Modding SSD Modding: Vinyl, Painting, Brushed Aluminium, and More

Show us your SSD mods folks, I am interested in what you have done

 

Love you buddy

 

<3

 

I attempted to put a window in a HDD many years ago. It did not go well.

 

Great to see some modding guides back here again.

 

Dianoga's custom SSD floor and SSD.



5mm acrylic floor, 2.5" 5mm black - 5mm clear - 5mm black lit from inside.

Bigger and badder in Rise Of The Triad.



3mm custom floor/PSU cover with a similar thing to Dianoga only this time I used a whole butt load more LEDs and a voltage converter.

 

Cheers! There will be more soon! We have some nice things planned!

looking nice dude! particularly like the first pic just for the nod to Waynio!

 

Waynio was one of the most talented modders ever to grace B-T. It wasn't just his skills but his patience. I watched him attempt and fail so many times but he just kept going on with endless enthusiasm.

The build wasn't for Wayne at the beginning, it started out as a joke. Then as I was modding one day I got talking to my wife, brought up Wayne and burst into tears.

Not many modders out there like Wayne. If he did mods and you liked them he would always do his best to explain exactly what he did, and a lot of his openness and kindness came out through that. Many modders hide their "secrets" but Wayne was the type of person who didn't give a **** about competing he just wanted more people doing what he loved.

Yeah, very rare trait in humans that. I'm just blessed that I even knew him, and had the empathy skills to see what a great bloke he really was.

World is much darker without him

It's funny really. I tried to type all of that and express how I felt then, but it just turned into tears.

 

I like the vinyl mod - very re-cyclable. ANyone know anywhere we can get vinyl printed/cut etc cheaply?

 

yeah, it is very easy to do and easily changed if you want to. You can purchase vinyl from places like eBay/Amazon. You can cut things yourself using a craft knife and just creating a template - maybe even utalise a standard printer.

If you want it cut to size with a design etc, again, eBay would probably be able to do it, just search 'custom vinyl sticker' or something along those lines.

My vinyl plotter gets used quite a lot for multiple things, so if you are thinking about doing a few builds, it could be worth investing.

 

The vinyl costs bugger all. The latest stuff I have been using can be found here.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RHINO-Can...var=580941904360&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

Just an example, but that is candy metallic vinyl. If you were to paint something to get that result you would need to prime, seal, base coat, flake, candy, clear (in that order). It would cost you a fortune, so I have been using it as much as I can. Really kicks in the light.

I order 30cm x 750, costs £3.29 inc.

Cutting it? that's where it gets expensive... Ish.... basically there are a few ways you can go about it.

1. Put a base down of the colour you want to show through. Print out what you want, only make sure it is printed in reverse (so mirror it). Use prit stick on the back of the vinyl and stick your design to it. Then use a good sharp pair of scissors and a scalpel for example to cut.

2. Put the main colour down (so candy red for example) and then cut letters from a secondary colour (so flat black for example) using the method above.

3. Buy a plotter/cutter. I use a Portrait Silhouette which cost me £125 inc. It works like a printer and will cut large-medium stuff fine. Mine doesn't like cutting tiny details, but that may be something to do with the set up. Blades for it are VERY expensive and don't last long, so you can buy a alu bodied conversion kit which takes blades you can buy for around £3 each. The body is around £10, IIRC, then you just use standard type blades and springs (they come together, last time I ordered I paid about £8 for a set of 3). The "official" blades are bloody expensive and they really don't last very long.

If you are cutting raw vinyl with it you need to make sure it's squeegeed before you use it. Otherwise the blade can drag across and scratch and mark the vinyl. You are supposed to use a backing, but what I do is simply cut the 30cm down to width (IIRC it's about 28cm to fit the plotter) then run a strip of masking tape down both sides front and back so it doesn't slip.

But yeah, scissors and a steady hand will do but will eat your time and patience.

Plotter (for reference)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Silhouett...hash=item2597a8a5cc:m:msEBf08NddxAH_JDoR6bq4g

Official blade.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Silhouett...294278?hash=item4b0fa933c6:g:sycAAOSwYIxX2TG~

Converter body. With blades.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Plotter-B...442834?hash=item2381da9b52:g:1WsAAOSw~CFY6x7J

Yeah this. I've used mine forking LOADS. Recently I cut some decals for a BMX fork.



Load up with like £2 worth of vinyl.



And £18 worth of stickers for £2.



I've made signs for doors, door bell plates with the house number on etc etc. They really are fantastic to have. I will be cutting my number plate decals with it too (for my BMX) which are £9 a number if bought separately. I will get each number from a 99p A4 sheet of vinyl.