Project: Shoestring, 7th Oct Well hello fellow bit-techians! (That's what you call yourselves right?) And welcome to my project log. I have decided to name it Project: Shoestring for the time being, as this case is on a shoestring budget, If you could suggest one for me please post it in my project discussion thread . Thanks! This will be my first mod, and on a pretty tight budget so please don't expect too much. I will try to use as little bought materials and components as I can, so I can spend more money on my new rig, Reasons Well I am building a new computer in a month or so, to replace the poor excuse for a rig I have now. But I have some hardware that I can salvage from my current computer: Radeon X700 256MB 1GB Corsair DDR RAM @ 400MHz 60GB Seagate HDD 300W PSU And a CD-ROM I will be getting a new processor and I will definitely need to get a new motherboard, as the one I have at the moment just doesn't cut it with that hardware, it only has AGP 4X and 333MHz max RAM and won't fit into this case I was given a case for free; it's a pretty sturdy aluminum micro tower. One problem, it looks pretty crap. So the final specs should be: Pentium 4 @ 3.2GHz (64-bit) Socket 775 mATX Mobo 1GB DDR RAM @ 400MHz 60GB HDD Nothing spectacular, I know, but still a pretty decent LAN box on a shoestring! Goals A CHEAP, small n' light, good looking, nothing over the top, LAN box. I am not thinking of something spectacular, just something that looks better than beige! Plans Paint case mirror back, with a clear coat. Tidy up cables nicely. Make room for some 120mm fans, with a nice grill at the front. Replace LEDs with cooler ones. USB and audio panel at the front/side. Install a 2X16 LCD. Possibly plexi glass window with lighting (we'll see how much I damage the wallet before hand.) BEFORE (I can't believe people used to think beige looked good) AFTER Coming soon! Day 1 First of all I disassembled the case, removing pretty much everything that could be. I picked up some paint, primer, clear coat and some Wet n' dry from the local paint shop. I sanded the side panel back to the metal using emery cloth I already had on hand. The bare aluminum looks pretty sexy. The first coat of self etching primer goes on. I am going to be testing out the paint job on this panel first, to see how it comes out. I don't want to waste paint and time on doing it on all of the pieces if I don't like it in the end. So we will see how it turns out. Comments and suggestions are welcome in my discussion thread. Thanks!
Project: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=99537 Sorry I haven't thought of a good name yet... Any better suggestions? What are you waiting for? Comment! Thanks, your friend, Dilmah
Hello Dilmah I like those old,smal an simple cases verry much because they have a varry basic and simple design which makes it easy to create what you want out of it. Some of the cases now adays are way to extreme. You said "The bare aluminum looks pretty sexy"......isnt that just standard steel? looks like that too me. Anyway... I hope this turns out great and good luck with your Shoestring /Gnu
Thanks for the comments, Gnu I like ths case very much aswell, It is very sturdy for an aluminium case. It is also very light. Nope, I am pretty sure it is aluminium, it is way too light to be steel, although it does look like steel when it was sanded.
Looks like a nice case to mod. One thing though... Get that speaker out of the drive cage. That CAN't be good for the harddisk.
That speaker is long gone! I'm thinking of putting a fan there, to cool the HDD. This rig isn't going to be a performance rig, so I might not even bother. We will see!
you dont want to sand down to the bare metal, you will get better paint adhesion if you sand only the existing paint lightly then prime over it. repeat priming, sanding until silky smooth. a good flat primer makes all the difference in the world when going for a glossy finish, especially black! on my case I did florescent yellow, I didnt get the primer smooth enough so when I went to do the final polishing, in some areas the polishing compound actually got stuck into the paint! (paint had dried for 6 days) another thing, if you can help it, after you get the paint the way you like it, dont handle the case for at least a week. youl be so bummed when the slightest contact chips your nice paint job. rattle can paints take about 3 weeks to really harden up. I would recommend you look up some sites on case painting.
Hi -EVRE-, and thanks for the tip. It's a pretty steep learning curve for the newcomers, so I am glad I am not working on an expensive case. I read a few sites about case painting, but I don't think they mentioned not to sand all the way back to the metal. Or maybe I just didn't read it properly! I did get the bare metal pretty smooth, and the primer did seem to stick pretty well. I am only doing one panel at the moment to see how it comes out. Well I better get back to sanding Thanks
