Scratch Build – In Progress Project Air Cube v2

Finished doing the rough cuts of the side panels yesterday, today I started at about 3pm but smoothed off all 4 of the panels edges, finished at 11pm, had about 4 little smoke breaks, thought it would have taken days to do them but got really stuck in on them .

Pictures showing original simple plan of how I might have them & doubled up, I must admit the doubled up ones do look good but I only have a little 1mm & 1.5mm sheet spare now so it'll be a mix of the 2 thicknesses, anyway if I was to double them all up I now know I could do it within 2 days if I don't slack .





I'll get some temp installed pics up tomorrow .

 

Some night & day shots with the new panels temporarily installed 1 layer type. I think I will give the double layered style a shot so plan for today is cut the sheets to size, trace the already made panels instead of draw them, cut them out, tomorrow tons of filing & sanding lol.

Pic time just to show what it'd look like as single layer, I will do the double layer .







I likle this nightshot best .














To be honest though I was quite impressed with how these looked when I installed them so should look even better when doubled up .

 

Oh yeah, forgot to mention I painted the fan bolt heads when I made the second spacer ice blue , I got a strip of blue tack, pushed them through in a line, masked the threads, scuffed the heads, cleaned, primed, coloured, cleared.


Rather than make the extra panels, I just took the ones I made & stuck them together with mounting tape & stuck them in, here are the daylight shots, I'll do night ones later .

I do like the top ones but not so sure about the side ones.




Doubles or singles?.

Also replaced my old & tatty alarm clock.


With this beaut, tells time, temperature & date, I'm going to make an angled platform for it, until then I'll use stacks of 2p's lol.

 

Wow way too cool for school

Looks real clean!

 

Hehe thanks DP .

 

Ok, just taken the night shots of the doubled up panels but I'm unsure if I like them or not whereas the single I thought it looked fine straight away, wow I just don't know , but can picture them looking good once painted 2 different colours.













Oh the heck with it, I'll just do another set, paint them & see if I like .

 

Many times I was getting ready to make a post. Then.....


More work was being done. LOL Finally I get to say it though. You have said many times its finished and your done with it. Well you do realize when that warranty is up on the PS3 you gotta paint it also right?

Good job like to see the constant improvements. Honestly the single looks better. Its too busy with double. Just my two cents though.

 

Lol I know & to be honest I'm glad someone said what I was thinking about it being too much because I just need to paint the already made ones now, I am glad I added the extra cooling though the temps are near 10c better this grill was to be my last improvement for it.
True about the ps3 I really wanted to paint that too but yeah I'll wait for the warranty to run out .
Thanks for the useful feedback scgt1 .

 

NP but what I said were just suggestions. Didn't really mean for you to follow my lead or anything.

 

The case is almost done, once I have these 2nd layer panels made, painted & attached it's finished I Just had to do these finishing touches because I knew it could be improved a bit here & there .

I admit the double layer looked good, but it disguised the pattern too much so since I'm yet to do the extra layer panels I thought I'd do a pattern that flows with the original ones, they could go above or below the originals, whichever looks best & sticking with the colours of the fans frame & blades, also decided to remake 1 of the top panels as it weren't as good as the other.

So I have 5 panels to cut & sand, already got them cut to size, masked & drawn so if I push myself I'll have the panels cut today & the sanding done tomorrow, but having said that the new patterns are less complex so should be a little easier.

Here is the side & top panel laid over what I'm going to do.

 

Wowee got them all cut out, got really stuck in again so just need sanding smooth now .
Started about 3pm finished at 7pm, not bad for 5 panels .

 

Not Bad?? Thats dedication......What's more is they look sweet!!

 

Looking good Waynio

 

Thanks ringoiom & Editor22, appreciate the comments .

Here we go .

Overslept until 3pm lol must have been knackered from all the cutting, had a few cappuccinos & started sanding at 4pm, had 2 smokie breaks & finished at 11pm, wolfed down a bowl of broccoli & beef pasta then had to use the flash to take the sanded pics.
Need to put an order in for the paint all the local auto shops only seem to stock 1 of each colour & often don't have what I want.

Once I have these painted I have a mammoth task of cleaning the garage & my dads bikes lol .

The reason for the black panels is I searched around the house & found some 1mm thick black anodised sheet I had left over from the prototype air cube.





Hope you all like, I do .

 

Done a test fit for while I wait for the paint, should look sweet once painted ice blue & dark steel blue, both metallics.







Good thing I did a test fit, a little more needs filing down on the inside edges of the upfront side grills.

 

Humor me for a second....


In your first and second pic what if you left what is silver and polished it up or did what ever you did to the silver uprights in the same pics then painted what appears to be black the blue that the case is. I think that would look pretty darn good. Wouldn't hurt to try it out anyway just to see. Its just paint and not too hard to take off or paint over.

