It's been a while since my last update due to ill health but I've been able to get quite a lot of work done recently. The top cover needed some mesh fitted to it so I cut some 12mm ally angle to make two struts that the mesh could be mounted to, drilled and tapped 4mm mounting holes on the cover side rails and bolted on the struts, the mesh sits on the struts which cover up the mesh edges when seen from above and give a neat finish, the mesh is bolted at the front and back of the cover with ally plates to cover up the mesh edges, that's the cover finished for now. I wanted to cover up the top cover mounting hinges and used some 6 x 50mm ally flat, this would be an easy job if I had a mill but as I don't I started by drilling out the area where the hinges would go, starting with a 3mm drill and then using a 6mm drill and then using some cutting burrs to remove the last of the metal and make a recess where the hinge could sit, drilled the mounting holes, it's not the neatest bit of engineering I've ever done but it will do the job and looks better on the outside. one down, one more to go this is how they fit on the case covering up the hinges, the covers do sit squarely but my ancient camera distorts things quite a lot on close up shots Before I started making the base rails that the case would sit on the case needed cleaning up, what was the case front is now the base and the old fans mesh and front panel needed cutting out, marked out the offending metal and used my favourite tool the cutting wheel to remove it Cleaned up the case edges and ready to start making the case base rails. I'm not using individual case feet just two rails running from front to back. Cut some 25 x 25mm ally angle and some ally profile with a curve on one side, drilled and tapped the ends of the profile with a 6mm thread drilled the mounting points on side rails where the profile would be bolted, marked out the side rails and drilled graduated sized holes in them starting with a 10mm in the middle and decreasing in size towards the ends, this is more than decorative as the two 180mm fans will be in the case base and drawing air from beneath the case it allow a bit more airflow to the fans. Assembled the side rails and front and rear struts, then made two more bracing struts from 20 x20mm ally profile which bolt between the rails just to ensure it won't flex, stuck on some rubber matting to stop the case sliding around and scratching desktops. a test fit shows everything lines up alright I gave the base rails a brushed satin finish using wet and dry paper and finished with 1200 grade. Time to start on the case paint, used paint stripper to get the old stuff off, wet and dried the case and side panels down to bare metal, I now remembered that as the leads would be running from the top of the case and down inside the case they would need an outlet and this was the time to cut it out before it was painted so I marked out a hole in the rear case panel where the leads could exit Cut and shaped some sheet steel and folded the edges to make a cover to go over the lead outlet hole, made some mounting brackets and glued the cover piece to the brackets and bolted it to the case. Back to the bodywork, more paint stripper on the side panels then wet and dried them down to bare metal and sprayed on a few coats of primer, next the case and sprayed the inside with some aluminium paint which gives it a shiny as new finish. missed a few shots here but sprayed primer on the case and then some coats of black gloss and finally sprayed the side panels with black gloss. Skullduggery now needed some suitable designs, I'm next to useless when it comes to freehand art work but I can spray paint and used Ford Moondust Silver Metallic paint for the designs, I needed to make some stencils first I combined some designs in photoshop to get this final design and using Sketchup I printed it to scale so it would fit the side panel, stuck the design to some card and cut it out, now I had the stencil I stuck it to the panel using stencil glue which doesn't harden so the stencil can be repositioned if need be and more importantly it allows the stencil to be removed after spaying the paint, why stick the stencil down, well this design had a lot of thin edges and detail pieces that would easily lift from the blast of the spray paint and allow paint to bleed under the stencil and ruin the clean edges making a real mess of the design so it had to be stuck down. missed a few shots here but here's the design after spraying with the silver paint, ready for some clear lacquer. The design on the other side panel was from a multi piece acetate stencil I bought, these are used a bit differently and you have to think in reverse to which order the layers are used, first the empty stencil is used to get the overall shape and the outline, then the inner stencil is used with black paint to get the details finally, I made another stencil for the SKULLDUGGERY" text and sprayed that on the panel. The last design was on the front panel using another multi piece acetate stencil (you might have a noticed a design theme here same procedure again using the silver paint for the outline and black for the details, then all the paint work was left for a couple of days to harden. Final job was to lacquer the paint work, when using cans you can get some more pressure from them by standing them in hot water for a while so the propellant expands but if the can makes any strange noises and starts to bulge...RUN... The parts were lacquered and left to harden for a few days then lightly wet and dried with 1500 grade then cut back using T-Cut and finally polished with a wax polish. You can get quite a good finish using cans if you take the time and with all paint work it's down to the preparation, the marks around the screws heads is just some polish. That's most of the hard work done just have to put it all together now
The Amount of work you put into this is Huge. It sure shows in your results. Really Excellent stuff here.
