Case Mod Tribal Flames Mod by HxN (17 August 2007- glow pictures)

[HeXeN]

Tribal Flames Mod by Vampire HeXeN - that's the longer name :P

Lets get started ...

Case is a CHIEFTEC DA-01B-D (Black)

This mod is almost ended, but I didn't have time to make a worklog. Now I've got, so stay tunned for the progress. Pictures won't be posted as they were made :P. It will be better to see progress for example of cuttig a window and than of sanding, putting primer and than painting... etc.

!! My english is poor !! sorry for that

First one shows U how mod looks from behind lol for me I know that


and now full darknes with LEDs on i hope U will enyoj it.





Engravement as U can see was made around on acrylic to lighten up edges of flames.

[HeXeN]

...

[HeXeN]

Everything was planned (almost :P) so there were few sketches od what should be done with side and top panels.

I wanted to cut a window and leave keylock and hide hdd and cd bay as you can see at the sketch below.
sketch of left side panel


side panel with the pattern


Top panel with flames pattern


right side panel with pattern


Time for cutting Top (no that's not a dremel :P but it's better for bigger curves)


and few pictures of work




sanded side left side panel


and the last one but very painfull :/


first finger
<no image>
second finger

blood


blood , sweat and no tears

[Supra55]

Lol what is it a fad? Everyone loves to leave half they're blood on the case
Nice guts I I I mean cuts cuts yeah...

[weasal]

really nice work with the dremel and grinder. Hopefully you have spilt all the blood your gona spill for this case. lookin forwards to seeing how the case will look

[Cheapskate]

...and THAT'S why I started using plexiglas! -Less gore.

Or did you do that with the grinder?

It looks good though, (the case, not the finger.)

[HeXeN]

of course that was grinder with 1mm cutting blade in my finger 3 times. But after the 3rd cut i said "end for today, i need some blood or just whiskey".

[Supra55]

LOL

[SPQQKY]

LOL. I've had a few of those. We used angle grinders with diamond blades for cutting tile and that first finger is a flashback for me. I don't use a guard though as it makes it harder to get a good angle on tighter cuts. It's a sort of cut and burn at the same time. Nice work with that by-the-way.

[HeXeN]

Hello there

As U know or not, front bezel of chieftec dragon is full of ugly stuff. As i want it to by everyday case and also beutiful,
I had to change the whole look of front bezel. So ... i decided to make it smooth like in old school modding.
There were many thing to do mainly many holes after replacing LEDs and keylock. Also bottom side of bezel had to be changed.
With the dremel, glue gun, few cartoons, epoxyde resin and putty I made it a bit more smooth as it was before .
And here are few pictures of my work.

front bezel before everything



<no image>



and finaly my work :P






in teh time of resting for a while i got rid of ugly part of bezel



End of sanding with 120 -> 400 -> 1500 grid (U can see different types of puttys


in the 2nd (invisible part) of upper bezer is a nasty (now unused) keylock hole so i decided to make it dissapear



I've got no pictures of this part after aplying putty and sanding( forgot about that ) but trust me it looks like from store

Hmm .. funny one - modding is very clean work but not always


stay tunned more photos this evening

[HeXeN]

time for testing , after half hour of choosing best red finally i found this one "fast finish - royo rally red"






This colour will be inside the whole case so should be veryy bloody red :>
meanwhile i made some steps with lower part of bezel. With cartoon glue gun and a epoxyde i made a filling of big hole.
To be sure that epoxyde will not fall off from it i sanded inner sides of bezel and also made some small holes with dremel.







after epoxyde hardened i placed putty

sanded it only a bit

and assembled for a while with upper side of bezel painted with primer
<no image>

Next thing i have made is a Radio controlled Power ON/OFF and restart. I used a Car controller and a 12V battery pack.
Also it's safe becouse i used a overload relay to only close circuts of power and reset pins on motherboard.


After all this when everything was sanded, i ve put some coats of primer (grey one to all bezel parts) and after all found that there are many small dots, it looked horrible so i have sanded it with 1500 and 2000 grid water sanding paper and than put some white primer. afer this work I have found that there are still some spots so ... again sanding an in one place i sanded to bare plastyc.


to make some more i have fitted a mirror on the bottom of case to make it visual bigger



And few fotos for the end ... RED has GOt me So much nice touch of red paint on fan :P





power cable of cooler(pentagram QVC 120 Cu+ - better than zalman :P 120mm fan) will be hidden around the base of cooler.

That's all for today just wait for more

[wbdog206]

very very nice.

[500mph]

i really like that color red. but those cuts must've hurt. but its looking great! cant wait to see the rest

[HeXeN]

thanks m8s nope ... this type of cuts don't hurt .. brain is to slow to think when grinder cuts and burns skin only thing u feel is burned skin :P

[skunkmunkey]

Loving those flames, great cutting skills you have there. Those cuts remind me of slicing the end of my finger off with an industrial wood saw. I didnt notice until i went to take my headfone out and was greeted with a stump. Damn hurt then tho.

Keep up the good work mate.

[ice-tea]

wow man nice job especially the very clean front

but:



ahhhh

[HeXeN]

yeah :P soon more injurys like this don't worry :P Vampires are immortal

[[xXx] ãÇè_ƒr€áK]

sweet cutting job dude!

[BenJ]

niiiiiiice

Keep up the good work

BenJ

[HeXeN]

Update time

By the time i was creating in my mind how to change this machine into something special... everything looked a bit weird.
I didn't say that i have bought this machine from my friend with whole hardware as it was standing. When i opened it there was BIG mess with cables and not only.
This update will show U how looked first mod on PSU in this machine and I will add how looks PSU now...

Big mess with cables :>


firs what i have done was getting rid of those things(i don't know name of it sorry) on cables


then i found out that mess with cables is nothing


PSU looked similar ( as i asked him about it he said "hmm ... case was closed for about 2 years..." No comments )


inside the same situation


A while later a got rid of uselessfor me) connector and startet budget modding with black electric tape





Everything looks dustless and there will be no more mess with cables




but this was not the end of modding on PSU and case :>
first this how it looked at the beginning


i ve got to get rid of those ugly things


Here U can see that i decided to make some more flames and set the psu cable connector in the center above psu.

Everything gonna be mounted to the plexiglass 5mm thick, few holes and psu stands on its place.(no fan hole as U can see)

pating tape and penci



many holes later

after work with metal pile

final result


final view outside case



I hope U enyojed looking at this update. Greetzzz