Scratch Build – In Progress Project Stealthlow - Completed - preview of project next

70000'th view on my birthday!

 

Happy birthday for a couple of hours ago mate & wow 70,000 views thanks everyone wow .

I went & cut the dark tint to go with original plan of alternating the tints I also had to mount the 2mm clear acrylic pieces to the other side before I could stick the windows to it & had to bolt it down in quite a few spots so the tinted windows would stay flush.

Yeah so the function part is spot on but cosmetically if viewed from some perspectives & with the right lighting it looks bad but found under the good lighting in my room it looks pretty sweet.

Enjoy the pics for now though .












This shot really shows how bad looking the blobs are.














One panel partially done but requires some good thinking to hide the adhesive messes .

And up next the right panel.


Suggestions welcome, not sure if I should re attempt doing these windows with a different fixing technique, I have thought about adding trim but wow I'll need to ponder on designs that will compliment the original design which will be hard but doable I think, could even prompt me to try something a little arty but it would have to be quite subtle to look right .

 

Dude, you did a wonderful job fixing these pieces of acrylic on aluminum, the details that went wrong, are imperceptible.

Congratulations!

 

It's a shame that there's a few imperfections when the over all execution is so good. The look you've gone for is really nice.

 

Looking awesome, Looks like a big architectural building.I love the curves.

 

The overall design and looks are awesome mate, I couldnt understand though, are these marks leftovers from the glue? If so you gotta use one piece of acrylic to avoid any gluing or you gotta make a channel around of each piece so it will sit flush and also have some little space to glue them on a bigger piece of acrylic but that wont work well too... I am out of ideas bro, the only one it lefts its to take the design on a cnc and route a big piece of acrylic in a way that only the window parts are going to be visible and route 2mm on the rest if you know what I mean. My lack of English is ridiculous lol

 

Thanks Marcos, not tried it with any internal lighting yet though & it's there where I expect it to look horried .

Yeah, I'm currently trying to figure out a way to do this without damaging the optical clarity of the acrylic & know I'll need to re make the panel as to be honest I didn't want to add all those mounting holes neither, I actually believe I could possibly make the windows a perfect fit & not need to use any sticky stuff but it would require a whole lot of fitting, shaving, fitting, shaving .

Or a well thought out trim piece that covers the mounting holes & hides the blob messes.

Or actually stick the acrylic pieces to the inside edges of the panels, but I'm gonna put the hdd fan holders in & light them up to see just how bad it will be with internal lighting, it still might be salvageable some how I hope.

Thanks D-Mon .

 

Your lack of English your english is excellent mate, wish I could speak another language anywhere near as good as you mate .

Yeah a 1 routed piece probably is the only real solid way to go if I want flush fit windows, it's a tough decision really but I'll have a long doodle to see if I can work out a trim piece that would go well with this, I'm about to run some lighting on the inside so I can see precisely where needs hiding .

 

I don't think the bolt holes look to bad. I know you wanted the flush look but counter sunk looks just fine in my opinion. Or it's what I suggested before with the Durafix rods and plugging the holes.

 

I think it looks great! The slight imperfections don't bother anybody.
Well done!

 

You could sand down the acrylic to frost it. or if you don't want the frosted look, go over it with wire wool, to give it a matte look.

 

Been trying to come up with ideas for you on this, but not easy,

Maybe you could of used glass?, but that isnt easy to cut to shape, would of been good to mill rear of panel to slot in the acrylic, but as you got fancy, makes it hard, as 1 sheet, wouldnt work if different tints.

However, it dont look too bad, but i guess if its niggling you, fair enough.

 

Aren't there any type of double sided tape that he could use to attach them. Just need one that's wide enough or maybe a double sided adhesive film that he could put between them.

 

Hi Wayne, what to do what to do?

To try salvaging your panel if you braze fill the holes you will have very shiny spots due to different hardness. You could make plugs, epoxied in and sanded would be the way I would go.

As for acrylic, you could laminate clear and tint with seams behind ribs and then recess to have flush mount, or put tint on top of a large clear and only have tint flush. Mounting, epoxy nuts to inside two threads is enough hold power for this with 8-10 mounting spots.

Good luck, I really like the lines of your case very much

 

I think I need some extra practice on countersinking to the correct depth for the bolts the drill I have does have an optional depth stop but avoided using it silly .

