Case Mod - In Progress [CASELABS BH4] MILSPEC II-Final pics but moar pics to come!

Welcome everybody to my latest log! This one is a remake of a simple build done a few years ago for someone else,this time im remaking it for me,hopefully with none of the facepalm that comes with a sequel!

The latest victim is the 'hot from the press' Caselabs BH4,a case designed by Jim and his hardworking team to be a compact case for aircoolers....well...Challenge Accepted as I dont do aircoolers so this build will be a Sli,fully watercooled rig instead.
Most of you know,if you cut me in half then the words In Win can clearly be seen like a stick of rock....however,when a case gets my interest then Im going to have to have a go at stamping my style on it,this is one of those cases!

First off,lets look at the case.
As usual,Caselabs have gone for a thick gauge Alu but opted for a clamshell design rather than the traditional frame and panel design favored by most manufacturers. This saves on weight and materials which is why im guessing Caselabs dont charge the earth for it. Its compact,really compact...however I have a second lower clamshell which will be flipped to make a small rad bay underneath (more on that in the pics). I also went for the dual window option because...who wouldnt?!? Finish is,for now,Caselabs excellent primer finish,I have used this before and found it excellent so I saw no reason not to use it again,thanks to Jim for that as i know its a PITA to change out colours and primers for just one case!







Caselabs provide well for storage fiends! 4x 2.5 and 2x 3.5 mounts no less.





Board in place...





You can see from the pics that I have mounted standoff's to the lower section,this will mount the panel that will hold the rads and the vanity panel on the front.










You will probably guess that fitting the GPU's with waterblocks will be hard...well,it is with my choice of cards,the excellent ASUS 980Ti Strix cards,as they are HUGE! Not to worry tho,there will be a form fitting cutout on top to allow the cards and blocks some space.

The GPU's,courtesy of ASUS UK! I went for the awesome 908Ti Strix as availability of a second 1080FE to go with the one I have already was next to non existent. Who cares tho when they are as good as this!









You can see how tight it is when I did the shakedown...




The RAM courtesy of the excellent team at KLEVV,a new sponsor for me and provider of some sexy sophisticated looking RAM,this is their DDR4 CRAS kit....so cool looking! Thanks KLEVV!





The motherboard,the awesome X99m WS platform,this was provided by my mate Tom Logan @OC3D,once he found out what I was doing and how much I wanted to use that board,he selflessly offered me his one from his ASUS pron stash!! Good Work that Man!!!









And with that gorgeous RAM in situ





Its like KLEVV had a picture of that board next to the designers workstation with the memo 'Make it look awesome on that board'....

Watercooling ,as always,comes from the best,EK. Derick was excited to hear of my collaboration with the ever awesome Caselabs so it was not a hard choice to make!



As you can see,this will need a post all of its own!

PSU's are in the form of dual Cors68air SFX series,no ATX will fit in the gap and those GPU's are not on a diet so the back panel will be modded to hold 2 of these,a 600w for the CPU and 1 GPU while the other smaller 450w unit has the second GPU and the ancillary equipment.



Im not giving to much away on this yet but you can count on paint,lots of metal cutting and a dirty great res in the front!!

Thanks to the teams at Caselabs,ASUS UK,KLEVV,The constantly awesome EK and me old mucker Tom Logan at OC3D for providing me with the support time and again to do what I love. Big kisses guys XX ​

 

Looks very interesting so far. Haven't seen that case modded before, should be good!

 

A form fitting cuttout on top... covered with a tupperware bowl.

 

Damn it Cheapskate,dont keep giving my ideas away!

Honestly,you just help yourself can you.....

 

Today's post is the EK kit that I couldn't squeeze in yesterday.

Fans are the 2200 PWM Vadars,that black finishes them off nicely compared to the grey of before!







Because of the limited space in the 'ped',I went for EK's slim SE rads,a pair of these will be cooling everything down.







And taking care of the CPU is the X99 EVO block......and I forgot to take the bloody blue sticker off!





Now to the positively OOOOOGE 980 Ti block for the Strix...







I went with nickel backplates,I have something in mind for those!

I still cant get over how damn big they are.....

To space space I have left my beloved D5 setups behind and gone with the PWM 18w DDC....and because ,you know,that heatsink......





And finally,the fittings,normal EK HD here and the inclusion of a pair of Y's should provide something to think about.....



HALF LIFE CONFIRMED!

I thought,as I have a lot of painting to do and its overdue as i need a new primer gun (goodbye Graco,enjoy the rest of your short life grey!),I invested in a new toy for the workshop....
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nice stuf and pic

 

Thanks!

Sneaky peek at the backplates?

 

And now the blocks are fitted!

Enjoy the pics.

















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more black, more black, more black, more black

Lovely looking so far Mr. Neg- hope the leg improves quickly so you can speed up your modding goodness

 

A small update,just a show of progression of how the rad ped is setup,just need some larger feet and the extenders for the rear rad ports,its too tight to get bends in there as the pics will show.









And as a finishing touch to the inside....



I have 14mm +/-1mm between the fans and the roof of the ped,I had to jack up the midplate inside the main chassis to get the clearance I need. If I had thought longer on this,I probably would of got another clamshell lower and made a much larger rad bay....I didnt want to lose the compactness of the case tho....

Making good progress tho!

 

So you won't be giving those poor fans room to breathe between the cases?

 

There is a mid plate thats removable so it can exhaust properly,the fans draw air from underneath and expel from the back/middle. I just wanted it easy to clean without stripping down.

 

from that one picture of the sli bridge, compared to the others of the mobo and blocks, that gray color on the bridge itself looks very much out of place!

 

Its not staying,it will get a lick of paint too.

 

So after an hour or so in the garden,I made the second PSU mount in the rear of the case to mount the extra Corsair SFX PSU for the second card and ancillaries like the water cooling,storage etc.

It all fits like a glove!





600w for the board, first GPU and OS drive,the 450w for the second card and the rest of the gubbins,lovely job!

Now to cut the res mount and top clamshell,get the bottom plumbed in with the passthru's. I do believe we can get some paint down after that!

 

In more news,the pass thrus are done and I managed to keep all the storage options too.

 

The roughing cutouts have been done,now to get the res made for the front and a more form fitting cutout for the GPU terminals/SLI bridge. I will machine that later today I think.....

After that...PAINT TIME!

I love the way I can see a lot of the hardware from 3 sides,so much so that clear coolant maybe the way forward.









5mm clearance from the top of the case to the GPU's......

So this is the rough clearance cutout,there will be a machined plate going full length that will have a closer tolerance of around .5mm.



And the block just fills one side....

 

Oof! Do you hold your breath while opening the case?
Also, Color?

 

The cover plate will be a lot closer tolerance wise,I will leave it off till the last minute then when the gpu is in its final position I will fit it to allow for movement in construction.

The colour is a custom mixed green...A lightened olive drab with yellow for the airbrushed bits,found some plotter film that is a a great masking material,low tack and no residue,once I do the airbrush work I will 2k clear coat it.

Job Done Cheaps,Job Done. If I could find an extension that didnt put the fittings at a slight offset then I would use the parallel bridge i have here instead,EK have one recessed port that defies getting a flush fitting for...

 

Apologies for the cam phone.....
The top plate is cut and everything bare was etch primered ready for colour tomorrow!



The sli bridge is almost flush with the plate now.





Now to strip it all down to the last bolt and key everything ready for the lovely green basecoat. Sleeve is on its way too,the job I hate the most.......