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Project: Far Cry, Completed (sort of) 12th July

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by Zero_Limits, 18 Apr 2006.

  1. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    Far Cry is not the newest game out there but it’s still one of my favorites and with the largest LAN event in the country (New Zealand) coming up fast I figured it was about time to start my mod for the case mod competition.

    I have been saving up pics for a while so these first few posts will seem like a lot of progress when in fact I have been working on it on and off for about a month now.

    Basic plan for this is to make a custom case that will hold lots of hard drives. On top if all goes to plan will be a model of the little island at the start of the“Fort” level It was the first level I played when I downloaded the demo and I still enjoy playing round on it today. Haven’t fully decided what I will have on the front and sides of the case but it will of course involve the Far Cry name/logo and probably a Trigen in some form or another.

    Started on the plans after finally deciding on a theme for the case and after a few hours at work they were pretty much complete.

    I was originally going to construct the case using acrylic but after finding the 6-8mm thickness I wanted to use was going to cost me about $300NZ (about $200US) I was quiet supprised by this as the 3mm acrylic I had used for my last case only cost $70NZ (45US) for a whole sheet.

    With that in mind I decided to change plans and go with MDF wood which ended up costing me about $30NZ ($20US) In the end it shouldn’t matter to much as most of the initial case will be covered. Im pretty happy with this now that I have started anyway as the MDF is a lot easier to work with.

    Off to the garage I went tonight to start building… here are a few pics of what’s done so far.



    The wood for the case
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    Next step was to mark things out. I used a metal ruler for this rather then a tape mesure to insure accuracy.
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    It pays to check after marking things out that you have actually drawn what you intended to … things like this can sometimes happen.
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    To make sure I cut the right parts and cut them once I printed out this to show me what I needed to cut and how they fitted into the sheets of wood I had. I also crossed them off as they were cut.
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    Everything was cut roughly with the jigsaw and away from the actual lines as I intended to run the router along the edge after.
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    After cutting I clamped the parts to the table with another bit of wood under lined up with the cut line so I could use the router.
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    All the parts nicely cut out, just a bit of sanding on the edges and they will be done.
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    After many attempts and bits falling over I finally got the thing to stand up to show the basic shape of the case.
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    After that it was just after 11pm so I decided to pack up before I started getting yelled at by Mum. I’m Pretty happy with the first days work. 1 hour on it so far…. Many many more to go.
     
    Last edited: 11 Jul 2006
  2. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    Finished cutting everything out. These pieces will go in the center, the mother board will mount to one and they will separate the cube into to parts one for mobo etc and the other will have the PSU and hard drives in it. With a little space in between the two separators to hide all those messy wires.
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    Next I made this little bit out of some angle aluminum I had. As seen in the next couple of pics I used it to drill holes for some doweling that will help hold the case together.
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    Here it is showing how it will be used.
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    This is my attempt to hold a bit of wood the camera and drill all while taking a photo, that’s why its kind of blurry :p
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    Tested it on a couple of scraps of wood first.
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    The results were pleasing so I went on to do the actual case parts. Ignore the extra holes, they were mistakes when I used two bits of wood which weren’t the same size to test it. (add stupid smiley here)
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    1, 2 miss a few 99, 100… missed out a few pics of drilling the case parts as they would pretty much be the same as the last two pics. Heres one of everthing loosely put together (was much easier to get it to stand up this time :p)
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    Nothing to interesting at the moment. Hopefully that will change soon though. :D
     
  3. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    I started work by chopping the back panel down to make room for a removable mother board tray.

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    Next step was to start making the tray. Took a while to get things drawn out and ready for me to cut. Here are a couple of pics of the parts.

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    A few minutes later and a bit of glue and the two parts become one.

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    All fits quiet nicely

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    So I decided I would try paint as I need to paint most of the inside of the case before I assemble it. The proper primer for the MDF that I used when making some furniture for my room is really thick and can only be brushed or rolled on, because of this it comes out quiet rough and would require a lot of sanding to make its smooth. I don’t know about anyone else but I hate sanding. I thought I would try use a normal sanding primer and to try avoid it soaking in I didn’t thin it down quiet as much as I normally would.

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    As you can see the paint is very rough because it didn’t come out of the gun nice and evenly due to the fact it was way too thick. Also it still soaked into the MDF slightly and made it swell up a little bit but not to badly. After a little sanding and a few more coats of primer it turned out not to bad though. I will still be trying to find a better way though.

    Seeing I was just playing round with the paint I found some old black spray paint lying around and decided to give it a quick spray.

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    Here’s a few pics of the painted mobo tray in the case. It wont keep this finish as I intend to redo it later with some more decent paint.

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    Its hard to tell from this pic but its slightly out of square.

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    So it was time to make some corner braces.

