Case Mod - In Progress Project Kaintuck! Jan 11 case finished

First of all i started working on this case back in late 06 early 07 in which i decided to make a case themed after university of kentucky basketball. Mainly i chose this because they are my favorite college basketball team and i thought a blue case would be awesome. Well enough jabber and lets have some pics. (case has been modded into this and updated over the past year in the half as i have made improvements to it.
Before current work


After dismantlement of the case for work

and


What i have done so far is cut out a section of the front and back panels of the case to jb weld a new sheet of metal in for 120mm fans to mount properly on them. Before i just half a$$ed the job and cut them off center in the front which looked like sh**. So here the panels are with the new pieces of metal with jb weld on them drying.

and rear

 

As you can see in this picture of the front panel the fan is really off center so this is what im planning to fix.


Also i will be replacing the power and reset switches with vandal resistant switches one ring illuminated and the other dot illuminated right above each other. The ring on the power switch will be my power status light and the dot on the reset will be hard drive activity.

for power

for reset.

for the interior chassis i will be painting it gloss black using duplicolor automotive spray paints.

 

Just a thought, but you might want to consider renaming the thread. As this is a United Kingdom based site and a proportion of the readers will be from the United Kingdom, using "UK" in the title might be misleading

It was for me, but perhaps I'm just thick.

 

ok ill think of a good name for it. thanks

 

Yeah go with a local legend , that gives something to converse about if a Hottie asks what it means ... L O L

 

lol lmao. I should have some more updates tomorrow. Jb weld is cured up so i can start sanding it down smooth. Once i get that done i will be able to have all the pieces sand blasted so i can start the painting process. I ordered quite a few things from performance pc.com so i should get all of that stuff by monday. once i get the chassis painted and riveted back togeather i will start on the ouside of the case repainting it with duplicolor auto spray paint as well. We shall see how it turns out.

 

what is the best size hole saw to use for cutting out holes for 120mm case fans. 120mm = around 4.7 inches so should i just go 4.5 inches or try to find a metric one? thanks

 

Project Kaintuck! Nobody local remembers the 'Y'

John

 

just picked up a 4.5" hole saw to cut the holes with for a whole 36 bucks anywayz time to go drill some holes and test fit the fans.

 

front panel has its hole cut for the fan now, waiting on father to get back with drill bits for the fan screws. Bad news on the back panel going to set me back a day or two. While cutting the hole the jb weld joint broke loose so ill have to cut a new piece of metal to jb weld back in.

 

ok just got the order in from performance-pc.com.


wired up the switches for testing, ring is power, dot is hard drive activity.


Going to go sleeve the fans and power switches once my father gets in with the heat shrink i need. will post pics when done.

 

No point looking for metric I think, the ones we get here are metric and sized 117mm which is 4.5 inches

 

You can never go wrong with those power buttons I just wish I could find a silver one with a green dot to finish off my mod!

Those mesh brackets are cool too.

Nice overall mod!

 

thanks for the comments guys been waitin for someone to post some type of comment anyway, i sleeved the fans as well as both 120mm fans. Im still looking for a solution for the jbweld cracking problem but im going to go to a welding shop today so see if they can spot tig weld it in a few places on each side to hold it. When i get home from college ill take some pics of my current progress and do an update.

 

heres the small update for today. Still working on getting the new metal secured, getting ready to call welding shop to see if they will be able to spot it a few times for me. While im doing that heres some eye candy of cable sleeving that i have done on the fans and my power and reset switches that i have wired and sleeved as well. post any comments you have. Thanks

fan mount drilled and fan mounted


cable sleeving

 

While waiting for my front and back panels to be spot welded i decided to go ahead and start working to get the other pieces ready for paint. Heres the bottom plate paint process.




(sorry for the messy shop)
seems like this paint is pretty awesome, all i need to do now is to wait for the paint to cure and clear coat it.

 

does any one know how long i should let this cure up before i apply the clear coat? The instructions say that after 1 hour you must wait 7 days before applying any more coats so im thinking just go by that.

Edit: If anyone has any comments about my work either good or bad post the feedback please, if it will help me improve this mod im willing to take it into consideration, just let me know what you think about the mod. Updates will be coming this week when i get the rest of the case preped for paint. Thanks

 

ive gotten everything painted and clear coated and riveted back together except the front panel which im still working on. heres some current pics with my new corsair hx620 and my zero-therm nirvana nv120.
















ill let pics speak for themselves, tell me what you all think. Thanks

 

I say

This is cool.. "Ground-level" mod-action.. I will have a BLUE-Christmas after viewing the above..
Projects like this are what keeps bit-tech going..
MS

 

thanks man, yea i got the scythe kaze master fan controller in and the zerotherm nirvana in today, it has about 4mm from top of heatsink and top of case and around 8mm from the window, tight fit

idle temps with fan at 3/4 speed is 30c and at full load 36c.

also got my usb/1394/audio connection in so i can mod it into the front bezel so we will see how that goes in the next week or two. Once thats done ill be ready to call this case complete other than tidying up some of the wires once they are routed.