Thanks guys, I'm hoping to get this build finished in the next week or so and will do a final update then
Finally, with the all the paint and graphics finished and laquered it's time to assemble the parts. Bolted the fan platform into the case with some 3mm bolts then fitted the base rails to the case, with these fitted the case was now a lot more rigid and a bit easier to work on. Mounted the fans using rubber pins which should help reduce any vibration noise I had some 180mm Silverstone filters that I wanted to use but I had to round off the edges and trim them down a bit to make them fit and also added some magnets to hold the filters in place I'd left a gap under the fan platform so the filters could be slid into place once in place the filters lined up nicely with the fans, the only problem with filters is remembering to clean them as the mesh is fine and they can clog up quite quickly. Using a Seasonic PSU it's a tight fit and it needs a power lead with a 90 degree plug but it's in there, also stuck on two blue LED lights which will shine through the holes in the rails. fitted the drives into the cage, one 3TB HDD and a 128GB SSD and fitted the drive cage into the drive bay bolted the drive bay into place and lined up the fan controller screen then remembered I was going to fit a bezel around the drive bay hole in the case but I'd forgot to make it so I cut one out of some 2mm ally shaped it and gave it a quick polish and screwed it to the case time to fit the mobo and graphics card, it all went in with no problems and lines up, not spending too much time or money on braiding and cable management as it's a closed case, just made sure the cables didn't obstruct the air flow too much. mounted the 120mm fan with white LED's to the top of the case using some more rubber pins fitted some rubber trim around the cable vent hole to stop the cables being cut on the edge of the case and bolted the cable vent hole cover to the case fitted the power switch and power LED, the original idea I tried of just having a hole in the case with an LED shining through it from behind didn't work so well when I tested it so I used a 2mm blue LED in a chrome holder and just for the fun of it I fitted a red LED into the eye of the skull graphic, the red LED is the HDD LED so it will flash. fitted the side panels and it was time to fire up Skullduggery Skullduggery booted up, then turned off, then rebooted, then turned off, etc, etc after some head scratching I realised that the reset button I had used was the wrong type, it was a push to break button when it should be a push to make button, so the reset circuit was continually engaged in a reset loop, I didn't have the right button so I used a micro toggle switch instead, this switch is off in the central position and acts as a momentary switch when pushed up or down and springs back to off when released, this switch fixed the problem and Skullduggery now booted and stayed on. As Skullduggery has the fans in the base and is quite low to the ground I made a simple table for it to stand on, an Air Table ;>) used some steel tube and some wood offcuts to make the legs, bored out the wood and stuck the tubes into it with some Nonails glue, cut out the table top from an old MDF shelf and jigsawed a hole it, now some ally mesh could be fitted over the hole and the fans could draw air through it without taking in too much dust and dirt. a coat of matt black paint and finally covered the table top with some textured pvc grip liner, the table works well, maybe I should patent it? That's Skullduggery finished, quite a fun build recycling an old case and in total only cost about £100 in parts and materials. I've started designing my next build which will be a full scratch build and my first attempt at water cooling, time to jump in the deep end and get wet!
Well done man and congrats on completing the mod! The black/silver contrast looks great. I especially like the top cover and how it looks with the light from the fan under it. The cable routing is very elegant, although I imagine it could get a bit cumbersome switching out cables. Looking forward to your scratch build.
Thanks for your comments, these days with modding featuring so many big water cooled builds it feels that basic air cooled PC's are a bit old school, it's like a VW Beetle compared to an EVO but they can still be fun and that's why I built it
