Completed - Gear Up with EVGA "Dark DragonBlade"

[kazuma]

Hey guys!

 

It's been a while and my craving to cut aluminum and acrylic had reached its limits! I have an upcoming case mod project for EVGA's "Gear Up with  EVGA" program. EVGA was kind enough to support this project of mine with their awesome components. I will call this project "Dark DragonBlade" and this project will be based on the character of the game "Overwatch", Genji. 

 

I just started drawing up a concept for the project just last week and this might take a while. I need to get some office stuff/work out of my way before I can go full blast on this project so please bear with me.

 

Here's a quick sketch that I made for the front panel. I will be modding a Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5 for this project.

 

The design is just a week old so it might still change (hopefully not). The color scheme for this project will be black/green mainly because that's my favorite color combination. Genji is the samurai character on the Overwatch game and he has white/silver/green color scheme on him. Since I am using black/green color scheme, I might just called this project "Dark Samurai". I am not sure yet about the name but "Dark Samurai" sounds good. For now.

 

EVGA was quick to send their awesome PC components to me. It only took em 2 days (I live in Canada)! EVGA and Thermaltake will be my sponsors for this project.

 

 

EVGA's 1000G Power supply looks solid and sexy as hell!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They have sent me their Super clocked EVGA DDR4 Memory modules too.

 

 

 

Evga X99 Classified motherboard. This is one hell of a sexy looking motherboard.

 

 

 

 

This part though, since I am going with black/green theme, I will paint this up to matte black or green. Can't decide yet but will definitely change the color of this to go with the theme.

 

 

And this guy, when I opened up the box last week, seeing this beast made my jaw dropped on the floor! EVGA GTX 980 Ti Classified!

 

 

Even the packaging is just awesome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the case that will be murdered on this project. CoolerMaster MasterCase Pro 5. I apologize for the smudges of fingerprints around the case. 

 

 

 

 

In the next week or two, I will keep on pushing on completing the sketch/concept for this project. Hopefully I can finish some deadlines and other stuff back at work so I can start wildly cutting up acrylic sheets and aluminum for this project. I apologize for the quality of photo, I am still working on my photography skills which obviously needs A LOT of work.

Well, that's it for me right now, will put up updates as soon as I can. Wish me luck!

[8uhbbhu8]

 Interested!  Just those renders are enough to get me excited. Love custom metal! 

[kazuma]

8 minutes ago, 8uhbbhu8 said:

 Interested!  Just those renders are enough to get me excited. Love custom metal! 

Thanks! I might use a little bit of aluminum here and there for this project. Not sure yet. Was thinking of using aluminum for the front plate but I need to bend that plate 2 times, 45 degree and 90 degree. I only have a cheap-o metal sheet bender that can only bend 24 (if I remembered correctly) gauge of metal sheets. So yeah but will see! And thanks for visiting my log! 

[another random person]

SWEET!

that seems pretty cool 

i wouldnt have the time to mod pc cases so to see someone else do it is pretty cool

your photography skills are pretty good, but its basically dependent on the camera.

[kazuma]

22 minutes ago, another random person said:

SWEET!

that seems pretty cool 

i wouldnt have the time to mod pc cases so to see someone else do it is pretty cool

your photography skills are pretty good, but its basically dependent on the camera.

Thank you! Nah, I have been struggling with taking good photos for a while now. I still can't get that crispy, detail rich photo that I want. Using a Google Nexus 6P. Hopefully I get more better when it comes to taking photos. And thank you for taking your time browsing in my work log!

[Hackentosher]

I saw CAD renderings and suddenly got very aroused. Subbed  

[kazuma]

7 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

I saw CAD renderings and suddenly got very aroused. Subbed  

Thank you for the sub! And thank you for visiting my log! Here's a .pdf file I made. I usually do this, print the drawing out in black and white and sometime color them using crayons or markers just to see if the color scheme would be nice. I don't have a very awesome imagination wherein you can see how the "thing" will look like after closing your eye or staring on a blank space.

The design still might change depending on what will be the best method of mounting the aluminum/acrylic plate/plates on the MasterCase pro. 
 

Dark Samurai rev 1 april 16-Work.pdf

[RustyHamrLickr]

I am following this of course. Just saw your first build, awesome work there. The metal work is really great, and you could show a thing or two to those that have their panels laser cut!

[MisterDeadeye]

Aw man, I was looking at modding my PC case and doing a build based off of samurai as well. My front panel was going to have  正宗  on the front panel which is "Masamune", indicating that my PC build was a katana forged by Masamune himself. 

 

Now I feel inadequate. Thanks.

