It's been a little quiet in this modding subforum... so I thought I'd make a little guide. I had a need to do more re-sleeving, so I made a couple pin remover tools. I’m sure you’ve seen the commercial tools available online for this purpose, right? Well, I’ve got other things to spend my money on, so I figured I’d upgrade my DIY sleeving kit with an easier, less painful handle. I’ve never actually used the commercial tools, so don’t have anything against them (besides the price!)… I just like the DIY way. I’ve read a lot of threads asking for sleeving help, and there are some great guides out there. I’m not going to deal with how to of that… rather, just a cheap and easy way to make your own from fairly common supplies. If you’ve searched at all on this topic, you’ve probably found a variety of tools mentioned, as well as some DIY ways. The 4pin molex is easy, I just use a jeweler’s screwdriver (but stay tuned to this thread for a possible new version with this ability!) For the 24pin, 4pin, PCIe pins… that won’t do it. I’ve tried the stapler trick, but it takes me too long and hurts my poor fingers. I’d been using hairpins, ground down a little bit, and that worked great. My previous attempt at a 3 minute handle ended up not being able to take the strain, so I’d ended up just bare hands and bobby pin. It worked fine, but again, it was clumsy and painful to the fingers. Also, it was easy to bend the hairpin prongs once I’d ground them down…. All that is a long way of saying it was time to try something else on my next major sleeving job…. I’d come across some other DIY tools, including one made from an old ground down screwdriver drill bit, and another from one of those little flathead and Phillips pocket protector fitting drivers. Aha! Without further ado, Here’s my prototype video remel: (Click to play) Explanations after the vid. I still can’t find my riffler files! I’ve been looking for a day and a half, and I’m sure I’ve looked everywhere in my modding areas. Damn Gremlins. That screwdriver attempt looks pretty good, but it needs some space cleared/smoothed in the gap, and probably more of the side ground down. The way I did it initially in the video was the Bad Way! I’d recommend to anyone making their own at home to clamp it down to an expendable wood surface to aid in accuracy of cuts (like seen in the later part.) This looks cool, but without a very steady hand or a jig, it’s too easy to mess up. I used a sharpie marker to mark out the width of one of the atx pins on one side of the flat blade. The other side I marked the inverse. The hairpin and plexi and rivet method is working great, but I can only use one prong at a time, right now. I just ground down the edges some more on the pins, as well as trimmed them to equal lengths. I’d recommend to anyone wanting to make these, that you should, if possible, use straight hair pins rather than these curved ones I have. Will make things easier, I believe. I’m not done with these (hence the term, prototype). I’m in the process of gluing the rivets into the pieces of plexi with some gorilla glue. (Yep, that’s a second one in the making as well.) After the rivets are bonded to the plexi, I’ll be cutting them down flush and shaping the rest of the handle as well as polishing it up. I'm tempted to tap and thread this with small socket cap screws as well.
