The Gunslinger - CM MasterCase5 casemod [Completed]

[InsolentGnome]

While I'm getting all my CNC work done, I figured I would start on the wiring.  It's that or sit around twiddling my thumbs listening to the Dewalt scream at me.  So let's be productive, eh?

 

Since I like making things complicated, I decided to stay with that trend on the wiring.  Both the Gunslinger and the Man in Black will have to sets of custom cables, one that matches the aged and decaying back side, and a pretty set of extensions for the other side with the connection between the two in the junction box.

 

To start off from the PSU, I wanted the cables to look like they had a purpose a thousand years ago, so I decided to step back into ancient times and go for color coded wires from an old PSU.  Luckily I had a couple of old Rosewills laying around that I had partially sleeved.  Since my run from the PSU is short, they should work just fine.

 

 

So I did some harvesting.

 

 

What sucks is that i used to have a box full of scrap wires that, somewhere along the way, I threw out.  But anyways, I got the wires pinned and connector-ized, taking the runs through the romex connectors so they look like they had a purpose.  I put them all together randomly since I'm not concerned about correct color coding, though I did manage to get the blue and green wires in the right spots.  I figured the PS on would make it easier to jumper the PSU later.

 

 

Still have my SATA's and pump to hook up and some aging to do.  A friend suggested fabric wire wrap which I think could look awesome rotted out.  That, some paint effects and maybe a few burn spots should give them the look I want.

 

Sponsored by:

 

 

 

[InsolentGnome]

OMG!  Does wiring ever end????  Apparently not, but I have made some progress.  Extensions, sleeved.

 

 

But before we get into running the fans, I need to do something about the power and reset buttons.  Although I like having I/Os on the front of the case, I hate the mess you have to deal with on the inside, especially in a mod, so they've got to go to be replaced by a simple power and reset button pair.  First off I need to make a plate to cover the original I/O plate.  Using a pencil lead, I rubbed the outline onto some paper.

 

 

I could then cut that out and transfer the shape over to some 1mm Al to cut out.

 

 

 

Then some mounting holes to hold the Al to the original plate and while I was at it I notched the plate out with a dremel to allow my switches to run through.

 

 

 

Voila!  Switches!  Even the case is excited about it!

 

 

I'm painting the plate to match the rest of the case and the switches are white LEDs to match the color scheme.

 

While I was playing around with the wire, I managed to have my X-Carve die on me.  At first I thought it was a stepper, but it turned out to be a shorted wire so after working that out, I could start milling out a few symbols in the back plate that relate to the stories.  Everything started out fine.

 

 

But two broken bits later I decided that this piece of Al wasn't having any of it.  It wasn't chipping very well and I'm not really sure why.  I've never had this problem with these settings on 6061 or 5052 Al before, so I decided to ditch that back panel and make a new one out of some 5052 I had laying around.  Three benefits to this, I just milled the same design in a piece of 5052 with no trouble, the 5052 will bend nicely for the GPU bracket on this new panel vs. the cracking that happened on the first panel, and I know what the hell I'm dealing with.  I'm pretty sure the original panel was 6061, I can't imagine what else it would be, but I also had to do some brazing on it when the GPU mount cracked, so maybe the heat was enough to screw with some of the properties of the panel?  No clue, but I busted out the new panel using the original as a template and the milling went smooth as butter.

 

 

One more design to cut above the I/O shield and this baby is ready for a test fit and paint.

 

And speaking of milled parts, I just got some awesome milled parts in for the cooling loop.

 

 

MNPCTech 1/2" hardline fittings.  A bunch of them!  Can't wait to get these babies in and start planning the loop.

 

And a big thanks to my sponsors:

 

 

 

and now,

 

[InsolentGnome]

Back panel, milled, sanded, and ready for paint.

 

 

So there's one thing that any self respecting Dark Tower build needs, and that's a rose.  The Dark Tower is surrounded by a field of roses and in one of the multiple worlds, there exists a rose that is the tower's counterpart.  So rose=important.  I had thought about putting a rose in the back panels, but liked the idea of Ka and the siguls of the King and the Deschains better.  So another place that was begging for a little love was the grill cover on the top panel.  It's kind of bland and boring up there and I'm hoping that the LED fans shining up through a silhouette will look pretty cool.

 

ABS on an X-Carve is like going through butter with a hot knife.  A nice change from dealing with aluminum, and probably a whole lot better than what is coming up, a steel side panel.  Not really sure how that one is going to work out.  But I got a nice vector drawing of a rose, set it all up, and let it eat.

 

 

 

I taped the hell out of the first one to keep stuff from flying around and was a bit scared of breaking something taking it up, so the next one I went easy on the tape.  That was a mistake as one of the thinner sections let go and garbled the design.  Not bad and I could live with it, but I'm still going to look into a replacement.

 

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[SonoDanshi]

Love the rose. Keep up the good work.

[InsolentGnome]

With the back panel ready for paint, let's look at how I painted them, since it doesn't really show in the pics.

 

First up is a a coat of rattle can black over primer.

 

 

It's got a bit of orange peel but that won't really matter.  Next is a medium scratch pad to rough up the surface so that the next layer has something to grab on to.

