Project : Lupine **CPU Mad Reader Mod Dec. 05**

Now quick pic update.

1) The etch work:




The wolf was used with the permission of the artist, and his name is Nick Deligaris (http://www.deligaris.com/art/color30.jpg). I believe you will find the remainder of his work as impressive as the wolf. He was very gracious in the use of his artwork, so long as I did not profit from it and I gave him credit. Well, as we all know, modding is an illness, and I certainly have not made any money on this mod but I want full artistic credit for the wolf to be directed to Nick and his beautiful work @ www.deligaris.com. Thank you Nick, it has been a pleasure working with you on this!


Here we see what I plan on putting into the bottom of the window frame:


I am contemplating making the sides look like there are branches from trees "just out of view" that are poking into the picture.... we'll see how that flies before I start cutting.

All put together, after cutting, this is how I forsee the window coming out, shape wise:


The bottom will not be white, I just had to reverse the cliff image, and flip over the paper to orient the wolf where I wanted it. Where you see white on the bottom, that will actually be the black of the side cover. Plus, the white just shows up better on the black background!

The inside CPU fan shroud had to be removed to make way for the window. I think this hurt a bit to pull the tube out, as I had wonderful plans of seeing how cool my CPU was going to cool using hte fresh air.... but alas, the window and the placement of this cylinder just would not work out... so, off it came!


Putting the cutout template on the inside of the door . I actually ended up cutting off the bottom 1.5 inches of white paper, and lowering the scene down so that the rocky/cragy clifs were not going to be cut out of the mesh work... I did not want to hit the bondo on this cut!

More tomorrow, as I will begin and hopefully complete my window!

 

awesome etc man !

 

With an h=)

 

Looking great!

 

Thanks guys! I'll have pics up later today *hopefully* of a completed window!
If not done by today, then tomorrow!


I'm really excited about this one!

 

Todays window work...

Hehehe... no turning back now! I am committed to the design!






Now I have burned my boat... and have set forth on the journey to make this window ROCK!


After cutting the window, the black finish on the outside has been damaged. Tried to avoid it but when you are cutting through metal with a spinning abrasive disc... things happen! I tried painting with a flat black... but MAN... matching black is nearly impossible!

Looks like I have to hit it with the ol' gloss black treatment. Did not want to have to paint the external facing sides, but... you do what ya gotta do!

I'll be priming/sanding and painting tonight. Pics to follow later.

 

that's just plain beautiful work!

 

I find for the edges of black cuts perminant marker works great. Excellent work on the cutting, look forward to seeing the painting

 

ok...that is cool to the extreme.....i too love wolves

 

yellowbomb

Looks down right awsome so far. I really like the etching you've used, and I really want to see how the colors all work together. Good luck!


P.S. Be careful not to give the "significant other" too many ideas, 'cause you might end up with too many projects.

 

Awsome work with the dremel TD. I can't wait to see that window lit up. I bet the details will just pop out.

 

I tried that and, though it did disguise the metal... the reflection of the metal edge would still show ... Almost like it was tinted until the light hit it just right. Too distracting for me, so I just redid the finish color.

Thanks everyone, more updates in a few hours!

 

so much that we will faint in amazment, that really is good modding, can't wait to see the finished thing

 

You are far too kind! Thank you for the compliments! I hope that I can keep this bay-beee rolling!


Ok, last night I did my first round of primer and got the first coat of black on the window. Tonight I wet sanded both the back panel and the window panel with 800 then 1000 grit, and reshot another layer of primer on the back panel (high spots around the handle divot that I have to be careful of) and another layer of black on the wolf window.

This one was taken last night after the 1st primer on the window side:


Last night after the first color on the window:



After wet sanding tonight


This update, brought to us by the letter *K* and the number *1664* (Man, I love that stuff!) (for those that have never had it, Kronenbourg 1664 is a beer imported from France... yummy!) :


Back panel, right after sanding but before the 2nd primer coat:



Right now I'm letting the primer dry out on the back panel and then I'll wet sand it again, then I'll hit it with it's first layer of color.

