Case Mod - In Progress Fire & Ice (Antec Plus 1080AMG, Started Dec. 2007)

Left and right patterns getting traced:

 

Done deal:

Now to place the dots markers for drilling. Remember drill them around the angles for more mobility if your using a scroll saw. The long slightly curved runs are easy to cut in one pass.

 

So the easy part is done:

You can "bear"ly see the red dots all along the patterns in this picture. The drilling was a night job taking around 2 hours (with breaks). There are a bunch of holes that need to be drilled in the 3 pieces so that the designs can be scroll sawed out. I bought a brand new drill press makes drilling holes easy. The bad new? I had a dull bit and it was late at night. I pulled a little to much on the lever and basically punched holes flaring the metal out on the other side....my bad....so now I have a lot of sanding to do to smooth the metal out.



A shot of the dots:



On to the cutting

 

The cutting:

The cutting of the patterns was really a pain in the ars. This picture shows the drilled holes (to thread the blade through) and some of the cutting going on. The blades are for metal cutting and were lubricated with a block of bees wax to make them last a little longer. The pattern was a guide that was followed at times but had to be missed at times because of the angles/blade tension...so BIG deal that's what files are for... I added the red with a Sharpie (won't bleed) because the white pattern was to light to see as I cut the pattern out. Cutting at 2 much of an angle broke the blade. I figured I was going to do "Famous Oriental Pass Time" Fi-ling alot!



This is the bee's wax. Don't even ask me how they squeezed the wax out of those little critters. This is not the Mister Wizard show. You can see I cut a little chunk off of the block. All you have to do is rub the wax on the blade to lubricate it. It won't even melt away with the friction.....well some won't.



This was my blade of choice for my first experience in cutting metal on the scroll saw:



not a pretty picture.
But I finally figured out the speed, pressure and blade. I used the Craftsman 15 TPI (teeth per inch) blade for metal cutting. Blades were hard to find locally and I live in Houston, Texas, not a small city. Sears had them...Crafts-M-A-N! I checked online and was able to find some places that had them for a reasonable price but shipping doubled that. The blades are around $3 for 5 not a bad deal...but the price is nice because they do break....Safety Advice: Wear leather gloves.....

 

This is a little closer look at the work:

You can see the flaring of the drilled holes in this picture. When drilling take your time, go slow, and don't work till 3:00 in the morning trying to get it done. Again rub the blade with bee's wax to help lubricate it and reduce friction heat. The bees wax does not run off that's the key. Oil makes a mess.

 

Another close up:

The picture shows the cut starting at a hole. The holes help in giving you direction when your cutting. 360 degrees rotation helps a lot when your cutting with a scroll saw, especially those hard angles. But remember most saws have an 18" table. The work will bottom out (hit the back arm) at times before you can cut from back to front. Another problem is the guard getting in the way when you get close to the edge. Cutting without the guard makes for a lot of broken blades since the teeth of the blade want to grab and pull on the up swing then lock on the working piece on the way down...and "We be jamming mon"....



This is a shot showing how you can bottom out if you go to far into the edge of the piece with your design. The cuts 3" from the edge were a bear because the guard had to be raised. The piece bottom out going the other way an 18" depth maximum (notice the pieces left behind for a later cut on the back edge):

 

The throw down work shop for the weekend warrior:

So here's the safety topic. Wear gloves and eye protection. I forgot my eye protection one evening and had a piece of metal fuse to my eye ball. You read that right fused!!!! I was able to pluck it off with a Q-tip the last ditch effort was going to the emergency room because it looked like it penetrated the eye. So don't thinking it won't happen to you!!!!

 

Almost finished:

The cutting took about 3 weekends and maybe 12 hours (many wine breaks) . This was the hardest piece to cut. In all fairness it was my first use of the scroll saw. Some may be able to do this in less time. Give us some input if your scroll time is less and your "How's". Aluminum would probably be easier since it's softer metal.

 

The finished rough cut right panel:

The dimples from the drilling can be seen here. I'll have to sand them down but learned the hard way to go easy on the drilling. The scroll saw blade broke at the worst possible times when I was cutting the little details jamming the blade and bending the metal a bit but that can be fixed in time. My though: Cut the little details with a new blade and it's like cutting butter...

 

The finished rough cut top:

The flames will stop shy of the fan grill. The plan is to place the lights for the top flames in an enclosure so they don't contribute to the lights for the blow hole (Blow hole blue, Flames; red, orange, and yellow) I will need help on the lighting when I get there:

 

The finished rough cut left panel:

I was thinking about using 2 layers of plexi-glass and sandwiching some flame tips in them for a 3D effect? Any thoughts?

 

Famous Oriental Pass Time:

Fi-ling

Now for the filing. This is where you can make it shine. I bought a set of files from the local SAM's in a range of sizes and shapes. Perfect for the cleanup and not very expensive. The not so curved angles were smoothed out and the waves cleaned up. The small file on the left was the tool of choice. It was flat on one side and curved on the other making for an easy way to round out the...well.....rounds!!!!

 

Yea the ice was an after thought...I wanted flames but got stuck on the lighting part. The paint is going to be candy apple red on the inside so the lighting couldn't be red...I think I'm going with blue lighting but orange and yellow on the right side panel to make the flames peek out. The exterior is going to be Dupli-Color Mirage. The paint changes colors depending on the light. The 2 colors are Red/Blue.

 

Working out the front:

I decided to cut flames on the front door. I am planning on making a back panel to create a hollow area for lighting. The lighting will be red at the bottom yellow on the sides and orange on top to hopefully create a flames illusion.

 

The front flames are cut:

I will have a little clean up for this part since the plastic was curved and difficult to cut. The cutting was done with a Dremel and cutting bits. Bondo will sort out the rest in time. A little piece at the bottom left still has to be cleaned up. But this is what the Dremel does on a first pass. Hold the course with a slow speed or the plastic will melt and make it harder to accomplish. The lock etc...is going down....well being smoothed out....

 

Front Fan:

I'm adding a 120mm front fan and am giving it a turbine look (I'm not talking sheik here). The hole was cut using a 4 1/4" hole saw. Bondo and a pipe sleeve to follow. Stay tuned for the mod on the front. It's going through a radical change is what I'm thinking.

 

Case hole for the front fan:

This hole was cut out using the 4 1/4" hole saw. It was not a pretty picture but it was finished. Adjustments were made with the Dremel. Fan on the inside and the cover on the out side. The cut doesn't have to be perfect but clean it up just the same.

 

nice job man, good job on the flames cut out
just a tip, you can put more than 1 pic or comment to each reply....just means this thread won't be loads of pages long

 

Thanks for the tip. I wasn't sure how this was working. I tried placing multiple pics in one reply but it kept replacing the other one. I'll toy around with it some more. again thanks. The flames are much better now since I filed them into the final shape. I'll post better pics once I find the $%^&* camera!!!!

 

Thats coming along nicely really liking the flame design too, although now im afraid for my own mod after how long it took you to cut them and the amount of hassle your blades gave

Also how easy was it to drill out those rivets? I want to do that too so i can paint the inside of the chasis, but dont want to break anything!