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    Roughly cut out

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    A little sanding and a bit of time with the router and they are almost complete. Just have to fill the couple of holes that are there because I used scrap wood.

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    With the corner brace in place you can see more clearly the problem.

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    With the braces glued in place the tray is now near enough to square.

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    A pic of the tray with an old MATX board sitting on it. Also gives an idea on the size of the case.

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    The Motherboard Tray still has a bit of work to be done on it but I will leave it for the moment and go onto other things.

    Only other thing I have done so far is make a few little corner pieces for inside the case to help keep it all nice and square.

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    I also played around with a few scrap bits of wood to see if I could find an easy way to seal it for painting that doesn’t involve a heap of sanding. So far the best I have come up with is spreading thick CA over the wood. This works quiet well, the only problem is it would be reasonably expensive. I have a few other things to try though.
     
  4. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    I was very bored at work, as I have been most days recently. Luckily my boss is cool and lets me do stuff when there are no customers around. Unfortunately with all my tools being at home etc there’s not much I can do.

    Anyway this is what I did today.

    I took a sheet of 0.8mm Plasctruct, drew out the Farcry logo.

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    And cut it out.

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    Still a bit of work to do on it, the edges are mostly angled like the logo with only the rounded ones to go. Obviously there’s a bit more to cut out in the r’s and a and a few scratch marks to do. Then time to paint…. Not sure how I’m going to do the painting part yet.
     
  5. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    It was another day of nothing at work. So I spent most of the day working on the logo for the case.

    I added another layer of 0.8mm plastruct onto the back for a bit or strength as it was fairly weak around the groves. Then a few hours with some needle files and this is where it’s at.

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    A bit more sanding and maybe a little filling in the unintentional scratches and it will be ready for paint.
     
  6. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    Time for a little paint.

    First off I put a little black on

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    Then a bit of darkish grey

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    Then a few light coats of racing white, which is sort of an off white/cream type colour.

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    After that I spent a few mins with a fine paint brush and some brown and black paint. You can also see the background better in this pic.

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    BUT I will bring out the wet and dry sand paper and sand it all off again because I’m not happy with it :p

    It’s a bit like every sketch I have ever done in my life, looks really nice as plain pencil, then the teacher or friend or whoever tells me to color it in and it just ruins the whole thing. Unfortunately I do want this to have a bit of color so it will look like the real thing.

    This isn’t the sort of painting that I’m used to, have never really done natural looking sort of things before so it might take a bit of time to get things right.
     
  7. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    Luckily for me my brother works at an aluminum joinery place so I managed to get some little bits of angle aluminum cut. More specifically 20 of them, all 25x25x1.6mm angle and 20mm wide. What took them probably 10 minutes would have been a minimum of an hours work for me.

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    Didn’t take to many photos of this process as its all fairly basic. I used a tap to make a thread in the aluminum so I didn’t have to fiddle around with nuts.

    This is the proper T handle for the M4 tap I was using.

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    And this is what I used

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    Now I don’t recommend using the battery drill, I only used it because I’m lazy and it was only 1.6mm aluminum, if it was any thicker I would have used the proper tools.

    These are the bolts I plan to use. They were all left over from my last mod (Blue Flame) after I took it apart. I didn’t realize I had used so many while I was building it.

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    Here are a couple of pictures of the joints with angle. I am not worried about the outside looking bad at this stage as most of it will be covered in the end.

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    Here is a photo of the whole case all bolted together so far.

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  8. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    Did some work on the side panels so the case is no longer just a cube. I didn’t take to many pictures as I went for this stage as there is not a whole lot to show.

    Here is a pic of the bits I cut for each panel

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    I then used some thick CA to glue them to the side panel and some thin CA in each corner to hold it quickly so I didn’t have to hold it for to long. The thin also soaks into the wood and adds a bit of strength.

    I was a little worried about the strength but thanks to a foolish mistake I got to see just how strong the glue was. Took quiet a bit to break the join again and now I just remembered I actually have some CA debonder, would have been handy to remember that at the time :p

    Here are a few pics of what it currently looks like.

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    And just for fun a pic of one of my mistakes I blame the New Zealand educational system for not teaching us to add without calculators. Hmmm maybe not, it was just a stupid mistake caused by me not thinking properly before I cut. Just proves the old measure twice cut once.

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  9. GuardianStorm

    GuardianStorm Minimodder

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    dont forget to put a link in the project thread back to this :)

    i like the look of it so far, nice clean cuts, and the FarCry Logo is brilliant :)

    any pictures/sketches of what you want it to look like in the end?
     
  10. Klekkus

    Klekkus What's a Dremel?

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    Nice, I like your project ;)

    The "box" looks nice, and the logo looks kick-ass!

    KUTGW ;)
     
  11. tkh

    tkh Minimodder

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    Logo look great, keep it up :thumb:
     
  12. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    DOH, will put a link with the next update :D

    There are couple of small sketches but they are to small and dont show enough detail to be worth posting. Most of the details are just in my head at the moment.

