The purple queen - UPDATE WITH LOADS MORE PICS!!

This is no major project, i just want a girly computer!....

.....Buuuut if you wanna see how many ways one girl can screw up even the simplest thing.. this may well be worth watching... ! (Im wondering how long it'll be before i have to beg a mod to move this thread to the disaster mods forum).

The Idea
"Pretty" cases are hard to find, they all look very masculine and are generally boring colours. In an attempt to "girlify" my pc a bit, ive decided to give her a spray paint. Pink being totally OTT ive gone for a nice dark metalic purple, ive got my kit together (my fave coffee cup being an integral part of this project)...



The garage... (belongs to my boyfriends dad) ... a n00b modders heaven.. full of old car parts and every tool you can imagine

The Case
I have already cheated a bit, i bought a pre-modded iCute case. Itwas a damned good deal tho! £30 for a case complete with acyllic side and top windows 2xblue LED fans complete with gold grills, HDD&CPU thermometers, and a blue acrylic front & drive-bay blankers. The blue acryllic on the front also has a layer of thin metal (guessing its aluminium) between it and the case which makes it look quite funky!

The first thing to do, obviously, was to strip down the case, which being a premodded case and not really meant for further modification, was tough.
I got stuck with the front panel >_< i could see how it came off but just couldnt get a grip on it!..Damned nails...

Anyways.. some brute force later...

Naked Cutey

The Problems
Now that ive got my case apart i can see where my problems are gonna lie.
The first is the front panel which still has the acryllic attached. The buttons have been glued into place.

This is where those nails and a small flat screwdriver will come in handy.


The second thing is that this case is gonna be a b*gger to sand and spray because its covered in grills and lots of embossed areas


Well ive got all my stuff and got the case apart, now its time to do some sanding....

 

Hey dudette,

well nice to see a lady doing a mod, I also did the same i got a sorta pre modded case, with mine i took off the front plastic bit, bought new shinny looking switches and put a grill in the front which is a great affect.

also if for the side you dont want to cut holes in to get rid of the emboss and put a nice window in, you could use bondo to smooth out the gaps instead of sanding it hard, you can get that stuff from halfords if you need too.

But yeh good luck with this mod i can see its going to be good.

 

What!!! A girl modder? That's new Hope it turns out well

 

I really like that mug. Hope your PC turns out something like that.

That will be good to see. Looking forward to seeing some progress pics...

 

So do i hehehe

At the mo ive just finished sanding gonna go prime.
No pics tho.. bit hard to take pics of incredible smoothness... the only evidence would be the amount of dust im covered in

 

So what you going to use off the coffee cup. Just the colurs and style of the lines?

Or are you going to be more adventurous and have a picture on there too??

 

Or maybe just drink coffee out of it while your modding

 

ah well heres a pic anyway

sanded and ready to prime.

 

Looking good you got any more of like the frame, so whats going inside this purple queen of a machine, hehe it rymes .

 

OMG I freaking hate those cases with a passion (had to stack 50 of them at work). Will follow this with interest, I never thought much could be done with them tbh.

 

More on my ideas

I think you misunderstood me, the only reason my coffee cup is integral to the project... is because i become a useless ball of lazy brainlessness without coffee!!!! Mmmmmm java java!



At the moment the frame/insides of the case are remaining silver.

For now this is only a basic mod. As i come up with more ideas i'll implement them.

The Spec:
AMD Athlon 64 3700
Asus K8N-E Deluxe nForce3
Corsair 1GB DDR Value Select PC3200
Antec TrueBlue 480W PSU
Gainward Ultra 2400 Golden Sample (6039) GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) & DOOM 3 Bundle
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB SATA 8MB Cache
Pioneer DVR-108 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter
Logitech Premium Desktop Optical
Sunbeam Bubble Light x2
Akasa Serial ATA 45cm DAYGLO Blue Data Cable

The Plan:
My plan is to light the inside of the case with blue and uv lighting. Most of the cables will be uv reactive, the rest of the cables i will cover with uv reactive sleeving.

The 2 bubble lights i want to mount down the sides of the front bezel. Would involve drilling a hole either side for the power cable i guess....
Im also planning to get a Matrix Orbital MX222 USB LCD to mount with my thermometers.

Ideally, i would like to rip off the front of my dvd rom (and my old cd-rom which ill b using too) and use the acryllic & metal sheet blankers on the front so it all ties in. My prob is, with only one blanker id have to cut the drive door front out of the blanker intact. At the moment i dont have the tools to do that (i guess i need a dremel), but once im at uni im sure i can find someone who does.

Any input on the best way to do that would be welcome.

 

Update

Am mid priming..waiting for the first coat to dry.

Made a bit of a boo boo and started to do a little sanding too early, got a bit of a scratch it'll be ok tho.

So far the hardest thing (apart from getting the front of the case off yesterday which took near enough to 2 hrs ) has been getting the lid off of the primer can.
I thought it was just me being weak, so i pulled..and pulled....and seriously pulled...then i noticed the instructions on the cap "to remove lid insert flat headed screwdriver beneath tab and turn" Doh!

Well, I'd like you all to meet MonkeH who has been helping me prime my case:


EDIT: H, i dont think i can do too much with it either, im not headed for a super mod, just want it to be customised. Where abouts in nottingham r u from?

 

lol, hi monkey, yea i need a dremal too. i cant really continue with my mod without one but i dont exactlly have the £70 to buy one as im in debt with the parents fro gaming event tickets hehe was worth it though.

But yeh took me ages to get into a dell machine once if anyone asks you to fix an old dell server say NO.

But good luck with the rest of the mod i really like this one and its got 64 biut another extravigance i need to get since im not over 18 and not in the us so i cant enter a comp to win one. damb them allllllll.

When the paint job done post sum piccies up, also get some lazer connons there really effective.

EDIT

This is what ive done to mine if you need some ideas (remember this is without dremal hehe)

 

Use a hair-dryer? thats what im useing when i was painting my Nintendo 64 worked really good. Epscilly if you dont want to wait for a 24 hour or so

 

Ive sanded the primer down lightly with 800 grit just to remove impurities and touched up the primer.

Sweet on idea on the hair dryer... will definately speed things up. More pics soon.

 

I see. Me like coffeeeeeee tooooo!!.

Thats what hell of a spec PC. That will kick ass on Doom 3 and anything else you throw at it...

I like your monkey by the way. If you were a guy I'd tell you not to spank it... Sorry for lowering the tone...

 

Nice specs I must say Loads of cpu load to play with HL²

 

Why´re you useing such a rough paper when sanded? Use somewhere around 1000-2000

 

Update

I have a tutorial that talks of different grits.. the 800 is very very light and it gets rid of the little bumps and nothing more.
I have 1200 for the final sanding.

I finished all the priming and let it dry,


Then i set to painting the first layer of purple... and here it is!!


All the pieces are now painted purple, sprayed twice over and are drying in the garage. This has to cure for 2/3 days and im off to a wedding.. so more updates when i get back!!

 

lol hannah, its looking pretty

Nice one.... Love the monkey tbh. Good luck