll get an idea of the final look of the paintjob side. If, and I stress the if part, I feel like it, I will begin the cable management and add the mobo. Things to come: Cable management I really should buy green sleeving. Painting the GPU casing in that same green (remember, the interior remains black, so it will give a nice contrast). Re-assemble the front panel, I have decided to keep the original black X on the front as a nostalgia part of the original case, however, since the logo is gone, I will find out where I can order a new one (different one from the original). Buy 2 led flat green bulbs to replace the blue ones in the frontal detail. Painting the Water Cooling pump and radiator. Buy an acrylic cpu waterblock Buy an acrylic mcp waterblock I had though on painting the ram coolers but because I can´t detach them of the ram itself, I´m not going to risk it, they will have to remain silver. Paint the top half (the safe part) of the 3 hdds. More cable management (yay). Paint the casing of the SB X-Fi I´m proably forgetting something (oh right, more cable management) but this is all I can think of right now, do make suggestions. Thanks again for watching/reading about this fun, but hectic, project.