Hi all, Firstly welcome to this project log. It's my first that I've published, but this mod is not my first. Secondly, apologies for my AWFUL spelling. Now moving on, What is "RAT" look. In the aircooled VW circle the "RAT" look has become very popular. The idea being to have a perfectly working, restored car, that looks like a utter wreck. So that means exterior rust etc. As I am now a university student my pc must be a little portable. My current case is a ZALMAN GS-1000 for anyone who doesn't know the case it's HUGE. Brilliant case, the only fault for me is the size. If I don't bring my pc back with my during holidays I get grief from a couple of the guys. If I do bring it back I get grief from the parents due to it taking up allot of car space. So why not combine the love of VW's with the love of PC's? Hence RAT look. I did a quick Google and found one RAT look PC. Now exam period is coming up in next 4 weeks (2weeks revision, 2 weeks exams) and straight after that I will be buying (if released) the new processor from the Ivy Bridge family along with motherboard, RAM, SSD etc etc. Call it a little present to myself for all the hard work i'm going to do.... Mostly I play BF3, F1 2011, Dirt, Sup com etc etc Good fun games with mates. Now is probably a good time to say that i'm studying mechanical engineering and spend most of my day sitting in front of a PC with CAD (solidworks open or excel etc etc). And while normally I'd be happy to plan every section of the case this way, I've taken a more relaxed method by doing ad-hoc planning. So, as I go along ill be drawing the plans out for sections, not doing entire case design. Project aims : 1) a small PC (not tiny though) 2) quiet 3) decent air flow 4) RAT look with side window + extras So stage 1 find a donnor case (as from experience building from strach need allot of measuring). Luckily a family member donated an old Dell 2350 to me which takes a mATX board. While my current mo-board is ATX the new one will be mATX. The case was stripped and emptied before the night was out. All pop rivets drilled out. As I have become used to good cable management (behind the mo-board tray. I intend to modify this case to do the same. 1) Just the case in bits 2) Drilling the first side fan. During and after. All mounted using rubber spacers to reduce noise. 3) Design, print scale model, mark out, make, trial fit switches, lacquer strips. The designs were done in solidworks. I'm now at the process of adding salt and water to the plate to try to rust it. The idea being that the lacquer should protect certain areas and cause a stripe of rust to appear. If this method works i'll be using it on the back side panel to etch logos into the metal. Results of the plate rusting to follow