[kazuma]

30 minutes ago, RustyHamrLickr said:

I am following this of course. Just saw your first build, awesome work there. The metal work is really great, and you could show a thing or two to those that have their panels laser cut!

Thank you for following my log @RustyHamrLickr! Eer, for the metal work, eeeer, I don't know what you're talking about.

 

 

[kazuma]

2 minutes ago, MisterDeadeye said:

Aw man, I was looking at modding my PC case and doing a build based off of samurai as well. My front panel was going to have  正宗  on the front panel which is "Masamune", indicating that my PC build was a katana forged by Masamune himself. 

 

Now I feel inadequate. Thanks.

Oh wow, that's interesting! Just go for it dude and let us see! Nowadays, you don't see much modded pc case with some "Japanese" theme on them. Hence, the reason why I went with the theme of the Samurai Genji. 

[kazuma]

Hey guys! It's been a while since my last update, and yeah, I am still alive and breathing, somehow and I really want to apologize for the lack of updates. It's still crazy busy back at work and I am trying everything I possibly could to sneak here and there to come up with some more renderings/concept of the project. Here's a few that I came up with. It still might change since I want to add a bit more details to it.

 

The photo below is the right side of the case. I didn't had enough time to put in the holes on the tray since I only had about an hour of free time. 

 

And this is the left side of the case. Still need to add the PSU custom shroud and some more details for the top panel.

 

 

Next week, I'll start to order some materials that I will be using and hopefully, by next weekend,I'll have a complete and better rendered drawing to present and hopefully I'll be able to start some material cutting. 

 

Thank you for checking my work log out and see you on the next update! Ciao!

[Monster Killer Bear]

Nice

[kazuma]

Hey guys, another small update. I actually was able to do a little bit of actual material cutting yesterday and today.  Last week, I was expecting for the acrylic sheets that I ordered 2 weeks ago, which it did got delivered, but the shipment was missing the acrylic sheet that I was going to use for the front plate/panel. So here I am again, waiting for the sheet to arrive and hopefully it gets here next week. But right now, I found some small, left over sheets that got chopped up from previous project. Decided to start to try out some cutting, which went good, fortunately.

 

Here's my latest rendering/concept. Added a PSU shroud with some logos on it. Still contemplating if I am going to use smoke black or just black acrylic sheet for the shroud. 

 

 

 

And here's the first "patch" for the PSU shroud. The amount of sanding and polishing time that was consumed for this small detail is just excruciating. (note to self, will be throwing any future small cutting on my small CNC.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that's all for now. Will get my hands more "dirty" next week when the sheet for the front plate/panel comes in. Thanks for checking out my log and see you on the next update! Ciao!

[kazuma]

Hey guys!

Here's my update for this week. And I want to apologize first because I wasn't able to get some progress with this project last week since it was basically a shitty week for me in total last week. I was starting some progress for this project last week, but then the weather got bad, REALLY bad here last week plus, around Saturday afternoon, I got really sick. But anyway, I got some progress last Friday and yesterday for this project. So, let's get started shall we?

 

First off. this plate is for the front panel of the project. Bought some black acrylic sheet a few weeks ago and yesterday was a great day to do some cutting outside. This will be painted semi-gloss or matte black.

 

 

 

One of the most excruciating part of dealing with acrylic, polishing! Although I wasn't able to do some more polishing yesterday, I was able to smooth out most of the edges of all cuts. It looks dirty since I only used hand files for smoothing out the rough edges of the cut. Need to grab myself some more fine grit sand paper next week to get the edges a bit more smoother. 

 

 

 

Next one, the green front plate. This will get glued to the black acrylic front plate. Hopefully, this will give the front plate a good "green glow" once all glued up. Again, needs more sanding. I might try the "torch polishing" method if I ever get a chance next week. Kinda scary but might as well try it out. 

 

 

I accidentally tipped my mug of coffee over the green acrylic sheet before I started cutting it. It was sticky as hell. 

 

 

 

 

And if anyone is wondering, this is my usual "work flow" whenever I have a project. Some acrylic sheets doesn't come with paper masking on them, and instead, they come in wrap with protective plastic. Which is fine but if you need to draw the design that you are about to cut on that sheet, well, painter's tape is my solution for that. Usually, I'll print out a drawing of the design that I am about to cut, cover it up with painter's tape, then proceed on drawing the design on the sheet. My only gripe about this process, it takes A LOT of time specially if you have complicated lines and turns. Plus the sanding, filing and smoothing out of the edges, just takes forever to do so. But it's part of the process. "Necessary Evil" is the term that is a great description for this. 

 

 

 

 

 

I still need to do some more filing and sanding on this sheet, which i'll do next week. 