    Thanks :D

    Thanks to you also.

    Now seeing you all commented on the logo I thought id tell you a little more about it.... Its in the bin :sigh: Unfortunatly i ran into a few problems while painting it and wasnt happy with the results and all things im not happy with end up in the bin :p Watch the log for version 2 of the logo.

    I think im going to cheat a little on that and print out the logo on some high quality paper. Attach it to some plastic (same stuff as before) Cut it out and angle the edges. That should just leave the angled edges to be painted and a flat clear coat over the whole thing to protect and seal.
     
  13. simosaurus

    simosaurus What's a Dremel?

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    thought id drop by and say that farcry logo is absoloutley insane man, really really good, 100% like the real thing. gorgeous! did i say insane already?
     
  14. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    haha :D thanks for that man. Hopefully the replacement turns out the same :thumb:
     
  15. BenJ

    BenJ What's a Dremel?

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    Looks great so far, looking forward to more progress.

    Regards
    BenJ
     
  16. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    Update 26th April

    Update time…. Finally

    After days of doing absolutely nothing to the case which can be blamed on nothing apart from me bring lazy I have finally made some more progress.

    Started By modifying the side panels. As you can see from this pic they are solid in the little triangle area. I wanted that to be cut out for a side window. So I did this….

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    Roughly marked out the wood underneath.

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    Drilled holes in the corners for the jigsaw blade.

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    As you can see I didn’t take my time with the jigsaw at all. The results of that are rough edges and un-straight lines.

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    That’s ok though because the next step was to spend a bit of time with the router to neaten things up and make them all straight.

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    I also started gluing all parts from my previous post together. I was a little worried about strength where the side panels joined the front curved part so I added some fiber glass. I was to lazy to mix up resin so I just used some thick CA and then thin to wet that parts that weren’t quiet covered with the thick. The result was a much stronger but very ugly join. That doesn’t matter though as this part will be covered by something else later.

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    Added a layer of finer 2oz cloth to try make it look a little prettier. Turns out that didn’t help at all, it did make it a little smoother though. As I said though it will be covered later anyway.

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    Add some CA

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    What it looked like after that from a distance.

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    Next I cut out some more bits for the side panel

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    Then stuck them on.

    That’s the progress so far. Here are a few pics of where it is at currently.

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    More updates soon!
     
    Last edited: 22 Jun 2006
  17. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    Thanks man

    Just updated it, take a look Here
     
  18. toyomatt84

    toyomatt84 What's a Dremel?

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    Are those true Mugen MF7's or are they ROTA's? I can see them in the background, on what appears to be a black DC2 Integra.
     
    Last edited: 8 May 2006
  19. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    lol I was wondering if someone would ask about those. I did notice they were in the background of a lot of my pics. They are on my brother’s car, a ’96 Honda Prelude 2.2 Vtec and all of that. He said he’s not sure what style but he is pretty sure from what others have told him they are the real Mugen ones. They came on the car when he got it.

    My cars a ’94 Integra… but it’s the crappy 4 door family wagon automatic non vtec one :p Sad actually… I think my computer is worth more then it lol
     
  20. Zero_Limits

    Zero_Limits Minimodder

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    Very small update which is not really an update because I haven’t actually done any work on the case. Some of my water cooling gear arrived yesterday :D

    Now I know everyone has probably seen the gear before, but I’m going to post pics anyway because its my first lot of water cooling gear and I’m excited lol I got this first lot off a member of some forums over here in NZ (Thanks hobogoblin!!!), Paid $130 NZ for the lot. Should have a Pump coming soon again thanks to hobogoblin for the deal! Also in the next few days I should be getting a 5inch bay res… but that’s not really for this case. All the gear will just be going in my normal everyday case until this one is complete.

    Photo time

    One Copper TDX Block for Athlon64 754/939/940

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    When I got the block it was a bit dull and not pretty on the bottom, I didn’t take pics as I was to excited to get the gear and went straight out to the garage to make it shiny lol Here are the results. (so I did sort of do a little work)

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    One Xflo 2 bip radiator. Didn’t quiet get the idea of how massive this things was even though ive seen them before :p Wont be easy fitting it into my normal case but that’s noting a jigsaw and dremel wont fix! :dremel:

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    Finally, all the gear together, you can also see a fillport, t line and a couple of elbows. Once again thanks to hobogoblin, real great guy, he thought he took a little long to get it sent out to me (which I wasn’t worried about… and I told him) but he still decided to throw in the fill port and t line for free! :clap: Will be buying him some Redbulls at the LAN

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    All for now, must get moving on the rest of the case though. Only 71days till the event. :jawdrop:
     
    Last edited: 22 Jun 2006

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