Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Evolutionary

@ B[x]: I will post a photograph of the vents when the polyestre parts are in place. First I will have to wetsand the lid. I think it will be this weekend.

@ derbaum: I could do that, but it would not be as strong as I want it to be. The UHU glue is so much stronger. I tested the resin as a glue and it wasn't as strong as I wanted it to be. Tested the glue and the polyester starts to crack even before the glued parts come lose. It will give the lid extra strenght and stability. When the case is finished I want to be able to take of the entire lid in one piece.

 

mhh lesson learned.

 

After 5 days of using bondo and (wet)sanding, the lid is perfectly smooth and ready for the next step.
This weekend I can glue the vents to the lid. The glue is perfect for this job. But first I'll need to cut some acrylic rings. Thes acrylic parts have to fit perfectly into the inside of the vents. Every vent is slightly different so I need a ring thet fits every vent and number them so I will know what ring is for what vent. This is a picture from the airduct, head on. You can see that it looks like a circle from this angle. I used some sticky tape to keep things in place. I only cut the outside of the ring. Before I'll cut out the inner side I need to sand the outside. The ring will be 6 mm. wide so it will be fragile.



I made 1 paper "arch", there will be made many more for each vent ofcourse, to visualize what I want to do. It will be a lot of work, need 52 acrylic parts for the four vents

 

Looking great Franklin, glad to see you at it again

We have a small boat project going, so I get to play with fiberglass this summer also. Nasty stuff, but makes a lot of cool things possible.

I'll be checking in on you, this project is turning to be very interesting.

Janne

 

Great work, and I will like to help you to prepare the 52 arch, just because I want to see the final effect! LOL
Keep on modding Franklin, you drive me crazy!

 

Yesterday I glued the first two vents to the lid. Some weigt on it to keep it in place.



Today the last two vents.



After drying the inside looks like this.



Turning the lid over to look at the result.



I think it looks good.



Now I can glue the sides to the lid and then it will be time to use some bondo again for the finishing touch.

 

Looking super
But why is one of the vent is black in color?

 

I have some black pigment that can be put in the resin. But after making the first vent with the black resin I find out it was harder to work with the black resin. You can't see the airbubbles in the polyester. So after that first one I didn't use the black pigment anymore. Later on all the parts will be painted black, so it will not be visible anymore.

 

A small problem had to be solved. The fibre glass piece I made to close the gaps in the sides of the lid didn't work out. They just were not straight enough. This is the part I'm speaking about.



I bought a piece of glass that I used for making a smooth sheet of fibre glass. From this sheet I cut some pieces that I will use to close the sides. The old part was cut up in pieces and these pieces will be used to reinforce the new part. I use glue to attach the new fibre glass parts.



It takes 24 hours for the glue to harden, so it takes quite some time to glue in all the parts. You can see where I used the old pieces of fibre glass to reinforce the corners. I turned the lid upside down and used some tape to keep the part in place till the glue has hardened.



Wanted to be sure the lid 'doesn't deform while glueing in the parts.



This is a piece I cut out of the old fibre glass part. The new sheet will be glued to this part.





And the sides are being glued in there. Used some wooden plant sticks to keep the triangles in place.



Tomorrow the glue will be hardened and I will glue in some reinforcements in the inside of the lid to be on the safe side. Then I will have to cut out those half ovals again.

 

This is forming to be quite wild looking case and for some reason I'm having a hard time imagining how it will look in the end. Usually I'm quite good at visualizing stuff like this, but knowing how your hard-drive rack looks, it's a bit hard to combine the skeleton, this fiberglass shroud and the rack together. It might be just me though

One thing I do know is that the end result will be nothing short of amazing and maybe I'll see it better when the shroud has some paint on it.

Anyways, it's great to see progress on this again.

Darkened

 

Everything will become more clear in the future

The lid is almost finished, for as far as I want to go for now that is. The final touch, bondoing, sanding and painting it, will be done at the and of this project. I can only damage the lid while still working on all the other stuff. The oval holes are back in the side again and Im ready to start working on the "fingerguards". The ring for the inside of the airduct and the oval ring have been cut now to the right size.



The upper ring is slightly smaller then the lower one, this is because it will be mounted inside the airduct. The lower oval ring will be as wide as the outside of the airduct.



Both ends of the lower rings will have to be filed under an angle of 45 degrees. Wehn you take a look at the opening of the airducts from the side it looks like a circle.

 

It's amazing what the fiberglass can do in modding application! Great work, keep up Franklin!

 

The acrylic rings are glued together, I only will have to file it a bit.



The lower ring is a bit wider than the upper one, that because the upper ring will be mounted inside the duct and the thickness of the fibre glass will add up to the thickness of the ring.



I glued the first acrylic to the rings, many more will follow.

 

Going to look amazing those ducts
What do you use to glue them together?

 

You also live in the Netherlands so giving you the url will be helpful in your case.

http://www.bouwplastics.nl/

look for plexiglas-->plexiglas lijmen-->potje

It's the "plexiglas lijm dik"

 

Thanks for the url also finally a place that sells orange plexiglas, can't wait for your next update

 

Wow, Cant wait to see more, fantastic work!

 

really great work with the fibreglass
ths are just vents in the top so no fans there? Because i though mounting them behind the holes would be a bit tricky

 

Thanks and no fans up there. The fans will be mounted onto the radiator, a littlebit deeper into the case.

The "fingerguards" are starting to shape up quite well. It's not really a fingerguard because there is not a fan just behind it. The part needs a lot of filing, but that will be no problem because it turns out to be much stronger than I expected.



Just to get an idea what it will look like when it is in place.



The fibre glass lid will be sprayed black so you won't see much in that vent when the case is finished.



From above. It looks like the acrylic parts are not straight, but don't worry it's perfectly straight.



Will have to add two pieces on the right side and three on the left before the first fingerguard is finished.

 

uh now we´re gettin serious ..

the grills look hot.