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cheapskate

Posted in on May 28, 2008 at 9:50 pm

—26 7 07

-I had to get the saw out again. I cut sections out of my spacers for the front. These will frame the part of the drives that will be sticking out of the case.

-Don’t try this at home kiddies! To get the faceplate on the press, I had to unbolt most of the base and turn it 90 degrees. I had to put my lead bottles on the foot to keep it from falling over. I don’t have any pictures of the 5″ hole saw cut,(all blurry) but it was done the same way. I sprayed so much water on the saw as it was cutting that I needed to disassemble the whole rig and give it a coat of grease.

-Mounted the 120mm fan. This 120mm fan is the only part I don’t have a broken version of for mockup. I’ve decided I need to fix the bend in the front. I cut some small strips to glue on the inside.

-I Put together a floppy bay. Yes, I still use floppies…

-Countersinking the floppie mount holes was a close fit on the press.

-Finished but unsanded drivebay. I added 2 new holes in the side to correct my earlier mistake. I will probably never mount a 2nd cd drive, so no more holes.

-The lexan drive latches work SWEEEEET!  -out…

-Latches bent…

-Locked in.

—29 7 07
I’m actually at the point where I’m fitting hardware!
Actually, this part sucks. It’s where I make the really spectacular mistakes.

-Mounting the motherboard. I have a template I traced from another computer. The mother board is obsolete and has no chip. It makes a handy mockup spare. I can even test switches and led’s with it.

-Yet another Bic pen has gave its life for the modding cause… A moment of silence please…

-Mounting up the radiator. The psu shell serves as a template for 80mm fan cuts. I decided to countersink using the deburring bit this time.

-Cutting the radiator hole using the Rotozip. I use a 1/8″ drill bit instead of the rotozip blades. rotozip blades rip pexi to pieces. I’m using another sheet of glass as a guide here.

-I’m not sure, but I think it’s kinda crooked…(joke) I must have been using that bong I made earlier…

-The floppy caddy has an awkward fit that requires gluing the nuts into place. I’d rather not use glue, so I came up with this option: Nuts in hole…

-Powder from sawing mashed into the hole…

-Solvent added.  I then added more powder and solvent until the hole was full.

-After it cured I sanded and polished the whole rig.

-I need something to mount the riser cards to. I’m using some of this aluminum like I did on Hypnotoad.

-milling the unwanted bits off. I need to cut it down to an L shape.

-Back at the ghetto machine shop, I’m sanding and polishing my brass.

-I trimmed up the front faceplate at some point, so here’s pic of what’s to come.

—1 8 07
During my test fit of my on switch, I broke the little booger. Until I dig out a replacement, that part is halted. I did take some time to clean up the hollowed out spot it fits in.

-The deadly electric Q-tip. It comes in handy for polishing those hard to reach areas. -Just don’t stick it in your ear!

-I masked my faceplate. Where have I seen this shape before?…

-Oh! That’s where! Hi Bloo!:D

-Wait, Bloo! What are you doing!!

-Ouch! I bet that hurt!

-A nice trick to get perfectly round holes…

-Sanded and beveled with the on switch marble behind it.

-back lit to give you a rough idea what it will look like finished.

I put an order in for a new power supply and dvdburner. With a rough idea what the back psu looks like, I can go ahead and cut the hole for it.

-Fitting the holes for the psu. Again I use a gutted corpse as a handy guide.

-Marks for the cut. I removed excess masking again to keep it from fouling up my view.

-All cut.

-Marked out the areas I want to bevel.

-filed out the bevels by hand. It probably took less time like this than it would on the drill press.

—6 8 07
I did not do much this week. It stopped raining and the yard EXPLODED! I just filled 10 trash cans with creeper vines.

-I did some polishing with these things. I read a tip somewhere on the net on making softer buffing wheels. It’s felt circles stacked and sewn together. You can mount this on a wood screw that has its head cut off. You can buy the felt in hobby shops.

-Polished radiator hole. Now if the radiator only had a full coat of paint… Ignore the junk in the fins. When I got the rad it stunk of paint and smoke, so I stuffed it back in the box with some potpourri someone gave me.

-This is the fit on the radiator. From this side it’s only -slightly- off.

-My case, full frontal with its top off. Showing off its protruding drives… I was surprised how sturdy it was with just the bottom frame. This setup was so I could measure for the drive cut.

-The front plate marked and drilled for cutting. I have been putting this part off because this is where I fudged up on my other 2 mods.

-The fit test after the rough cut was done. I had to pull the faceplates to get the face on. I actually got it right.

-I forgot I needed to cut more than 1/4 of the spacers out. Like this they hang over the edge and get in the way of the rivet.

—9 8 07

-I needed to make an oddball angle bracket for the front of the reservoir. Meet my old friend, homemade-jig-thing. It just happens that the tubing is slightly less than 2″, so I didn’t need to sacrifice any of the plexi tubing for sanding.

-Gluing the new bracket on.

-Finished tank.

-Checking the new switch with the rest of the rig. I will need to give this one a dab of glue to keep it in place.

-Drilling the holes for the mounting of the front.

-I taped the 2 front panels together, then used the holes in the red panel as a guide. The screws were to keep stuff from slipping as I drilled.

-While milling the bracket that holds the switch assembly, I thought I’d try to make some cutouts with the deburring bit.

-I also tried it out on the baseplate for the usb port.

-The first hint of some kind of cable management?

-Gluing the mounting plate together. The blue thing is a stack of quarters.

-I slipped up somewhere and the rig is slightly skewed. It was probably when the red tipped clamp shot off during setup. My polishing job made it a little slick, I guess.

-Glued the switch tube to the front panel. This pic is the test fit afterwards.

-Making more tailfins. The wide sanding block helps me keep the work level.

-After a failed attempt to tap the plexi to 6-32, I opted for a less kind mounting: pop rivets. I will never be able to tap small threads into plexi. The tiniest wobble while tapping will ruin the thread. That’s why I use huge screws in the sideplates.

-I shrunk myself down so I could climb inside the case for this pic.  The bracket was slid on the switch so I could mark mounting holes.

-Switch bracket mounted.

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