 

 

The next few photos are for the PSU shroud. 

 

 

 

 

 

Next weekend is going to be fun. Sanding and polishing here and there will be the name of the game. But I will try to do some more cutting done for the side cover with the EVGA and Thermaltake logo on it. Hopefully the weather doesn't get shitty next weekend. Well, that all for me this week. See you on the next update! Ciao!

[rowanhazard]

looks pretty sick if you ask me  

[kazuma]

24 minutes ago, rowanhazard said:

looks pretty sick if you ask me  

Thanks man!

[kazuma]

Hey guys, update time! I was supposed to throw an update last weekend but I really don't have that much photo to upload because I ended up sanding, filing and smoothing out the edges of the letters for the PSU Shroud. Spent a lot of time sanding and filing just to get a snug fit. Some of them got a little bit too much filed down but it was not that bad. 

 

The photo below is after smoothing out the edges. Took me a day and a half to sand them down to get them to fit on the letter cut outs on the smoke black acrylic sheet. Last Friday, I was doing the last letter, the letter "G" but then, I didn't noticed I was pressing too hard on the material and I ended up snapping it in to 2 pieces. So I ended up making another one.

 

Same thing happened to the green piece of acrylic for the logo patch. So, again, I ended up making one. Finally got it to fit in snugly. By the way, these are getting clued together. 

 

 

 

 

I was supposed to do the PSU shroud first last Friday after smoothing out the letters, but the magnets that I was waiting last week wasn't able to make it last Friday. So I ended up focusing on the front panel. And yes, I said magnets. I will be using magnets for the PSU shroud and the side cover for this project instead of screwing them in the case. I started with the detail for the front armor. 

These are gonna get painted before getting clued to the front plate. 

 

And before I forget, the final cutout for the Overwatch logo, is this guy. Took me a while to carefully cut this out because I am afraid that I might break it again while using a Dremel Motosaw.

 

 

 

 

 

It was not perfect, but it looks good to me. I over sanded a few edges too much but it's not that noticeable unless you put your face a few inches away to actually see the over sanded edges.

 

 

First part of the PSU shroud is finally complete! After all the sanding, filing smoothing out, it finally paid off. 

 

 

And remember those circle cutouts that I made? It will be glued like this. These green circles will be glued on top of those white circles, then they will be sanded down and will be painted black. 

 

 

For the front plate, Saturday night before I went to bed, I traced out the front plate cutout on a piece of acrylic sheet. Being a paranoid person, just in case I screw up with the bending, I'll have a cutout already drawn on another piece of acrylic sheet.

 

 

As some of you know, I dont have a workshop, so most of the time, if my sister's car is still park on our backyard garage (tent), I usually end up in our backyard deck. And of course, it stared to rain..... Luckily, my sister lent me her garage space. 

 

 

 

 

Some additional detail for the front plate. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next week will be a lot of gluing, sanding (again), and smoothing out. Then I'll go back to doing the PSU shroud since the magnets came in today. Till the next update! 

 

[kazuma]

Update time! I was supposed to put this update a bit earlier today but my internet decided to go crappy, upload speed was only .54 mbps. But anyway, here's my little progress this past week.

 

Did some more bending for some cut outs that will be glued together for the front plate.

 

 

And for the armor part. Need to bend a few parts for the black and green acrylic sheet.

 

 

 

 

Time to continue the PSU Shroud.

 

My dad saw a couple of these folded metal sheet on our back lane a week ago. Since he doesn't know where to use them yet, I decided to steel one. Will use it to mount the magnet to the acrylic sheet.

 

 

I could have used those metal sheet scissors but I couldn't find it anywhere so decided with the more violent tool.

 

 

The acrylic cut on this photo is just a scrap sheet. Needed to test out how the magnet will hold and if the acrylic sheet can be removed easily or not.

 

This is the magnet that I will be using. We basically had a couple of these magnets on our fridge and their holding capacity are pretty good. Around 9.4 lbs., or something like that (according to their website). I bought a stronger magnet, holds up to 24 lbs., never had an idea that it was "that" strong, so I decided to use these instead of the strong ones (plus is scary to use to strong magnets inside a computer case!).

 

 

 

Need to grab some low profile socket or flat head screws. But for now, for testing purposes, this will do.

 

 

 

 

Well, the magnets held great! And I can remove/pull this PSU shroud/cover out with minimal force but the magnets do hold very well. 

 

 

And since I got everything confirmed, I went and proceeded to cut the actual cover for the PSU. But then, the bottom of the cover had a little bit of gap to the edge of the inside fold of the case. Needed to do some little sanding to make way for this fold of the case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will glue all of these on the PSU Shroud/Cover once i figure out what's the best glue/solvent to use. 

