Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Phase 2 Casemodding

Hello everyone

At this moment I've been working on my casemod Cubeleon for about two years. So the original design dates back to 2005. Since then I've learned a lot about casemodding and my way of designing en making parts also changed a lot. I always try to be original and I make pieces that take a lot of time.

Sometimes I just don't want to work on Cubeleon, so I started this project. There will be a lot of subprojects during time, which gives me the chance to het faster result en to finish a part within a few weeks/months I started making reservoirs, after being hooked by the incredible work of tribaloverkill.
I came up with the name Phase 2 Casemodding because I want to go into another phase of casemodding. I want parts to be made by people themselves, instead of them just buying parts. I don't think I will start another phase of modding, but at least I've tried then The name also comes from the second phase of water, the liquid phase. I begin this project with two reservoirs, but I don't know if I will ever make parts that aren't used for watercooling. We'll see

With these reservoirs, I wanted to use plexiglass on a different way than it's used normally. If someone is using plexi in het casemod, most times it's just as a second layer between the case and, for example, a fan grill. I don't say it doesn't look nice, I'm using it too, but I'm getting a little bored by that by now. So I'm looking for new ways to use it, and I will start with creating two reservoirs

My first reservoir has been finished for a while, but I haven't posted it on english forums yet. I will now

Swirl

This used to be a nameless reservoir, but for the conversation, it's easier to give it a name. The creation of this res all started with a SolidWorks design. After that I ordered the plexi and started sanding the edges. This was necessary because the shop I ordered it from gave it a rough finish by cutting it too fast.



I printed out a drawing and stuck it too the plexi. After that I drilled through both of the sheets.



And after cutting some tubes, a mockup can be made





After that, it was time for the big 'feature' of the reservoir, a piece of mirroring plexi. Cutting:



The reflection is actually very good



This piece needs to be bended, so I tried to create some handles from wood, to bend it within this piece of steel tubing:







The wood goes into the tube like this. I will mount the plexi in between and heat it up to give it a little twist.



This idea didn't really work, because I was unable to get enough heat into the plexi. So I got rid of the tube. After bending, it looked like this:



I intentionally took a piece of plexi that was a lot longer, so I coul pick out the piece that was bended the nicest. This piece was the chosen one





To be able to mount the res to the case, I drilled and tapped some holes:



Now it was time to drill the holes for the connections. I will drill these to 12mm, and than tap it to G1/4". One on the top, two on the botton.







After gluing and sealing, the end result looks like this







After posting my res on a dutch forum, Stievius was interested in bying it, and it's now nicely mounted in his mod Xionized He has won a lot of prices at the Benelux Casemod League, so I hope that was a little because of this reservoir







B-res

And on with the second one It's called B-res because it's the second one a made, and B as the second letter from the alphabet. It also has the colors of a bee It started with a simple sketch, the basic idea:



I designed it further using SolidWorks:



Unfortunately I lost a lot of pictures from the beginning, because my XD-card died. At this picture, I've cut and glued all of the pieces for the twist. I've sanded and polished every edge, to achieve perfection



And this is how it looks finished:



This is the first version of the endpieces. Started with a rough cut:



And the pieces that should come on top of them:



After glueing it looks like this It's all wrong, and the glue is ugly as hell:







Because the first version of the end caps couldn't get nicely round, I made some new ones using the lathe at school. I used a big chunk of alu to mount the pieces in the lathe:





After that, I drilled the existing 4mm holes up to 12mm, and threaded them using a tap I borrowed from Koradhil:





Remaking them made it necessary to make these again to:





Nicely cut, polished and glued together:



And glued to the reservoir:



This does look good



At this time, I had no clue how to attach the res to a future case. After a few days of brainstorming, I got mad and designed as long as it was needed to design something that would fit my needs. It had to match the shape and colours of the existing res. This was the winning idea



Time to print out the designs, stick it to the plexi and cut it out:









After that, I glued them together. This made it a lot easier to get them really round:







More parts





I will cut to rings out of black plexi that will fit around the res, and will be glued to the yellow pieces from above:



I filed the holes untill the reservoir would fit into them. These pictures were taken of the res without further support





I cut the holes first, because it's a lot harder to file them when they are loose. You'll have to remember which side needed a little more filing, and stuff like that When the holes were perfect, I cut them loose:



I made the outside really round by sanding it with this:



At this picture, you can sea the ring is nicely round, and I also just liked this picture



