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Building the Box
So I've been checking out case mods for a while
and I love the idea. It's a complete rip-off of the hot-rod cars
for computers. And while I don't know much about cars and also am
not really interested in knowing more I do love the idea of a pimped
out rig to show off to clients and friends.
Step 1. THE P.O.S.
 I
found an auto mechanic who liked the idea of modding a case and
he agreed to paint the case. He recommended I just bring him any
old case and he'd try painting it to see how it took. My thoughts
were that I can't miss out on this opportunity to get a free paint
job but I also can't just bring some P.O.S. case to try so it would
be a good experiment box.
I've had an idea in the back of my mind for a
while to cut a window that matches my company logo, so I'm going
to try that as well as a few other mods just to keep things happening.
So here's the case before I touched it. (Click on Photo for larger)
Specs follow:
Intel Pentium III
VIA Chipset Motherboard
385 MB RAM
Maxtor 40 GB HD
Some Video Card
On Board Sound
Creative 52x CD-ROM
225W Power Supply
Step 2. STRIPPED
 Now
that I had found my machine to fix up I stipped everything out of
it. The motherboard, hard drive, floppy, power supply. Everything
down to the bare bones.
Step 3. WTF
 This
was my first mistake. The mechanic was pushing for Fibreglass on
everything. He even gave me a huge can of fibreglass resin and hardener.
I've never worked with fibreglass before and 1. had no idea what
to do with it really 2. don't think it was for what I was trying
to do. All I wanted to do was fill in the hole where the case badge
was along the side of the s ide
panel. Here's the resul ts
of my poorly applied fibre glass. After three days this was still
tacky, since I hadn't done a good job mixing the hardener. At first
I was trying to sand it off to get rid of it. Then I tried an X-acto
knife. The best result came from a paint scraper. Took it off lickety-split.
So at least I learned some things. Fibreglass smells funny, it's
critical to mix it right, it's not for small holes and it comes
off not to bad with a paint scraper.
Step 4. FIX MISTAKES AND BONDO
So I scraped off all the fibreglass or most of
it anyways and bought some Bondo puddy from Canadian Tire. No mixing,
just slap it on in layers and sand. It takes about 20 minutes to
dry for each layer. It didn't take long at all to cover all the
vent holes in the side of the case as well as the front. The case
badge area is also completely filled in now. Since my camera broke
at this point I don't have any photos. :(
Step 5. CUTTING THE HOLES!
 First
I chopped up my logo in Photoshop into different sections so that
I could print out the pieces bigger than they would have fit all
on one piece of paper. Then I taped them to the case like crazy.
My Dremel is one of the oldest and I think a newer one would've
been better, I'll have to look into that later. Anyways, using the
Cut-Off wheels (about 6 altogether) I slowly sliced through the
side of the case. Some points I found to be helpful:
- Don't let the wheel sit too deep in the metal otherwise a little
twist will break it
- Go slow and be patient
- Wear safety glasses since when they break they go flying :D
Now that the holes are all done, I have to file
the edges to get them nice and smooth.
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