 

 

The top coat is a textured paint from Rustoleum that's supposed to look like rock??? Kind of?  It really isn't bad and basically turns the finish into coarse sandpaper.

 

 

 

It's not the slate brick that's in the story, but it looks kind of rocky.  One nice thing is that as long as the base was black, it all pretty well matched, so I just top coated the parts of the case that didn't need paint and it matched the parts I painted black just fine.  Another is it'll cover blemishes in the base and doesn't scratch unless you really go at it.

With the back panel done, it was time to start putting it all together.

 

Wired up the switches and the fans.

 

 

And did some weathering to make the back side wiring look older.

 

 

Then the mb went in.  I like having the wire running under the board, but it can be a pain to get it laying right.  Still need to add some combs to clean it up.

 

 

And the back panel was riveted on.

 

 

I went with white LED's to light the interior and help show off the details.

 

 

 

And the GPU finishes off the hardware.

 

 

 

And a few shots with it's antagonist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the loop is the only thing left to finish!

 

Sponsored by:

 

 

 

 

[InsolentGnome]

Ah the fun part, the loop. 

 

Nothing too crazy here running clear 1/2" od Primochill PETG in between Bill's hardline fittings.  I do have one of the measuring and bending sets from Monsoon, but find that I actually get better results just bending by hand.  I tackled the res first.  The bottom bend was tricky, 3 bends, 3 planes, and no way to hold the piece in position to eyeball it.

 Heck I could barely get the finished piece in since it had to go through a slot under the rad just over 1/2" tall.

 

 

Once the hard bend was out of the way, the rest was just figuring out what looked best.  Ok, I'll admit that it wasn't that easy.  I spent a few days looking at it and deciding where i wanted the lines to run, but once the planning was out of the way, running the loop was a matter of a couple of hours.

 

 

 

 

The big thing was making sure everything was straight.

 

And then I filled the loop with Mayhem's UV white pastel.  I really only wanted white but ordered the UV by mistake.  Oh well, it'll look cool in black light, LOL.

 

 

 

Yeah, that run from the CPU to GPU is off.  Sometimes you've got to get the fluid in to really get an idea of what it looks like.  I thought it would be passable before I filled it, but wound up draining the loop to re-bend that piece.

 

While I was working on the loop, I was also cutting acrylic side panels.

 

 

They still need a bit more work but are passable.  I thought I had the holes for the magnets figured out, but wound up having to glue them in instead press fitting them.  That was a bit of a pain.

 

 

But now we're ready for final shots!

 

Sponsored by:

 

 

 

[InsolentGnome]

And now we're at the end of our journey.  I want to thank GeForce Garage, Swiftech, and MNPCTECH for sponsoring this build and it's twin.  They really made these possible.  Also, I know a lot of people don't know the story these cases are based on, but hopefully they're cool enough to still be appreciated.   Now on with the pics!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, a big thanks to my sponsors:

 

 

 

[Not_Sean]

Well done man, few things

 

 Amazing job, Love the back pannels of each, first reminded me of a Mechwarrior build I once saw just better, Love the PSU's and how Dystonia it looks, Great one on spliting the case in two, overall a really good project, and something fresh even if not all to my taste. 

 

Really wish more cases supported mounting a GPU like that for the Single GPU guys, Love the look of it.

 

With so much custom Fab work done, would a scratch build not have been the way to go or (Having unread) does the MC front and top style suit the story just seems a bit of a contrast to the internals. 

 

 I've never touched a Steven king book (Nothing against him, just haven't got round to it, last series I finished was the Stormlight Archive) I will go and grab some of these. The fact its a large story that spans many books does interest me largely ! !

[InsolentGnome]

14 hours ago, Not_Sean said:

Well done man, few things

 

 Amazing job, Love the back pannels of each, first reminded me of a Mechwarrior build I once saw just better, Love the PSU's and how Dystonia it looks, Great one on spliting the case in two, overall a really good project, and something fresh even if not all to my taste. 

 

Really wish more cases supported mounting a GPU like that for the Single GPU guys, Love the look of it.

 

With so much custom Fab work done, would a scratch build not have been the way to go or (Having unread) does the MC front and top style suit the story just seems a bit of a contrast to the internals. 

 

 I've never touched a Steven king book (Nothing against him, just haven't got round to it, last series I finished was the Stormlight Archive) I will go and grab some of these. The fact its a large story that spans many books does interest me largely ! !

Thanks!  

 

I'm not sure if manufacturers just haven't had time to implement the vertical mounted GPU trend or are having a hard time pulling it off.  I can see some issues trying to get it to work well with the standard PCI brackets we usually run into.  Though if they got rid of the dividers between the brackets, you could easily sell a mount that would convert the case.  I'm doing this on an InWin 303 I've got.

 

A scratch would have been a whole lot more work than the couple of panels I did.  Honestly, I used the MasterCase cause I had one and I was hunting for something to do with it.  It doesn't really suit the theme (a square case that you could do bricks on would be better) but it was a fun challenge and a chance to go crazy inside a case and leave the exterior mostly stock.  Definitely not my M.O.

 

Or check out the movie in July, should give you an idea of the world you're stepping into.  But be careful, The Gunslinger was my gateway into Stephen King.