After sanding them with 1000 grit sanding paper, it was time to glue them to the tube. To prevent glue stains, I taped off the rest of the tube:



And after that, I attached one of the yellow parts. This turned out not to be the smartes move, so I did it differently on the other side



The rest needed to be glued also then:



And this is the other side I was talking about. I used a lot of tape to be able to sand and polish it:



Even this side gets polished



After cutting, polishing and glueing everything, the reservoir was finished That was just in time for my visit to the Benelux Casemod League, so I mounted it to a piece of brushed aluminium and took it with me These are the pictures I took in my garden at a cold winter day











I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Every part has a nice finish and I still really like the reservoir On a few of the previous pictures you can see the dots of glue. I have been practicing to get them nice and with the same size
It also looks a lot like the design, even though the twist is to the other side



I've got a lot of ideas left, so if I've made something, I will tell you I will post another update them, one that's a little shorter than this one. This one had 66 pics

 

very nice work and designe ! I realy like the last ( if you make more of them I would buy one )!

 

that is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!

I want

 

+2 very amazing, looks like the pistons in a car . great job

 

wow amazing work on the reservoirs!

 

Very Cool

 

Hi brinkz0r

That is so cool work. Great ideas, very fine work and looks amazing. Looking forward to see what else you have and will be doing.

What glue did you use to glue the plexi together? Looks perfect.

 

Wow. Your reservoirs are top notch jobs. Love it!

As for the 66 pictures, meh! Pictures are good. ^^

 

Thanks, but making more would take an amazing amount of time I may make more of future res's, so we'll see

I used Acrifix 192, it's a great glue, made for acrylic

Everyone else: thanks a lot

 

Wow.. A fellow Solidworks user!
My first thought was "Truly a great design!" Second thought... "I wouldn't trust glue..."
Then I saw you were using Acrifix, and I was no longer worried! Most ppl would probably use some kind of 2 component glue, thinking that strenght is everything... But you got the knowledge! (And the skills!)
Love this, subscribed!

 

I was wondering what the cool thing in your sig was. Now I know! I like it!
Feel free to make me one too!

 

i thought this too.

but this res looks amazing. its on the same level as tribaloverkill's.

 

Yeah I really love SolidWorks, and do all of my designing in it. Way better than Pro/e or something The acrifix works like a charm Thanks a lot

Thanks, I will

That can't be true I'm trying to keep up though

 

Those are soooo amazing!
Keep up the good work!

I am your newest fan

 

looking sweet

 

wow, they both look good, but I especially like the second one....very original and the colors work well together.

 

This is a great desgin so far. I like the inserts in the tube

 

And I'm off with the third res

I really like this project, because I can easily switch between styles. Well, this one is going to be WAY different than the last one It all started with printing the designed pieces:



Stuck these pieces to a sheet of 6mm plexi:



Drilled the small holes, cut and filed the large holes:



I already cut some small pieces, these are 3mm thick. They are transparent, but the protection foil makes em look blue. Blue won't really fit this res



After that, I needed two pieces of tube, with a diameter of 30 and 80mm. These have to have exactly the same length.



With this piece, my jigsaw wasn't working properly so I cut wrong:





And I tried to fix it



Before I start glueing the pieces together, I drilled and tappen the mounting holes. Not an original way to mount them, because I used this way before. But I've got a lot of ideas on new mounting brackets, so I will makes those some day



After that I glued together the first two pieces, and for now the last two First I have to make some more parts.



This is some nice plexi, 20mm thick



Drawing out the parts. These will become the hose connections:



And after a little while, these were cut. My jigsaw is having some problems with the plexi and I overheated the blade several times



Now those cubes are still square, they're quite easy to drill. I drilled this in 1 time using a 12mm drill at 950rpm. It's quite scary to see the forces that are used to drill at that diameter



The hardest part had yet to come, I had to make these cubes fitting. First I sanded them down useing the round part of my belt sander:



These parts will be glued to the round side of the tube, so to give them the same shape as the 80mm tube I'm using a trick a friend of mine showed me once:



After sanding, they look like this



Unfortunately one of the pieces was sanded too small, so I have to remake that one. After that, I will glue them to the outer tube. Then I will tap the 12mm holes to a G1/4" thread. I ordered the tap at school, so I hope it will be here soon. Stay tuned for the rest of the ideas on this res, I am really not done yet

 

Looks great! I think the sanding over a tube support is a great idea!

 

DAM!!!!!