 

 

 

Well, that's all for me! Will be doing some more sanding on the edges of the front plate next week so i could proceed on gluing them together before pouring paint on it. Till the next update and thank you for visiting my work log! Ciao!

[kazuma]

Update time! Just a small one though. 

 

Did some gluing for the additional small details for the front plate.

 

 

 

 

Did some more acrylic sheet cutting for the side covers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is where most of my time went. I have been experimenting with which glue is the best to use for gluing the cutouts together. I have a Weld-On 3 acrylic cement. I tried to glue a few scrap smoke black acrylic sheets, but it gives me a "fog" effect. Wiping down the over spill immediately after applying the acrylic cement won't do any difference, it will still leave that "fog" spot on the acrylic. Did some research and saw a couple of people using acetone as their glue. I gave it a try, it does glue the acrylic sheets together BUT its not as strong as the acrylic cement (although some people are saying that the strength of it is the same as the acrylic cement). 

 

The green acrylic on top was glued using acetone, and the one on the lower right was used with acrylic cement. I didn't applied pressure on both of them, and using the acrylic cement gave me the best result. 

 

 

This is what I was talking about. And it does the same to the green acrylic sheet. And then I remembered, I had acrylic polishers. Technically, this fogging is a scratch. 

 

 

After using the Novus 3, 2 and 1, tadaaa! It's still there except for that you need to really, REALLY get your face close to the material to see the scratch.

 

 

I was supposed to do some paint job yesterday and today, but the weather here decided to not become friendly to modders AGAIN. So I decided to just do some more polishing and gluing. And since using acrylic cement will need some additional polishing to remove the "fog" effect, I decided to just wait this coming weekend to proceed with the paint job. For now, will do some more polishing and gluing.

 

 

That's it for me for this update. Until the next one! 

[kazuma]

Hey guys!

 

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Here's where I am so far with the project. Was able to accomplished (finally) some paint job that is needed for the project. Did some more gluing too. 

 

Okay. A few weeks ago, I wasn't able to do some acrylic cutting outside (as usual, shitty weather with a little bit of hail on the side), decided to run to my CNC (shapeoko 3). One of the reasons why I rarely use my CNC is that I need to do some more tweaking to it since there is some issue with the bed level and some software issue. Sometimes I would finish simple and small jobs (like the photo below) without any issues.

 

 

 

 

But most of the times, the machine will suddenly stop in the middle of a job (software issues), and most of the time, I would end up going back to my good, old friend, jigsaw. Pair that up with some sanding paper, hand file and some acrylic polish. 

 

 

 

 

And finally, did some paint job last week, but needed to redo the paint because of 2 reasons. Bugs who think that the smell of paint was sweet and decided to land on the freshly painted acrylic sheet, and second, dust! As some of you know, I don't have any workshop (yet), so I usually do all cutting and painting outside, in our backyard.

 

 

 

 

 

After re-doing the paint twice, finally!

 

 

These are all going to get glued together.

 

 

 

The left side cover. Need to do some more polishing and cleaning. I decided to put in Genji's skills icons on this side of the cover and decided to put the "EVGA" on the other side cover. 

 

 

 

For the PSU cover, I was able to finished gluing all of them together. Need some more polishing, again. 

 

 

And this is where I am so far. Got the PSU cover finished, and the left side cover. 

 

 

 

 

And that's all for this update. Next weekend, I will start to do the right psu cover and side cover. And then I will need to do some light modification for the dividing plate of the computer case to accommodate a 360mm radiator with 1-1/2" thickness and fans. I was planning on going with a push-pull configuration. And after that, I will move with doing some work for the top panel while waiting for the water cooling components from Thermaltake.

 

Well, that's all for me for now. Thank you for taking your time to go through my worklog update! See you in the next one! Ciao! 

[kazuma]

Little update!

 

Finally got some stuff out of the way for work! Got to do some progress for this project. Did some more small details last weekend. Weather was great so I was able to paint it up right away.

 

 

 

Did some more tinkering with my CNC, got it to work a little bit better than before specially handling a bit complicated codes than normal without stopping in the middle of the job. I then decided to do a fan grill for the project, wasn't really expecting for it to work but it did!

 

 

It needs to get glued together though. Not sure if I'll paint this up or not.

 

And I finally got the water cooling stuff from Thermaltake. Can't wait to use them specially their new 90 degree compression fittings. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally got something to use to get those accurate bends for the tubes! 

