Case Mod - In Progress Armour V2.0

A few years back I modified my thermaltake armour, spraying the internals black and cutting a few water cooling holes.

I then sold the pc to my brother, but a few years on he no longer uses the case and it has come back to me.

So today I set about breathing some new life into it, which resulted in a complete dismantal and sand down ready to be painted.

The Internals have seen a right battering, so they will be getting a full re-spray, although this time I will be doing things properly.

Here's how she looked:



Then stripped down:



And Sanded (some of the paint came off painfully easily, but patches were still there good and strong and refused to come off).:



Im a massive formula one fan, and with the arrival of F1 2010 this project just wouldn't be proper if It didn't have influences from my favourite team: Ferrari. So a few red highlights will be going in...

I also plan on watercooling the rig with a triple rad up front.

Hardware will be the following:
Phenom X6 1090T,
8gb Corsair Dominator 1600mhz 8-8-8-24,
Asus 5870 v2,
Asus Crosshair IV Formula,
Enermax Modu82+,
OCZ Vertex SSD.

For those of you wondering why Im recycling the old case, this is what my rig looks like at the moment:


Stay tuned, I should have an update by tomorrow!

 

First coat of fiat red gone onto the back plate:

 

And the case lords said... Let there be darkness:



First coat of 3 or 4 has gone on. Ill be sanding it down tomorrow and applying another coat

 

Good start, watching this.

 

Update time! And lots of images.

I finished spraying the main parts of the chassis, and have put it all back together. Unfortunately my rivet gun was being a right gay so I think Im going to have to drill all the rivets out again and start fresh, which will endager my lovely paint!

For some reason when I converted all the images to a forum size some of them grained up a little, so apologies for that

anyway, here are the glory shots:




What do you think?

 

Looks good so far. What's with the top? Where is it?

 

the tops still being re-sprayed.. Probably should've mentioned that...

 

ah, that's what i thought. it's going to be red, i assume?

 

afraid not I just sprayed in the inside of it black to match the rest of the case.

 

black is fine with me

 

What Ferrari influences do you have in mind? Just some red detailing or anything more?

 

Mainly red detailing.. Hopefully Ill be able to include some more bits and pieces as I go along..

 

So today I decided to drill out all the rivets that went from the other day, which was a right PITA. I managed to chip the paint as well, so I will need to do a bit of a patch up on the red PCI bracket

Anyway, whilst I was at it I decided to clear coat the whole case - I didn't originally intend on doing this but I decided to do it in the end whilst the case was apart once more.

It was only done about an hour ago and still hasn't fully dried, but here's how it looks:




I also had the Tooless Drive bay holders sprayed with a little black:


The Meshed drive bay covers for the front will be dismantled in the coming days and the mesh part painted red (once halfords stock the paint again- I ran out!)


I will be using Red Enermax Magma's all round, with red cable braid to cover the cables.



I think I was quite unfair on my current case with the rubbishy photos I took of it, so I took some to show it off in a better light (it's still crap mind..).




That's all folks.. What do you think? I want to start ordering in the water cooling this weekend

 

i would in any case do something about that ghastly front piece. oh, the stickers. i'd get rid of them , too

 

The whole case will go once the armour is complete Thats the main reason for the project

 

ah, ok
how about a backlit ferrari-horse somewhere?

 

I'm going to be watching this project. Somewhat strangely/ironically, I'm not a motor-sports fan, certainly not F1, but I'm immensely interested in hardware and therefore interested in how an F1 case mod will turn out.

What is that crap old case? And how did it come to be in your possession?

 

-Idea Update-

Nothing further has happened to the case, but I've been in contact with a couple of UK carbon wrapping companies and I think that's the route to go down with the case.

Rather than the tacky carbon look take stuff, Ill be going for a proper carbon weave laminate in effect - it looks real.

Im not sure when Ill get it done, Im going down to a show this weekend to chat to the people.

 

For such a small and cheap case it actually looks good, although the hardware helps a lot
but erhm.. isn't your CPU cooler hanging a bit?

 

For £10 it was a good starter case when I bought it a few years ago..

It does look like it's hanging, but it's actually the design of the cooler. The idea is that you mount the raised side over your ram when there's a height issue, but I decided to mount it differently.