 

Your not wrong it would look awesome , I would have to do it by hand though, I've done some hand polishing & it didn't come up so well the polish came up ok but left heaps of ultra fine scratches, I'm not going to attempt it with the grinder with adapted mops, 1 false move & it would deform it massively with it being 1mm thick alu, I doubt I'll polish them but you've put the visual in my head & it looks freaking cool but would require a lot more effort & maintenence, it's the maintenence thats putting me off polishing it mostly. I even looked up chrome plating but I bet it'll cost a lot & I'd need to send my parts through the post which I don't like the idea of either.

To be honest I can already see the dark steel blue as being the primary layer & the ice blue as the secondry layer & the only maintenence that would need is a quick dusting now & then, I do like easy maintenence , the polished bars on the frame are easily buffed back up when needed about twice per year because they are solid bars properly attached with bolts so can add the needed pressure for rubbing to restore it, whereas these layered grills will be stuck together with mounting tape to add a little depth & stuck to the cover with a 2 part epoxy.
I even looked up chrome plating but I bet it'll cost a lot & I'd need to send my parts through the post which I don't like the idea of with knowing well packaged sheets of alu sometimes get damaged.

 

Ever think of coating the chassis with some form of sealer or heck even taking it to a body shop and having them clearcoat it? That would allow you to just use a cream polish/wax treating it like a car where you don't have to put much effort into it like your talking about doing. Another option to the dust factor would to be making those areas actually windows. Using clear acrylic then the plates this would keep the exterior dust from getting all over all the surfaces of the plates. Just use some clear filters or black etc for your fans to keep it from collecting inside the case on the plates.

I understand your concern with it although you already have reworked so many things on it as is. I find it hard to believe that your going to take the way side just for a little work now. LOL

Its funny you said that dark blue color and I thought it was freaking black. Which looks good don't get me wrong. Its just with the fact of not having it anywhere else in the build it seems our of place. Contrasting the colors as I suggested would keep with your theme that you have going on as well as that polished steel looking very sharp with the uprights and would give all that blue the contrast and change it needs by breaking up the mass of blue all while keeping with the look of the theme. Just thoughts from my end. By no means do I mean to follow my advice or anything.

With PSP in my sig many times I've tried to cut corners take the faster way out and it always seems to cause more problems in the end and cause me to do what I really liked and wanted to do in the first place. I think the total hardware wise on my build is upwards of $4,600 retail thats not including mod work or anything like that let alone the initial paint then the powder when that failed then the powder at a place thats a real business that has been around for 13 years to get it done right.

Do you have a powder coater in your area? You should do a google search for powdercoating (insert your locating (city/country)) it should pull up some places. They don't charge much for items as small as this maybe $40-$50 USD. The black mirror is awsome and looks alot like chrome its just a little darker. I'm quite sure they have some form of silver that looks like polished aluminum. When it comes to metal colors they pretty much have them all or can get them. The rall colors are pretty much endless.

 

You were correct about it being black, that was the only 1mm sheet I could find for scrap to do these, it's black anodised, still waiting for the paint, the dark blue I mentioned is 1 of the colours I ordered , same colour as the flat bars on the top.
I've never tried clear coating polished alu, I should give it a try some time.
Every bit of the case is aluminium except for the plastic windows & plastic fan spacers.
I might try a local powder coater on a future build but not this.

There are some excellent metal finishers in & around manchester but I do prefer doing it all myself, learn more & develop skills along the way, having someone else do the finishing for you is taking the shortcut imo & you gain no xp from it, thats right I said xp, modding is the greatest rpg game ever lol , at some point I'll be wanting to get into anodising also, but plenty to research on that with it being potentially hazardous.

Anyway I'm sticking to my plan of painting the layers, but thanks for the suggestions scgt1 , got me off my 1 track mind to at least think of some other possibilities .

Back to the project, I filed & sanded the inside border edges of the primary layer so they should look a smidge better now once installed .

 

Just a status update this one.

Got the paint yesterday, the layer panels were already prepped so primed, sanded, coloured, cleared them all, went to install them today & had a couple of face palm moments .

I put the side panels in the wrong way round, but carried on taking pictures then thought midway through taking the pics all the effort I've put into this & I'm doing that lol so took them off & put them on the right way & heres the other face palm moment, I painted the wrong sides of the secondry layer on the sides so the patterns didn't line up as planned, very glad I ordered 2 of each colour, whipped them off & painted the other sides, should be good to go tomorrow lol .

The difference in the 2 shades of blue isn't much to be honest but still looks good, I think the only way I'm going to get pictures done to do it justice is if I make a cheapo photo boothe, the light in my room makes my photography & the case look shoddy & with it being finished I want to get as good of quality pictures as possible with my camera to finish this log off .

Bit the bullet & just ordered the ingredients for a cheapo makeshift photo boothe.
3 light fittings which can clip onto things
3 daylight bulbs
a clothes line
a plain white shower curtain
a big piece of black fabric & white fabric to see which is best looking.
£46 all ordered so should hopefully have some ok quality finished pictures incoming by next week .