Case Mod - In Progress Project: STORMTRUPER (Update July 11, 2010)

Gracias amigo Since last week, I've made a new set of slot covers using some of the leftover modder's mesh. This was a very scientific process. I laid one of the stock covers on top of the mesh, then traced it with a sharpie. Next I dremelled them out, and lined them up in their places and bent/trimmed as necessary. Here's what they look like:



Now we'll begin painting. Since my "paint booth" is going to be two cardboard boxes, I'm limited in how many pieces I can paint at once. Starting with the slot covers, intake grill, and mobo tray bracket, I roughed them up with a steel wool mouse sander pad.



Also shown above is the primer and paint (gloss black) that we're using. Next I cleaned them and wiped them down with a tack cloth.



Here they are set up in my start of the art paint studio.



The extra piece of cardboard between the two boxes was used to keep over-spray from neighboring pieces. Here's how they looked after 4 light coats of primer.



At this point I was gambling with the weather. We had rain in the evening forecast today, so I quickly prepped the drive bay and power supply brackets and shot them with four coats as well.



In the sun I'd noticed many little fibers that I'm pretty sure came from the steel wool mouse sander attachment. In the garage I don't think I had enough light to notice them before I took them out for priming. I let them dry for about 4 hours, then got to work sanding out the fuzzballs. After sanding, a thorough tack cloth wipe, and now they're ready for another (and hopefully final) few coats of primer.



This takes us up until about an hour ago as of this post. What I learned here is that steel wool is not a good prep material for primer, and I'm going to go with fine grit sandpaper going forward. I'm aiming for weekly updates to keep the train rolling, thanks for looking and the feedback.

 

more more more!

its coming out so great man, as others have said i like the "mess up" side panel design more than the original

 

Thanks man, I have to agree, I like the new design better as well .

Since last week I've started painting the black pieces, beginning with the fan grill mesh, mobo bracket, and the slot covers.



While those dried, I drilled the 1/4" mounting holes for the feet into the floor, and also will need a 3/4" hole for the power switch. I don't currently own a 3/4" bit, and since they're kind of spendy, I decided I would improvise and use a dremel. I measured 3/4" hole, and using some of my old cutting wheels that have been worn down to a smaller size, cut out the hole.



The hole measures out to a hair over 3/4", hopefully it will work. Shown is the plastic piece that works as the front feet, it ties in the curves of the bezel.



I'm not sure if I will use the plastic front foot yet. I plan to paint it and take a look at how it looks, and eventually decide if I will use four standard case feet, or the plastic piece in front with two feet in the back.
Later in the week, I began painting the mobo tray, psu bracket, and drive cage. Shortly after I started, I was getting these big random blobs of overspray.



I'm pretty sure this was due to not clearing the nozzle after the first paint session- I should have held the can upside down and sprayed it for a few seconds to clear the paint out. I soaked the nozzle in mineral spirits-



Then sanded out the overspray once the paint was completely dry.



Shown here after 3 coats of black, looks much better.



As I was snapping pics, the motherboard tray somehow fell off its hanger. Shown here after picking up all sorts of debris from the bottom of the box.



So that will need to be re-sanded. I'm going to break out the mouse sander once it dries, and re-prime and paint it from scratch. I didn't do a good enough job initially sanding out the over-spray, you can still see a few of the blobs through the fresh coats of paint. The bracket and drive cage look good enough for me, so those are ready for clear coat, along with the mesh pieces and mobo bracket. Thanks for tuning in, more updates soon!

 

I want to see you you light it up . . .going to be insane in the membrane

 

Thanks man! If you're being literal about lighting, so far I'm leaning toward not having lights to keep the color contrast between the black and white once its painted.

Now time for an update! Since last time, I decided that I'm going to try a better quality spray paint, I wasn't happy with the results of the Rustoleum. As much as I like to keep my shopping dollars local, I was unable to find what I was looking for at my area auto part stores, home centers, etc., so I ordered these from http://tcpglobal.com/ .



I was happy with this stuff, the spray was consistent and the color is nice. Between the previous over spray blobs and having a piece fall off its hanger in the paintbox, I was pretty much back to square one painting the internals. It didn't take me long to go through it, here's how far I got with it.



About half the internals are ready for clear coat. As I'm on a shoestring modding budget, its going to be a week or so until I pick up more paint. I had a couple other things I wanted to get done in the meantime. First, I wanted to clean up the back side of the fiberglass bezel. Here's the before shot-



After a couple hours filling in low spots with bondo, sanding, spot filler putty, more sanding, and cleaning up excess epoxy here's how it looks now.



The epoxy is no joke! It passes the "can it hold a power drill?" test.



Next up I'm going to mount a top exhaust fan. I downloaded a fan template from mnpctech.com and got to work. The next two shots were taken on my phone, I ran out of storage on the regular cam and didn't want to stop working at the time.



3/16" drill bit for mounting holes, and I used the dremel for the opening. Here's how it turned out.



The unibody panel also has a roof, so an opening needed to be made there as well.



Now the fun part, coming up with the grill design. I stumbled across wookiepedia, http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wook...mages/Gallery_of_insignia,_logos,_and_symbols. It has just about any Star Wars logo imaginable. I decided on a simplified version of the Imperial Crest of the Galactic Empire.



I cut out the outer section for the opening, and used the dremel at the lowest speed for the initial cut.



This took a lot longer than I expected, the plastic melted very easily, so I had to stop cutting frequently. Here's how it looked after being cleaned up with some filing and sanding.



Next cut out the inner section, and traced it onto the leftover piece from the fan opening.



I used my older, worn down cutting disks and the tungsten cutter bit for this part. Here's how it looked after filing and sanding.



Now our final mock up before paint.





Thanks for looking, cheers!

 

Great work! You have my vote for Mod of the Month

 

awesome mod, the sidepanel looks really cool.

 

They've got some of those little cases at work with fujitsu P4s in! I may have to pinch one (They're junk) after seeing this, great job so far!

 

Awesome an enter the dragon lunch box .
Congrats on motm nominee, this looks a really nice starwars mod +subbed +rep

 

Cheers guys, thanks so much! I am humbled by the nomination.