 

 

Next weekend, I'll try to make a custom reservoir mount. I was planning on putting the reservoir on a horizontal position just beneath the GPU.

 

Looks like I have some room on the "partition" of the case for the tubes to go through. So I need to drill some holes on it and slap some pass through fittings. 

 

Can't wait for next weekend to get more progress on this! And sorry for the lack of updates lately. Life has been busier than usual for me. That's all for me for this little update. Ciao!

[kazuma]

Update time! This update will be the last update before posting final photos (finally and hopefully). Just waiting for the water blocks and some screws before putting it together.

 

Around 2 weeks ago I started doing some more acrylic cutting and got my CNC to work properly (for a short while), so after cutting the "Overwatch" text and the Thermaltake Premium logo, I tried making a custom, mountable cable comb. It worked great, AT FIRST,  but after a few cable combs, it started doing stupid stuff again. 

 

 

This will be the right side inner cover for the project. I haven't removed the paper masking on the other side on this one yet so the color of it might look different but its not. 

 

 

Here's both of them.

 

 

This is the cable comb the I tried making. I was planning on mounting it on the back of the motherboard tray so the power supply cables will look a little bit cleaner when routing them around. The cable comb will hold the 24 pin power supply cables and x2 8 pin power supply cables. 

 

 

I am not sure if I will still continue this type of cable comb since having this kind of cable comb will give me issues if I will put the side panels back. 

 

Time to drill some holes on the case partition/divider. I encountered a problem with this arrangement. I wanted to use a 90 degree elbow fitting from the res to the pump but by doing so, I will need to come up with a taller reservoir mount.

 

 

 

I ended up tearing half of the case to get the case partition/divider out. After removing the rivets, I went ahead and tap the holes so I could use screws instead of rivets when Im going to put it back together. 

 

 

Aaaaand, finally! I got it out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to get a little bit of motherboard modding!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I while I'm on it, I did a little bit more paint job. This time, its for the SSD case/mount.

 

 

 

 

 

Remember the custom reservoir mount that I mentioned earlier? Well, since I got the cable comb done, I went ahead and tried to tweak my CNC a little bit more and try my luck out. Which actually worked out a little bit then before. But of course, there is always going to be a issue of some sort when I am using the CNC.

 

 

See the difference? My CNC was around 90% to completion cutting this reservoir holder when it decided that it's getting sick and tired of following the gcode that it was receiving, so instead of cutting a straight cut on the top part of the holder, it decided to go with an angle. 

 

And the second problem that I encountered is that, I miscalculated the height of the reservoir holder. The reservoir holder needs to be an inch taller that the first one that I did.

 

 

My second attempt, well, I thought that it was going to fail again and I was preparing myself to get back to the old jigsaw+file and sand way, but it actually worked! 

 

 

And while the CNC is on the "I am on a nice mood" mode, I tried and push my luck a little bit further and try making some cable combs for the 24 pin power supply cable extension. It actually worked like charm this time although the cable combs needs some polishing.

 

 

 

The screw that I will be using for the cable combs will be different. I might go with button head screws. I just waiting for them to arrive.

 

 

That's all for me for this update! Hopefully my next update will have final photos of the project! I can't wait to get this project done and put it together! Till the next update! See yah!! 

[Eikkonen]

Holy shit bro, keep it up. The mod looks so good!

[kazuma]

Hey guys! Another small update coming. But the next update will include the final photos. I got almost everything ready now, and all I need to do is clean up the computer case from dusts, polish up the acrylic cuts that I did a few weeks ago, do some custom sleeving and lastly assemble the build. Having that said, here's a few photos of what I have been working on since the last update.

 

 

 

 

And for the custom cable comb, I ended up making a simple mount for the cable comb. 

 

 

A few weeks ago, I decided to tweak my CNC and see if I can get it to work better. After spending a few days on it, I discovered a solution for one of the issues. Looks like one of windows update screwed the latest driver for the CNC (compatibility issue). I tried to roll the driver back by 2 versions, and the CNC is working a bit more efficient now. It can finish a whole job now instead of stopping in the middle of it. There were still a few issues but for now, I will abuse the hell out of my CNC. I decided to make a custom back plate for the EVGA GTX 980Ti Classified card.

 

 

 

And since I got the CNC working now, I decided to try and give it a little more complicated Gcode and see what happens. I was fully expecting that it will crash while generating the gcode, but it did not! So I made this "Gear Up with EVGA" logo! This will be painted and will go on the right psu shroud. It needs a little bit of filing out though since the cutter bit that I used was a dull one. 

 

 

That's it for me for now. Please stay tuned for the final update! If you made it this far, thank you very much for sticking with me on this project!