Lookin good TC! NorthStar games were my first big sports events. I remember getting dropped off at the "Met" in the early 70s with my cousin (unsupervised at night games) when we were just little kids. That would be unheard of today. I also remember Hockey being the sports event my dad and I could watch the television in peace together
looking good, shoulda done a Detroit red wings case casue we all know theyre better. anyways great work so far!
sounds cool pitty 98% of the pictures are not working tho would like to see the handy work that others have from ur comments
I'll fix the pics momentarily... I thought I had already updated my links over here... apparently not. Whoops! Apologies for the lack of updates. Ankle recovery is nearly completed! (YAY!) ... I took my first "long walk" with the dog in 2 months tonight, everything felt good! I've had a hard time standing for long periods and that has cut severly into my ability to work in the garage as I would like... So tonight, after my walk, I went out and went to work on the feet. 2 nights ago, I Had done some prep work that consisted of using my adjustable hole cutter and cut out 12 1/8" thick, 2" diameter circles. I am using 4 soft rubber hockey puck replicas as feet for the case. 4 rubber feet, 3 discs per foot... the acrylic layers sandwiched together and layered with weld-on, with a screw through the middle going 1/2" down into the rubber puck. I then burrowed a 3mm wide hole into the layers of acrylic tonight, and built out 4 single 3mm green LED circuits. Each puck's acrylic layer will have a green LED lighting up the space between the puck and the case. Green (obviously) for the Dallas Stars. I then has a 2" silicone "washer" that is going to lie between the bottom of the case and the tops of these LED's... hoping that this will absorb a bit of the shock of movement, as well as setup an insulating layer electrically between the steel of the case and the 5v LED lines that will be running under the case to a central point. I lit them all up and they look great! Took some pics but I am a bit too tired to crop and post... this case must be done by Nov. 15th. Obviously sooner, the better. so be on the look out for a blast of updates out of me this comming week and a half! Might just go ahead and bring it down to the Mabry Intel/Dell LAN event and try to get some work on it done there. Depends on how much room I have in the vehicle.... ANYWAYS... more to come!
great work man i really i'm not a big fan of hockey but really like that case. keep up the good work.
Thanks everyone, apologies for the late deliveries on these pics... Ok... so I found a replica hockey puck that is made out of soft rubbe, and I bought 4 of them. drilled a hole in the center and put a screw into it: I then got really tired of my drill press! I cut out 12 identical holes out of acrylic: sandwiched 3 layers of them together (because it was the only clear acrylic I had), glued them with weld-on: used my rotary tool's "multi bit and bored out a single hole in each to embed a green LED: and mounted them to the bottom of the case: I plan on routing all of the LED wires to 4 RCA jacks that will be mounted in the bottom bracket. Center is power, outter is ground... should work like a champ! 4 power lines coming out from under the machine, terminating in to 4 RCA jacks, that will then feed into 4 RCA plug receptacles mounted in the bottom bay... something like this: Also, here was the last pic I took before a botched clearcoat screwed up the finish.... I will now likely need to mask over the graphics, scuff the paint, and re-shoot the black again to get it the proper ammount of gloss... the Clearcoat just wrecked the finish due to himidity increasing the night I shot it... And this is the top piece:
Hehehe... yeah, they do jut out there a bit... but if you follow the NHL at all, Brendan Morrow and Stephane Robidas are not exactly "subtle" players! Great players, excellent players, and P-H-Y-S-I-C-A-L!
Hey there guys.... Well... progress is progress.... and as embarrassed as I am that this mod is still in my garage, I'm happy to say that more work has been done! I had to do some repairs after the move into out house, as several of the panels were scratched. I also had a blown clearcoat that clouded up the black and made it nearly gray.... so... out it came, and it introduced a whole new set of problems that I am working through. I started my masking off all of the graphics that I did not want painted over... and on pictures, this masking is a PITA! after 2 coats.... After the 3rd or 4th coats: Now, when you are masking you have a bit of a dilemma.... take the masking off too soon and the paint might run on to your work. Take it off too late and the paint may adhere to your mask and pull off at the edge of the mask and damage the paint job. So, it takes some experimenting with different paint types to know when to pull. This stuff is quick drying, so I removed the masking about 2 hours after I painted it. The water jetted panel is proving to be a project all by itself. It's finish needed a lot of help, and sanding a piece that has been cut in this way is nearly impossible due to the flexibility of the piece and the sharp points tearing up the sanding paper! But... it needs to be done... Scuff it up... 2 coats later, a bug becomes enamored with my paint job.... ^#!*!#^&@*!!!!! "Alright, Mr. Demille, I'm ready For my closeup"... lil paint booger.... Looking better... or is it..... Awww crap..... So.... I start trying to sand it out, and realize the problem if much worse than I thought.... the texture... it was all over the panel. So I go ahead and strip the panel back to metal (too many coats of paint on the piece now): Glazing putty and more sanding to try an flatten out the surface. ANd this was where the real sanding challenge was due to the flexing of the panel... 2 coats later it was looking good... but on the 3rd coat.... sonuvab***!!!!!! So, I wet sanded it down last night, and will hopefully paint it again this afternoon... I have also done some work on the frame, and am rethinking the white frame color. I am likely going to paint the frame a matte black as the white is causing some problems contrasting too much with the front behind the bezel.... looks like ass where the intake fan is, and the white frame makes it worse. More coming.... I promise.... Oh... and one more thing... took the side panel after it had cured, and got some additional art work on it... Yep, those are Stephane Robidas and Brendan Morrow's autographs! I have another panel that I used the same paint pen on and will test to see how well these take a clearcoat. Want to protect them....
Soooo.... how does the uninitiated know when my muse is starting to sing to me again?? When I start hanging crap from my gutters again! Bwahahaha!!!!! More coming, I actually came up with a solution on the case frame that has been driving me NUTS, and the inside of the case will actually be multicolored! The front/back/bottom frame panels will be matte black and the inner drive tray will be emerald green (as seen in the pics), while I will also leave the mobo tray solid white (like an ice rink). I will airbrush a red "center line" on the tray to give it more of a hockey rink appearance. The black and green are the primary colors of the Dallas Stars, hence those decisions. My mock ups with the colors show a neat dynamic playing between the matte black and the gloss green. I am unsure about the white of the mobo tray, but it only seemed natural for such an expansive part to bear a resembalance to a sheet of ice! More pics as I build and coat. The green pieces are done. The Matte black pieces have their color coats on them, but I need to go get some matte clear coat to protect the black painted surfaces. Then I can bolt it all back together and start running the lines and getting everything attached and wrapped up!
Wow.... that was quiet a break in the progress there Good to see, that the time spent in the project before wasn't wasted at all
