THE LITTLE OWL Little is just an understatement here as I will be using an XSPC H1 case. STORYLINE: Jakob (pronounced Yakob) commissioned me to build a kick **** machine BASED on the NEW NOCTUA NF-F12 (ones that are optimised for water cooling rads) fans. In addition he wanted me to base the case on Noctua colours, however some people do not like these, so one had to base this build around a slighty differing theme. If you look at the noctua website, the colours are much more 'red' than the fans themselves (which are brown based) IDEA EXPLAINED. Essentialy this is going to be part scratch build/part mod with a dark red and white themed case with the internals being polar white and typhoon red. The RED LASER TUNNEL effect will be used here Sponsors so far: Noctua (Ofcourse) MAYHEMS INNOVATION COOLING for the IC Diamond note: Remember the LASER PROJECT? This will be used in here. PAINT TO BE USED HYCOTE tornado RED HYCOTE POLAR WHITE HYCOTE GLOSS WHITE HYCOTE PRIMER HYCOTE CLEAR OVERCOAT Hycote Crystal Silver Hycote Pepper RED pEARLeSCENT hYCOTE tANGO RED mETALLIC Photo of a default XSPC H1 CASE Remember my last build where I used acrylic feet instead of the luggage-trolly-like castor wheels? well since the mounting of the castors are exactly the same as the Mountain Mods level, we can re-use that idea. Take one XSPC H1 Base plate carefully mark out where the fifth hole for the LED is to go. score a line from bottom left to the top right mounting hole and likewise for bottom right to top left. Now do the same for all four acrylic feet mounts Now here is where I had a problem, as I didnt have a centre punch available in order to create a pilot for the drill. So i thought of using an engraving tool that comes with my dremel set. first a small pilot hole Now that is sorted lets use the big drill shall we? Press the drill trigger slowly as to drill gently through the delicate aluminium (DO NOT USE HAMMER ACTION) This then creates a nice 5mm hole for the LED to shine into the acrylic feet. TESTING THE FIT Note the LED has just enough room to fit whilst leaving the 5mm room to have a grip within the hole. next part painting the panel
painting the bottom panel. ONCE all the drilling has been completed it is time to sand everything down ready for spray-painting. Using 80 grit sandpaper I sanded all of the base plate down. NOTE YOU DO NOT NEED TO GET RID OF ALL THE ANODISING!! Simply enough to roughen it up to allow the paint to take a grip. Once completed you need to DE-GREASE and clean the plate. I use either liquid hand soap or dish washing fluid with hot water. Afterwards DRY the plate properly (you dont want a lizard skin effect trust me) Once completed leave to stand for a few hours, then your ready for your first coat of primer! REMEMBER Many layers of THIN COATS are better than just one thick coat. Sorry for the lack of focus here, the camera went a bit weird on me. watch out for runs, if you find any wait until the plate is dry then sand down with 5-600 grit sandpaper. I leave 3 hours to dry, sand down with fine sandpaper in preperation for the 2nd coat of primer I dont wish to put my usual three coats of primer on as this all has to fit back together again. So two should do. I left the last coat of primer to dry overnight and on goes the first layer of gloss white paint: dont worry if the first coat of white gloss is thin and patchy, thats for the reason its meant to be (remember about using thin layers?) REMEMBER TO FINELY SAND BETWEEN PAINT LAYERS (as you would on the primer stage) so that the next layer of paint can grip (leave a couple of hours between each stage) After the 2nd layer still patchy but not as bad. Use 600 grit sand paper and sand again once dry Once the third layer has been applied WAIT AT LEAST 48 HOURS BEFORE application of the clear protective coating. After this has been completed
drive bay area Next stage is the Drive Bay area as you can see this has had a really good sanding down. After two coats of primer and sanding..... bought this nice handy attachment at wilkinsons Using polar white for this in order to create a more balanced feel inside the case. Once all the sanding/washing/primer/paint and clear protective coating has been applied... Motherboard tray all marked up
next stage FRONT panel sanded down, just before washing after washing, two coats of primer and then sanded down with 600 grit paper. PCIE Section. FOr this I used two coats of primer, two coats of Hycote Tango Red (Metallic) and a coat of crystal silver (same company) FOr this I didnt just wish for a candy effect, one wanted a kind of a cloud/mixed colour painting Anyway I applied the crystal silver coating whilst the tango red was still wet in order to achieve this effect. First of all made a bit of a mess drilling these holes. These are for the LED's the will be mounted near the edge I never realised how thin the aluminium was, well at least the LED's are going underneath the motherboard in order to create a nice backlit effect. some more shots of the PCIE plate but under differing light conditions.
next the cross struts..pcie area 2 and mobo tray next the cross struts After the usual sanding, de-greasing and primer etc Finally I used Polar white on the outside And gloss white on the inside. his is the first coat only. note i havent coated this side of the ends really. The reason for this is that all this has to be assembled again Plus this side of the ending section is never seen as it slots into the front and back panels. Finished cross struts Polar white on the outside and gloss white on the inside:0 Backing plate m/b tray area mother board tray. I cannot alter the slight messup I did with the LED holes, however at least I can repaint the aforementioned tray. This now marries with the PCIE backing plate. This is before the clear protective layer has been added.
the front panel Front Panel outside After de-greasing and priming (as shown earlier) To get this look, I used 'Polar White' then masked the first 8.5cm off the bottom as this will be for the red colour. The red used is a Metallic Hycote 'Tango RED' which goes fairly well with the off-white, but it is still a little harsh even though its a lot more classy than what I call 'Slapper' Red. To balance it out a little i sprayed a fine mist of crystal silver so it appears there are clouds within the red. As you can see there is still a small issue to fix on the bottom right near the colour line. The inside was essentially the same as above, however gloss white was used instead.
Side Panel and Radiator First of all First Side panel completed Please note all photos are taken before the final clear protective layer has been added, the reason for that is that I allow a MONTH to cure! Side panel outside Side Panel inside. Ok next The only spare NEW spacing style rad i have right now is an Old Black Ice GT Stealth. UV BLUE at that =yuucccccccccck. Obviously the colour doesnt go with the builds.... The build is REALLY starting to come along now
2nd side panel side panel complete peeling off the painters tape to reveal perfection only the clear layer to go on now
cheers, tried to base on noctua, however the red on its own would have been too harsh with the white-so i had to use crystal silver on the red to create a two-tone effect and to marry with the white better.
Looks rather good ! , Although the rad needs a tidy up i think you'll admit that yourself if your after perfection
Watch out with the clear coat!!! It's fairly hard to put a nice even layer, a good trick to do this is by using a lamp and use it's reflection in the wet coat to see where you've allready been. And also be carefull the clear coat doesn't give a yellow hue to the white parts. The clearcoat I had did this, so I decided not to use clear coat at all. I just added 2 layers of paint.
