PROJECT: Green Dragon | major delay | Updated 10/2

Small update

Today I have sanded the front, painted the door, primed the top and drawed the dragon so it's ready for engraving. I'm not sure if I'll engrave it to night or if Iæll wait for tomorrow...

The dragon... never mind the scratches, the blue, and the red marker, It's just the film on the backside.


The front... almost finished, I need to fill inn some dents and holes on the door and sand it then it should be ready for priming

 

The Dragon has risen!

Today's work:
Since i didn't sleep tonight, i got to do quite much. First I translated a FAQ on engraving, then I engraved the dragon in the top window, then I sanded the top panel and the jagged door, then I painted the top, 2 times. And now just for fun I have installed the top window using tape and I have lit it up with one 3mm led. I have also played a little with photoshop to try to make the color of the LEDs right... but I have never used photoshop before, so I didn't mannage it. unfortunately when I was going to take a picture of the top with the dragon window installed, the battery died.

My work bench


engraved dragon


top panel painted one time


top panel painted one time (just to show that it isn't as glossy as i hoped (yet).


Original dragon picture still sea blue/green


after aome time fooling around with photoshop... It's far from the actual color, but it's atleast green.


Tomorrow starts school.. so much for the summer holyday...

 

The engraving looks awesome!

Man, I really need to work on my engraving skills

 

Wow, the paint job on the top is great. Look forward to a game of CS mate. Keep it up

 

Buttons installed

Today I have filed the holes for the buttons bigger. it took me about an hour or something. After dinner I'm going to apply some bondo to the front aand to some scratches in the dragon door.






Teaser: top panel

the dragon is lit up with only one led.... I'm gonna use 4; 2 on each of the short sides

 

Things are comming along nicely, keep it up


Cheers,
Mike

 

WOW! Looking really, really good. You are definitly looking like the master of the dremel. That engraving on the top is amazing, a really different style and knowing it's all home made just makes it even more cool.
Didn't realise the buttons were going on the side, which side is that? and why did you put them there rather than the front panel? Just curious.
Once you've got the water cooling all glowing in there the windows are gonna look amazing. Are you going to put something cool in the top drive bay so you can see it through the top window? Maybe a window'ed cd drive?
(oh, and I hope that wasn't your floor you got spray paint on )
amazing work mate, I'm really enjoying watching it all come together. Mod on

 

Thanks a lot phuzz! nothing's better than a good feedback

I did it just for the looks really.. and because I find it annoying to have to open the door everytime i turn the computer on (I'm hard to stir up ). it's on the right side. the dragon door is on the right.. the jagged door is on the left.

Maaaybe... i'll haven't decided yet... I opened my cd burner to see if it would work... but I couldn't figure out how to put it back together... And I have no design to cut... hmm... thinking about it i could cut "Green Dragon" into it... like this:

It might look cool if I mannage to cut the letters... If some one could give me a font that is easy to cut, i might do it

Paint on the floor

 

I have been testing a bit, and found out that cutting creen dragon into the dvd player will be hard because I want it to be right over the cd, so you'll be able to see it spinning underneath... but since the window only shows half the dvd rom, I would have had to make the letters very small... which would be hard to cut. So I'm thinking of just cutting a half circle and cover it with mesh from the inside.

This is the mesh I will use if I decide to cut the dvd.


this is where i get the mesh from

 

hehe, you know you can buy mesh in hardware stores?

If you cut apart your trashbin where are you going to store the trash?

 

whoa, i havn't read this log for a long time. unfortunatly..
buy beeing late is probly better then never reading it at all, right?
you've came a long way since i stoped by last time Acid burn !
this case did turn out way, waay better then i first thought

be sure to watch out if it developes wings by itself..
you dont want such a beauty to fly away, right?

no, seriously.. i love this project. great work so far!
and someone please slap me for having such a bad night humor

 

I just haven't found mesh in any hardware stores here in belgium.. and the trashcan is very very cheap, so the next time I go to IKEA i'll just buy two of them

thanks litecore

 

Ready for painting

Today I havent done anything except wet sanding the top and the jagged door.

wet sanding away the "orange skin" you get when painting with spraycans is a very important step to achieve a mirror finish. It works without doing it too, but then you won't end up with a finish as good as if you sand it.


BTW: the top is completely black... it's the flash that makes it look like I've sanded down to the metal again.

painting will continue tomorrow

 

Painted

today I have painted the top paned and the door.

I held the can 10 cm or so over the case , to show the mirror effect that's starting to come out


And then I held the can about 1mm over it to se how the it reflected the colors. because the picture was taken in a complete black room (out shed) the camera had a little problem focusing. and the flash got reflected so it kind of looks grey, but the reflection of the can is pretty sweet though


I just can't figure this out... I have painted the door with the exact same can as I have used on the top, and I have used the same primer, but for some reason the black seems to be evaporating off the door, leaving large spots grey!! (marked by red). can anyone give me a tip o how to fix this?


Not bad for a first timer huh?

 

The good and the bad

Although no one is commenting my updates anymore, I can see there still are a few watching this, so I'll continue writing

well I have one good and one bad news.

The Bad:
I have decided to sand down all the paint I have applied to the jagged edge door, because it simply just won't turn glossy. I believe that the reason is that I used another primer brand on it. every time I spray it with the glossy black paint, it turnes gray and matte when it starts drying.



The Good
The top panel is turning out great. in 1 or 2 days time I'm going to wet sand it and apply clear lacquer, then a few days later I'm going to sand it and rub it with rubbing compound.

 

Well it certainly looks nice and glossy now , Should be quite amazing with the clear coat and polish. Keep us updated.

 

Looking good there Acid Burn

How many times have you sanded then painted it already?

 

hmm.. two layers of priming (with wet sanding between), one layer of paint, then wet sanding, then this picture was taken after another layer. I will sand it tomorrow. it it very important to let the paint rest at least 2 days, not only to dry (it's dry after a couple of hours), but to harden. the paint hardens a lot between the first and third day.

maybe I'll apply one more coat of black, before I spray it with clear lacquer...

 

Orange peel.....

Id' certainly apply another coat of black paint and then apply the clear coat.

Looking good as always, GJ.

Cheers,
Mike

 

Wow, that's pretty damn shiny. yay shiny

(ok, its saturday morning and I've just got out of bed, that's as interlectual as it's getting for a few hours)