Time for another update, finally. Real life caught up with me and I haven't had much time to work on my case for the last few days. Anyways, last night I bondoed the aluminum sheets and as always I put way to much on. Anyone who has worked with bondo know it's a pain to sand down and when all you got is 120 grit paper it really takes forever. I'm not done yet but you get some idea of the end result. I also went to the hardware store yesterday... And got my self a few hunks of iron. After some assembling (and a few emergency calls to my mechanical-engineer friend ) it looks like this: Not too bad as it only set me back $50. Sure the quality isn't the best but it drills light years better than my cordless $20 drill. I also got my water tank today along with another stick of BH-5. While at the hardware store I also bought a 3/8 brass L-bend for the Eheim inlet and some needle files for when I do the case logo. Comments go here.
frodo, I did some searching and there are rivets specially made for countersinking. I'll try your way on a scrap piece and see how it turns out though.
I think this mod is going to be great in the end, you have some great ideas about the case! Nice to see that you got those drill machine parts together... Keep up the good work EDIT: I should have paid moore attention to the english lesson.
I got the drill press at Rusta (rusta.se). Clas Ohlson and Jula have a similar drill press for $75 which seems to be of slightly better quality.
I have had a similar idea to do to my chiefech full tower. my concern was the amount of room to put the mobo up near the optical drives. Chieftech towers are typically short in length. is there would be enough room for the optical drives without changing their mounting. When I go home this weekend, im going to take some measurements. how does the mobo fit with an optical drive installed? very nice work BTW!
With the standard chieftec front on it's a tight fit but it does work. Fortunately that's the least busy part of the mobo so there is probably more room (I just did some rought measurements to make sure it would fit once done).
It's been a awhile since the last update and not much has happened really. I'm drowning in other things to do so the number of daylight hours when I can mod is limited (starting to get dark really early). I need to mod on my balcony, or my girlfriend'd go crazy (We'll she kinda is already as we now got a drill press in our kitchen along with my other junk). Anyways, I've continued to sand and bondo the case separator. Second layer of bondo applied. Third layer applied and sanded down. After this layer I thought it was time to prime it and be done with it, but no, lots of small marks and imperfections appeared once primed (not that visible in picture). I'm starting to get really tired of working with this piece. I want the end result to be perfectly smooth once painted. If it's not I'll ruin the entire mod as this is the first thing you'll see when looking through the window. An option to painting the separator white would be to use Akasa sound mat to get an even finnish. I think the Akasa mat looks great and will probably fit right in as both the front and back will be covered in it. However it kinda sucks to have done all that work and then just cover it up. I need your help (yeah, even the lurkers!) to decide on what to do. Should I continue to sand and bondo until I get and perfect base for painting or should I just use the Akasa and move on to modding other stuff? Join the discussion here.
I think you should go on with the bondo and the sanding It can't be that much left to do!? Kind a boring to put that mat on after all the work you have done on that pice...
Thanks for all the feedback. After posting I started to lean even more towards the mat, not because of the sanding being a great PITA but because I like the look and how it would fit together with the rest of the mod. However, as many of you would prefer the painted finnish I'll postpone the decision and start working on other parts. Later when things are starting to come together I'll do a better mockup of both versions and we'll have another vote.