Can Lexan be heated like acrylic and bent? Anyone know?

 

Yep.

Nice work on the paint job.

Rock on.

 

Tech, that is beautiful work! I'm continuing to stay impressed. The idea of chroming up the inside as a base coat is truly an attention to detail.

A couple questions (again):
1) For your cutting, what did you do to cut the bulk of the window? Jig saw, or dremel all the way?
2) I can't be arsed to go back through and find it, even though it's only 4 pages...who did your window etch and for how much?
3) Have you considered a top window for the piece?
4) Did you have to drill out pop-rivets for the top as well, or did that piece just snap off? I'm seriously considering one of these cases if the top was easy to remove...

 

Thank you for the comments! Let me answer your questions one at a time:

1) Most of the window was cut out with a jigsaw. The bottom detail was with a reinforced cutoff wheel on a dremel flexi-shaft. I also used a few tungsten bits for whittling out the fine bits.
2) The window etch was done by a friend of mine. The cost was negligible, but I do not know if he is going to start taking orders doing this. THis was more of an experiment.
3) I have considered a top window, however the desk design that this will be put into would obscure the top view, so I am concentrating on the sides and the front. as display points.
4) The top required the end rivets to be drilledas well as 2 or 3 on the sides to be removed. It does pop off after those steps!

HTH!
Thanks for following the mod!

 

Sanded and put down a thrid coat of black on the front panel (which bubbled and looks like absolute crap, but I'll deal with that on the sanding) and then I put my 2nd on the back panel and it came out splendid!

No pics, just a verbal on those. Most of tonights work was spent planning cable management. I'm thinking hard about cabling, because I recieved the following tonight:

Made by www.lizard-tree.com and they look GREAT!!!
Perfect match on the color. These will be for the cabling, the base will be black, and this wrapped around the black for accenting. Mmmmmm!

Contemplating a 120mm fan grill based on this design:



And some misc. wolf tracks on some yet to be displayed acrylic work:



I'm also drawing up plans on a front panel design that incorporates some of the above elements... but those are sketch pads in my head right now.

Since I have a need for a 20 to 24 pin adaptor, by virtue of this motherboard, I 'm planning on a bit of modification of this adaptor. I'm also going to cut a hole in the side of one of the 5 1/4 bays, so that I can route the adaptor out and allow for the current ATX cable to be routed behind the motherboard tray (through a yet to be punched hole in the mobo tray). I will have cabling shown, as I want the cables to be seen.... I just want them neat, and always attractive to be viewed.

More later... I'm tired!

 

*56k BEWARE!!!!* Lots of pics in this update!!!!

Good evening all!
Most all day in the garage, and I have a few things to show for it!

First thing I wanted to get done today was the acrylic cover for the side of the drive bays. I love the functionality of the sliders for adding and removing hardware, but I realized a few things about those beloved mechanisms...
1) They would be difficult to paint
2) They slide back and forth, making the surface painting under the slider a messy and maintainence prone affair.

So, I opted to build an acrylic cover for the bay area.
Here I am fleshing out the space and shape requirements with a piece of folded poster board.





I then layed the template out on the acrylic and outlined what I needed to shape:



My first attempt at cutting it out with a jig saw failed miserably ( I can only believe it is the cheap nature of this particular type of acrylic... but that is me guessing. It did not happen to me while working with Delvie's acrylics...), and actually instantaneously split the panel that effectively rendered 2 hours work... useless.

So I redrew the template, and then cut it out with a dremel bit. I knew that would work, but it took so much longer to complete that way... ugh. Oh well, gotta improvise sometimes!





Here is my impromptu acrylic bending station:




Ahhhh... success!


After a lot of test fitting and shaping with a dremel sanding drum, I got it to the shape that I wanted!

