Case Mod - In Progress Imperium - Update July 7: COMPLETE!

Update March 24 - New Theme Elements



I got some work done over the last couple of days and I got a new sponsor! Thanks to Cooler Master for their support!

I see a lot of worklogs that manage to convey the process of the work without a lot of dialogue. It's a skill, and when it's done right I like it. I'm going to try to do more of that here and see how it works out.

Today's update is on the completion of the cover for the video card I'll be using. Lots to show so here we go:

The card in question is a Gigabyte HD6950, here it is stock and through its watercooling transformation:












So the card is ready, but I didn't want to look at it in the finished piece. I decided to hide it in a cover in keeping with the theme:


























And the finished product:
















The copper tube and elbows are for the power to the card, they will run straight through the floor of this center section so none of the cabling should be visible. The other hole in the front of the cover is for the water line coming out of the block. That's going to be an interesting line to bend.

Any comments welcome, thanks for watching!

 

Amazing work.

Now I am eager to see the final result ...

 

Update 4/7/14 - New finish



I finally got the face of the machine finished. I've always liked the edges of the stock panels, but the mesh and the shape of the center portion didn't go well with the theme. The setting for Dishonored has always been about sharp angles and flat planes. The train cars, the machinery, everything mechanical is built like this. And all of it is flat black iron.

At first I just pulled the stock fronts off of the case and set them aside. That gave me a really nice square flat frame to work with. I had always planned to make a new face out of cast acrylic sheet, but I couldn't figure out how to do the edges so they looked right. I finally just ended up cutting the edges off of the original fronts and using them to trim out the edges. There's been a lot of progress made but today's update is largely about the finish. I was able to take glossy cell cast acrylic sheet (and the ABS plastic sides from the original fronts) and make them into a reasonable facsimile of wrought iron sheet.

Check out the pictures and please give me an honest opinion. This is the plan for the overall appearance of the project. I'm even going to paint the water blocks to match once I'm sure it's right.

Thanks to all!

 

I played Dishonored just a few months ago and I can tell you the project is quite good in matching the actual game, also the front panel is perfect, but... why so black? I remember some blue in the game

 

Thanks very much, it's coming along very well I think.

Yes, there was some blue in there also, especially with the rainfall, but I honestly decided to go with the black just to try to match a wrought-iron look. It DOES look awfully plain at this stage but I think the red lighting will really help set it off at the end.

The reservoir will be backlit with red also, that will help break up the front panel.

Time will tell.

 

OK, see your idea, can't wait for update!

 

This is AMAZING.

 

Awesome job! Congrats!...

 

Update 4/24 - More gears!!





Been a while since I updated the worklog, but work continues. Life seems to get in the way of the things we want to do sometimes. Made a lot of progress since then though, lots to add here on this update!

One of my favorite things in Dishonored was the Heart. When I first saw Corvo holding it and saw it light up inside and the gears start turning when I turned toward a Rune I was just amazed. How awesome. I wanted to include some kind of element like that in this build but wasn't sure how to pull it off. I decided to integrate a piece of another mod that never came to fruition.

Some of you here at TBCS may remember project Clockwork and both of its unfinished worklogs. I'm glad to see it as a donor here. In that previous project I had planned on making everything really rusty and neglected. It had a lot of mechanical aspects to it also. I picked up this awesome little gear clock on Amazon:



With a lot of patience and practice I learned a faux rust paint technique, tore it apart and gave it the neglected look I wanted.









Even the inside up close looked pretty good when I was done.





In that project it was supposed to protrude out the top of the case and turn with a motor.





But the project was stillborn so it's been laying in one of my mod closets ever since. I decided to put it to use here. I kept the upper drive bays intact in the case just for this purpose, and when I made the face I put a porthole there with a 5-inch convex clock lens I found on Ebay also. I finally got this second motion element done over the weekend. I got it mounted in place and decided that the rust I'd worked so hard on was a HUGE clash with the clean iron paint I'd used to that point, so I took it out and gave it a coat of dark bronze. I left some of the rust but it looks a lot newer now. It contrasts with the iron but I don't think it clashes like it did rusty.

Once I had it in place I didn't want to see the ugly drive bay through the window so I made an acrylic cover for it and painted it in the same iron style.











It doesn't show very well here because of the light, but the finished version will be lit from inside the box with red LED strips. I tried to simulate the backlighting in the video with a flashlight, clearly failing miserably.



In the end I think it will make an excellent addition to the project.

I was also able to finish off both of the radiators. I had them painted and mounted on the outside of the side panels but I decided that I really didn't like the look of the bare mounting holes. I didn't want to put grills on it so I found a way to cover the holes that stays with the style to some extent.

I'll take a minute to mention one of my sponsors here, Deepcool. They were kind enough to send me six of their US120R 120mm fans for the radiators and I have to say that I love them.



They're heavy, solid fans, and the whole black area is a dense rubber compound of some kind, just flexible enough to absorb vibrations but still serve as mounts on the corners. They are also some of the quietest fans I've used. Absolutely love them but the color isn't going to work . The three in the top section will be visible behind the camshafts so I had to paint them.