Thanks KidMod I do agree but when viewed from some angles it's ewww rather than yummy this was 1 of the things I wanted to do with this build, make it so it first performs awesome while being nice & quiet but also so it looks great from any angle, I set the challenge bar much higher for myself this time & I intend on struggling to make it happen to the end .

I think I'll try this even if it's just to see what it looks like & if it hides the ugly blobs but it would say bye bye to the transparrency.

Yeah fancyness really can make things difficult, I have a thought bubble on how to make it right though, it will be deviating from original plan but could be a good look & a sweet addition .

Thought about this but I want to keep the optical clarity perfect of the acrylic, someone even suggested a spray adhesive but adhesives seem too messy for my liking, for stuff that is unseen adhesive can be fine but on the windows I just don't think so.

It's a pickle but I think I have a good idea, it's gonna pretty much say bye bye to the flat panels but it should be good & stay in line with the overall design look, a ton of extra work but I think it will be worth it .

Sorry for not replying sooner, having a sad time in my family & it's really starting to dawn on me but modding has always been a good way to keep my mind in a good place, guess I've been going at it at the wrong time a bit too often though so sloppy work happens when I try doing it tired & a little to much on my mind.

I sat back & had a good think about it & listened to some suggestions from others & possibly the best way to go about doing these windows would be to make 4 extra panels with very slightly smaller window cut outs from either wood or alu or both, give all the edges a nice bevel & bolt them in place so the windows are held well in place so it won't be a flush look but will introduce a cool 3d look & a little more weight but it should be really good, it's gonna be a ton of extra work but I'm ok with that as I like to keep busy especially at this moment in time as it helps keep me bright.

 

It seems to me that the way to retain the optical clarity of the cut acrylic pieces would be to mount them onto a solid clear acrylic sheet using just a bit of clear acrylic solvent on the edges, then double-sided tape that solid sheet to the alu side. This way your cut pieces would still be flush with the case side while retaining their clarity, and you wouldn't need any mounting holes on the side panels. I'm trying to figure out in the first place why you drilled holes in the side panels. I don't think they look particularly bad or anything, I just haven't figured out the reasoning.

 

I'm with Voigts most of the way, but having doublesided tape visible from the inside ain't my cup of tea - if you DO execute this as voigts said, please use either black doublesided tape OR make a plate to cover it up when seen from the inside.

Apart from this: the side panel looks absolutely kickass!

 

That is what I did except I didn't apply it to the edges, to be honest I'm garbage when it comes to applying acylic adhesive how I'd like to the dangerous fumes & quick drying time turn it into a rush job so I think now the way to go is make a trim clamp piece for both panels, I'll attempt to seperate the acrylic pieces & clean them up but if I can't which I think will be the case I'll just remake them, they only took a bit of a day to cut out so don't mind much .

The reasoning of the mounting holes on the outside is to keep the clear panel pulled up to the side panel & so the tinted windows stay flush rather than dipping in or out at all, makes it overall a solid panel rather than flimsy .

Hehe, the anticipation of removing the protective layers & it being an ok job I was feeling it would be even worse than what it was but still it just doesn't cut it for the overall look I was going for really.

Another alternative is to keep it simple like how Alex said earlier on in the thread of mounting the windows from the inside & just bevel all the inside edges so they blend up to the acrylic, but I have to say making extra panels could be the nicest look, I'll evaluate my resources tomorrow & make a decision .

 

I'm sure you'll find a cool solution!

 

Sorry to be the voice of dissent but I think you should correct the messy acrylic glue splodges. You've put too much work in to settle for that kind of stuff.

The best solution imo would be to use a large sheet of acrylic and mill/route the curved bits between so it can attach to the sidepanel behind the metal out of sight at the "valleys" and the "mountains" sit flush with the metal side panel. But then without a CNC router that's going to be tricky and cost loads, and for the two tones of smoked acrylic you'd have to do each individually.

Another solution would be to have individual acrylic strips stepped only at two ends (at the left edge and bottom edge when looking at the side panel from the outside) with the steps milled or sanded down, and then attach behind the metal out of sight with glue or whatever. Would only be attached at two edges but, I doubt that would be a problem as it'll no doubt be a nicely cut fit anyhow. Would be reasonably easy to do, probably wouldn't take too long and would look flawless without having to use trim.