Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Hush!

Sorry if it's already in the thread - I didn't spot it if it is - but what coolant were you using (to gunk up the block)?

Also, I think the effect the protective film produced on the acrylic casting is awesome.

 

Pure deionised water. The gunk is polyester resin that's been dissolved from treatment with acetone to get it out of the original top fill-ports thread and little slithers scraped out of it that have fallen into the water.

Here's a pic from a previous loop I had using dye

Not going to use dye again - it congeals and it leaves everything stained.

Not a fan of the weird resin warpiness myself - going to have to recast resin into the cracks and spend an age sanding it down to a polished finish.

 

Nice solution making the new fill port.

 

OHNOES!!! *hides*

I've been scared of X1900XT VRM heatsinks ever since I burnt out my one only a couple months after having it when I mounted a Zalman flower cooler of some kind on it - the GPU was nice and cool but the power circuitry fried Still, the artefacts it gave me made the POST screen look like Matrix code, which was kinda cool.

Great stuff with the fillport, and tbh I love cannibalising old bits and shoehorning things together. Keep the updates coming

 

Ah, I managed to kill my x1900xt when installing the EK fullcover waterblock without using the little nylon stand-off washers and shorting it out. Was pretty annoying at the time. But with the help of my dremel I have had the last laugh.

 

This build is epic , if you put some fans on it you could use it as a room heater.

 

Awaiting delivery of a scythe gentle typhoon 1450 rpm fan and a sanyo denki silent series 1500 rpm fan to compare for noise and airflow through the radiator - don't want to splash out £150 on fans unless I'm happy I'm getting the best available.

 

Lol I wonder how many other people killed those cards.. They were awesome bits of kit too - why can't more cards support VIVO??

 

Update time!

Not a massive update, but took quite a bit of time. I've been tidying up the aluminium frame. It had been covered in polyester resin, which was a nightmare to get rid of. I've sanded the frame down , though it still needs more work and there are still some small blemishes and scratches that I need to get rid of. I'm not 100% how necessary a mirror-shine is, since I plan on anodising the frame either gun-metal/carbon grey or black.

Anyhow, here's some pictures. Enjoy!





And here's the back of it. The slits are for the 37 copper heatfins to sit in. They'll later be set into these groves, probably using polyester resin.



Here's the right-sided upright aluminium angle leg. The row of 9 holes is to attach to the copper wall of the radiator. The 3 finger cuts set into the top and bottom are to accommodate the copper pipes of the radiator.

The slit is for a slimline slot-loading DVD drive to sit behind. Still planning on a no-5.25" design for the front.







Here it is with the counter-sunk screws in. The one on the bottom left is stuck in place - think I must have forgotten to tap all the way through and it's got caught in the aluminium. I'll have to drill it out on the bench press next time I go visit my folks. Until then I can't sand around it or disassemle those two pieces. I still need to adjust the countersunk holes slightly to get the screws exactly flush, but most of them are level with the surface.



I've filed down the Aluminium angle so the tops are now flush. Still needs a little more work and sanding.











And here it is assembled:



Might take some better photos later on.

 

Wow really nice job my friend cant wait to see moar!

 

Wow! Looks terrific, particularly that last shot.

 

Last shot is WICKED! Great work man!

 

Cheers guys! I'll try and get some resin cast into the cracks and sand that down.... I'm going to spray the polyester bits black I think... Can you spray plastics okay - do you need to sand the surface or anything like that for the paint to hold?

Cheers Atilla! Is polishing aluminium always such a bitch? I started at 400 grit and seemed to get a nice shiny finish with 1200 grit, and then moved up to using 2000 grit, but it made the surface more satin and less shiny until the paper was silvery. Only seems to polish to a nice shine once the 2000 paper is going silver with aluminium dust and wear, so now I don't want to use anything but the worn-in paper on the sanding block for fear of having to resand it again.....Water seemed to make things worse if anything as I find it difficult to get a smooth sanding action because the water seems to make the block stick and mess up the finish. Am I doing it wrong?!

 

Haha, yeah, I hate it when the paper sticks but the block keeps going.
I haven't tried to sand dry, but the way I've prepared the alu for polishing
Involves wet sanding up to 800 grit. Then the polishing starts on the bench grinder.
The results seem to be quite good. But I've also found that the surface being
polished has a bearing on how good it will look. For example; a large flat surface
is a beatch to get a uniform surface on, in fact any flat surface is difficult. But your work looks
good.

EDIT: Oh, and if you're not going to polish, then a final cleanup with wet, soapy steel
wool gives a really nice shine.Give it a test on some scrap.

 

Wooo back online after 5 days of really shoddy internet .

Love this project 1 of my favourites so good to see an update .

That polish is just from sanding, wow , the polishing I did on my cube I didn't do any sanding, just straight to polishing, I'd expect you'd get absolutely fantastic results if you used polishing mops & compound on a bench grinder if a mirror finish is what your looking for, angle aluminium or flat bar is pretty easy to polish with a bench grinder & mops but large thin sheet is extremely difficult to get a great finish.

The finish you have there though looks like it could go straight to the softest polishing mop.

I have wet sanded sheet alu carefully with a power sander but just to get rid of light scratches, I think brushing aluminium looks best for anodising, but will be interesting to see what a polished anodised piece looks like, should be rather nice indeed .

 

Wow this project looks amazing, can't wait to see the finished article.

 

Cheers alex!

I hate polishing - the more I do, the more frustrated I get with small scratches and imperfections that would require hours and hours of sanding and polishing to remove a single deep scratch.

Next up is filling the weird molding crevices with more polyester resin,spray painting, and copper blackening! Hope to get an update out soon with some further progress.

 

Time for an update.

I decided to replace the backpanel I'd used from another case that has the fan hole. It's a bit dusty.







I wanted to have a simple aluminium back panel.

To have it sit flush with the aluminium frame a 10mm x 1.5mm step was milled from the inside side of the aluminium top and bottom frame and a 1.5mm sheet of aluminium cut and filed to leave the 1.5mm back panel sitting flush with the frame on the inside:








Next thing will be to cut out the hole for the I/O and PCI bracket to sit it in. This is going to be inserted from the back so you can't see the folded aluminium of the motherboard tray where it attaches to give a cleaner look when viewing from the inside of the case.

I used a stepped drill to make the 2 19mm holes for the antivandal switches; one for power, and one will be wired up to replace for the button of the slot-loading slimline dvd drive.



There had previously been holes in the 1/4 aluminium frame that were made from machining bits breaking when milling the slots the copper fins sit in as so:



To hide these I had a 1.5mm deep stepped section cut out for an aluminium cover plate to sit in. This will have front panel ports; USB (USB 3 if I can find some), audio, eSATA and firewire ports, and will allow me to make a new cover panel for different ports etc in future whilst securing the aluminium panel to the copper fins with resin.











I also did a little more countersinking to make the screwheads sit nice and flush.





Still a bit more to do on some of them though.

 

An update, woohoo!

It's looking great.

 

Oh, I see how it is. You post the pics just after midnight to see who is checking their subscriptions during the day. Well, I won't be fooled! I actually checked it earlier then clicked the link the email notification just now to spite you and spoil whatever research you're carrying out on your loyal readers!!

Heh, good to see this mod is alive and kicking, can't wait to see more