Once those were in place I finished off the new trim on the outer part of the radiators.















This finished off the top section!

All that's left there are lights, wiring and tubing and I can't do those until the thing is bolted together as a unit. Finished upper section pics:





























Couple more bits of progress. I managed to snag a Sapphire 7970 card and will be using it instead of the 6950 that I had before. Problem was, I had designed and built the video card cover around that card. Thankfully I was able to successfully adapt the cover to the new card. I've decided due to time constraints not to water cool it, mounting it as is.



I showed the front intake fan earlier as part of the paint post but I didn't show what I did there. I cut down one of my favorite fans, a Noctua I've had for a long while, so it would stick out the front of the case. The end result was worth it!





The fans on top of the upper section are Turbine Master fans from Cooler Master. I cut the wires and ripped out the magnets so these are not fans any more but what I like to call kinetic vent covers. The fans in the upper section are mounted in a push configuration so they intake through these fans. The plan was to have them spin very slowly with the intake air pressure. I even added a small crossflow fan to the back with a fan controller on it so I could regulate the interior pressure and control their speed that way.

The theory was sound, but something went wrong with the fans and I cannot get them to spin at the same speed no matter what I do. The radiator fans are hooked to the Lamptron fan controller and it only has low and high settings. On the low setting they don't even move and on the high setting they spin in a blur.

I've decided to call them turbo fans and move on.



I also added a female 110 outlet and a switch to the rear of the bottom section just below the PSU. I'll get to the reason for that in the wiring update.



That's all for today. Progress continues though. The bottom section is almost complete cosmetically, but it's largely a containment unit anyway. I've been working on the rear and lower panels in the main section, figuring out a way to make them more even and uniform, and deciding how I'm going to deal with those damned 24-pin and 8-pin power connectors and the SATA cables. More on that with the next update, then I can finally bolt the three sections together for good and start on the wiring and the lights. Then maybe I can finally start bending some tubing!

 

Looking fantastic.

Nice to see that piece from Clockwork put to work.

 

Beautiful work! The all-black look is a bit plain, but all those deets you've put in! I love the iron-look paintjob as well! Do you have a thread with how to do that rusty paintjob? Because I'd love to see an article on how to do that.. Mainpage worthy!

 

That is is! I've got a few different little pieces from that one in here. I might even put those bubble tubes to use if I can find a good space.

Thanks! The black is plain I agree but I think with the copper tubes (there will be couple more), some more minor details like the fuse holder and the right lighting it will come alive.

Right now I'm still trying to decide on the color of the lights. I had thought red until I got talking to some other people (damn them anyway) and realized there might be a better option. Blue is off the table, anyone have any other suggestions? I'm leaning toward the red or a warm orange if I could find the right shade.

And on the rust paint no sadly I do not. I know how I did it, but the base is a product called American Accents Natural Rust, it came in a kit the provided the base red-orange and the next layer that provided the texture. I built off of that to get the results in the pictures and that product is no longer made. Shame really, the base color and the fine texture were PERFECT. Using it by itself came out with more of a leather look but the feel was spot on.

 

Ahh shame about that Rust kit.. Would've used it a lot for various things! But if you're doing lighting.. Maybe go for a coal-heap? (Like a few red/orange LED's with a thin plastic sheet over thats painted black.. To look like a furnace?) Might be thinking in a completely different direction from what you're wanting (I haven't had the pleasure to play Dishonoured yet.. ) but it sounds awesome and would suit your iron casing!

 

That mechanical clockwork is inspired! Perfect rust job, and great implementation in the case.

 

The coal heap is a very interesting idea! Won't really work for this build but I'm filing that away for later use.

Thanks very much sir. Looking at lighting options now and I've started leaning toward an amber color instead of the red. With all the black I have going on here I think I might need something with more visibility than red. We'll see.

 

I love that your using Lego Technic pieces in your build.
It would be really cool to see some body use a NXT Mindstorms kit in a mod some time.

 

Thanks! They were far and away the best way to transfer the mechanical motion. I love this stuff!

 

Quick color poll?

Ok, I love this project, I really do. It has a huge monolithic heavy iron feel that I wanted that I think goes along so well with the theme. Looking at it though (and especially photographing it) I'm starting to think "too much black".

I'm considering changing the color on some of the accents like the huge "I" and the gears at the bottom of the front plate, the Outsider symbol at the top, the reservoir trim ring, maybe even the rivet heads.

Any suggestions from the group on a color that might go well with all of this cast-iron black to break it up some but not throw off the overall heavy industrial feel?

 

That clockwork thing is crazy. Very impressive that it works too.

 

Colors?

Ok, I need some opinions. I found an excellent brush-on paint called hammered gray that makes for an excellent effect, and I'm concerned I have too much black on here. So which is better, the rivet heads that match the case or the hammered gray ones?





Same question for the Outsider symbol:





Painting every rivet really approaches the level of effort and tedium that it may be easier to start over, but I'd like to hear some opinions before I do either. Personally I like the gray better but I'm not sure I like enough better to warrant the time and work to retrofit the whole damned thing with them.

What say ye?