Case Mod - In Progress Project 'HourGlass' (99% done. Stably running :D)

Lo all.

This is my first ever case mod called Project HourGlass. The skeleton for this mod is a Sharkoon rebel9 Value case.

If anyone has any feedback please post it and also I apologise in advance for the bad picture quality as i have an old camera.

Enjoy.

Sponsors

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Tiny Tom Logan, Full case modder, case painter and all round awesome guy!!
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The rough idea for the mod:





Here is a picture of the first set of supplies to arrive:


The case:
(The two front fans that are installed at the moment are only temporary as Aerocool are kindly sending me 4 silver turbine fans and a Modern-V fan controller )





















So lets get on with the modding....

First all the wires and LEDs in the front bezel have to be removed:


Naked bezel:


Making the new bezel with acrylic:








Sanding down the acrylic so it fit perfectly took so insanely long!!!!




Acrylic on the bezel:






Finished Acrylic before being glued in and moulded with fibreglass filler:








That’s all for today. Hopefully i will get more done tomorrow .

Thanks for reading.

 

Nice!

 

cool start.

gratz for your sponsor, you're lucky to have sponsor in your first mod

 

thanks a lot man.

 

Ok I have a small update. I can't do much more for a while (about a week) as I need to get some very strong glue to stick the acrylic to the bezel and the fan ducts to the acrylic so if anyone has any suggestions please fire them this way .

Measuring out the cutting line for the fan ducts on an old CD holder. (Talk about recycling )



Cut out fan duct with a cut down the middle so it can fit perfectly onto the edge of the fan hole:




Cutting it down to size now that I have a measurement:



The two fitted fan ducts:



The clean join:





I then set about sanding down one side panel so it was ready to be sprayed.





I need a bit of advice here as I have these 2 really nice aluminium fans:





The problem is as you can tell by this picture that the ugly fan guard on the back is obscuring most of the fan. So do I hole saw it and then fibre glass filler the edges so it is solid or cut it with a dremel. I’m looking to try and get the same effect Bill Owen got with the Harley Davidson mod.



Here is the stage that the mod is at the end of the day:





Thanks again for reading and please, any feedback is most welcome.

 

for that back grill could you cut the fan section out all together and make your own out of acrylic? that would look sick

 

I was thinking about doing that funnily enough with some spare clear acrylic that i will hopefully have.

 

Maybe a bad idea, but with so much fans in it, isnt it an handy idea to put a fan controller in the side?

 

im getting a free fan controller from aerocool which can control 4 fans but i may install another one in the side like you said for the back 2 fans and the 250mm side fan.

Thanks for reading

 

I has that exact same case A different brand though

 

I have another update. Ok so I bought myself some speed epoxy so i can glue the new bezel together.



Here is the bezel now glued together along with my hand :







I left this to dry for a day and then stated sanding both the fan ducts down and I also got as much excess glue as i could of the front of the acrylic:







Finished fan ducts:







The bezel as it is at the moment:



Hopefully tomorrow I can start priming the bezel so I can see where the fibre glass filler needs to be.

Thanks again for reading.

 

I have a small update for today.

I wasn't at all happy with the quality of the bezel so after a cup of tea I got down to some hand sanding:





I also touched every join up with some more superglue and filled in some gaps with it too which took about 4 hours to complete :







I then sanded down all the excess glue and put the bezel back on the case to see the better quality:



The problem with acrylic is you can't see where the surface isn't perfect so I got everything ready so I could do a quick coat of primer so i could then work out which areas weren’t up to scratch:







I know you can't see this from the pictures but there are some deep scratches on the acrylic and there are some lumps of glue in certain places.

Next weekend I'll get out the body filler and work out these imperfections.

Thanks all again for reading.

 

A very small update before I get down to cutting the holes for tomorrow.

All my sponsorship items came today straight from tiawan from the awesome people at Aerocool.

Here it is











I love those fans

Thanks a lot for reading.

 

Nice kit you got there.

In the 2 pics below that you were sanding and showing the side panel. When you say "ready to be sprayed" I really hope you mean primer There's some pretty mean scratches in it. Lookin good man, I'm diggin the front panel.

 

I have a big update for today.

A few weeks back I asked the grounds keeper at my sixth form collage whether at some point I could use the drill press, and he said no for health and safety reasons but that he could do it for me if I told him what to do.

So here is the bezel with the LCD screen in:



I then masked up the side and top panel and worked out where I wanted the grounds keeper to cut:



Cutting the two holes;







The finished holes:



It never goes perfectly though does it :S. I realised that after cutting out the first fan that the bar across the drive bay holder was blocking the fan, so with no delay the jigsaw came out:



We then got down to drilling the holes for the fan screws:



After the top panel was done I measured and drew out the style for the side window:



Then the grounds keeper got to cutting:







The finished Window (before it was sanded down):



The grounds keeper then drove down to the DIY store near the school and picked up some rivets and some clear silicon glue for me .



After the roof panel was back on we started cutting the acrylic down to size:









Finished window:



I then got down to sanding the side panel for the window:



My lovely work area back home



Here are the roof fans before being sanded down and U-trimmed:



Finishing the roof fans:











The roof fan holes with the U trim on:





Finished roof fans:





The case at the moment:


Thanks every one for reading again

 

The screen looks really cool with the disk drive below it and the fan are looks goood

 

nice new front, never expected it would be so nice ^^

 

Good work, but I'd finish the roof blowhole with some mesh. Atleast I don't quite like how you can now see the fan frames in the middle... Maybe also change the screws to some nice-looking hex-drive ones?

 

I like the look personally but i may p-ut some fan covers on the top to protect fingers

 

looking good.
the turban fans look great.