Now, to disguise the bays, I started out by spraying the back side of the bay cover with the purple X-Metals/Metalcast paint. This will transparently tint the acrylic to purple, where I will add on a sweet paint that I found from Krylon. It is a glass paint that they formulate to be sprayed on the inside of glass lids. The silver color actually dries to the bottom of the coat. It is designed to be painted inside of glass jar lids, so that the jars looke almost like chrome! So, I paint this over the back of the purple, and I end up with a silver reflective finish backing the purple! (remember the metal/silver base I did on the case... well, think the same thing here, but with a twist! )

First coat of purple:



Now, while the 1st coat on the drive bay cover was drying, I grabbed my 20 pin ATX power to 24 pin eATX power adaptor, and decided it was MUCH to colorful! So, little trick... if you dont have any gloves laying around, grab yourself a plastic grocery sack, and put it over your hand that holds the adaptor as you spray it down with black vinyl dye! Certailny keep the ol' fingers a bit cleaner!

Before:


After 1st coat:



Now, I have the drive bay cover and the eATX adaptor drying... what next??? I was like a shark looking for something to attack! heheheh...
My unsuspecting Power Supply....
Antec 430w... would you *look* at the cables on this thing! I love it! So much so, that not *one* cable on this will be modded. I want to keep them incase they get traded into another machine later.


Gutting it open (good bye, warranty! )


The Antec came with gold fan guards... I'm swapping them for silver fan guards to be shot purple by the metal cast later!

 

*56k BEWARE!!!!* Lots of pics in this update!!!! (PT 2)

And, while I have everything out, I needed 2 holes on the back side of the motherboard and drive bays to accomidate some custom cable routing later on.



2nd coat of Purple (that did not go on well... I am SOOO pissed off... I hope it did not ruin the bay cover. We'll see. Grrrr.....)




Hey! What is a coomputer without a mobo, and the mobo finally makes it's first appearance! An Asus A8V-E Deluxe (socket 939, VIA 890 based PCI-E solution) with an FX-53 already making itself at home!


Joining in the fray was a Coolermaster Hyper 48 CPU cooler. This is a $40-$50 cooler that I found on sale for under $9 NEW!!!! (bought 2!) I about flipped out! It looks great, and according to the reviews that I have seen, is a pretty darn good performer!


It comes with everything seen here, is P4 and K8 ready (not that I need the P4 bit... but maybe I can make something useful out of the spare parts later! )


The base is very smooth, and only an insane CPU lapper would go after this surface... Mmmmmm, tasty!


After mounting the heatsink, and getting the heat pipes oriented the way I wanted them to go... I realized that the fan lead for the CPU fan was now hanging in the front of the CPU.... that is a "no no" in my book. 4 Screws off the top, twist the fan 2 clicks so that the lines are now sprouting out the back... and then I screwed the fan back into place!



Then I sleeved that awful loud colored cabling on the fan, trying to subdue it a bit and calm it down to work with the rest of my mod...


Damn, that looks a *lot* better, and leave plenty of room for my new memory that I won over on insaneTek (http://www.insanetek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3465&page=1&pp=10), TWINX1024-3200XL's with black heat spreaders!!!!
Yummy!


Just waiting for the case to give it a home... damn. that looks nice all by itself!



What? What did you say? "What about the ATX adaptor?" "Did you finish it up or did you leave it half painted like the earlier pic?"

Heck no! 4 coats later.... Hehehee... trick on this piece was that the cluster of cables caused problems getting all of them painted, so I'd have to wait until the vinyl dye dried, then I'd flex the bundle or twist it, until I had more cables exposed. Then I'd spray what I saw. Mind you, I made it a point to make sure that no dye touched the pins on the bottoms of the plugs. Only the sides and the tops... and the cables... were sprayed.



And this is a teaser pic for what I plan on doing with the rest of the cables in Lupine....

Mmmmmm, tasty!



More tomorrow! I'm rolling now!!!