First Case Mod - Steampunk

[Potalien]

Hey guys, last week I found two old PC cases and decided to finally take the plunge into case modding. I've been looking into it for quite a while now and now I finally have gotten my act together enough to give it a shot. I thought Id make a thread for  two reasons. 

-1 To allow other beginners or people interested in case modding an idea of how complex a task it is and hopefully encourage them to give it a try to.

-2 So the community can give me a hand and share some ideas for the project. I know I want to do a Steam Punk theme but Id love to get some Ideas from you guys on what you think might look cool, if I like any of your suggestions I'll definitely include them.

 

I've built a couple of PCs but have never done any metal work before. I have access to all the basic tools, screwdrivers, sawhorses, hacksaws etc. As well as a dremel I'm borrowing. Eventually Id like to put my current rig into this case but If I screw it up to much I may scrap it and try again.

 

Without further ado here's some photos of the case when I first found it. 

 

Here's some photos of the side panel after I cut a window out. (I had no idea it was going to turn out as well as it did).

 

I've already cleaned up the jagged edges (sorry no photos) and I probably wont be doing anything with the case until the weekend. But I'm thinking of maybe painting it black and doing a mesh /  car grill for the front. I'd love to hear what you guys think I should do next.

Until next time,

Potalien

[ManWithBeard1990]

For a steampunk build the plastic front panel is going to have to come off, mate. Show off those rivets! Also, that IO shield belongs to the motherboard that came with it. You should store them together so you don't lose it. Assuming the internals will be reused elsewhere, of course.

[Potalien]

For a steampunk build the plastic front panel is going to have to come off, mate. Show off those rivets! Also, that IO shield belongs to the motherboard that came with it. You should store them together so you don't lose it. Assuming the internals will be reused elsewhere, of course.

Yeah no worries that ugly front will be the first to come off. The internals of the case are most likely no better than scrap. One of the Lan ports has been broken along with the ram having been removed from the previous owner. I've managed to remove the cpu, a pentium so I probably won't be replacing my current CPU with that any time soon. I was keeping the shield on as I was taking the motherboard in and out to check the placing for the window. Hopefully I'll have some sketches of what I intend to do for the front uploaded by tomorrow night. (Sorry really busy day today) until then keep up with the suggestions.

Thanks for the post,

Potalien

[Potalien]

Jeez it's been a while since I logged into Linus Tech, sorry it's been so long between so long, but between exams, a two week holiday with no internet and then 2 website crashes when I've gone to  update, it's been a bit mad. I hope the amount of progress (I bring pics ) that I've done makes up for it!
 
For starters i removed the horrible front panel, cleaned up the window and removed the hard-drives / optical drive stack. I decided to flip the case upside down (psu at the bottom) primarily for the aesthetic, but also to help with the stability of the case. With that out of the way  I decided to put all optical drive, hard drive and ssd at the bottom of the case with the psu. I've cut down the hard drive stack so its inline with the psu, then reattached it with pop rivets.
 
The next step was to cut out a piece of acrylic to test the two paints I'm using, Rustoleum - Satin Black & White Knight - Metal Guard Brass. Here's the pics of the during and after shots:

 

The next stage was to cut an acrylic cover to go over the psu, optical drive, hdd and ssd. This was remarkably easy to cut and only required a basic hacksaw. After measuring and checking it fitted I painted the rest of the case (minus the sides), which I was in the middle of doing when I ran out of paint. Here's a few pics of the painted case and the shelf, the side of the shelf is reflective as I removed the plastic cover to see what the finished piece would look like.

 

The most recent step has been the cutting and mounting of the window and the custom front. The window was mounted with careful planning, a big drill and prayers . The bolts had to be cut shorter for both parts and a particularly complex frame had to be made out of firewood and g-clamps for support during the drilling stage.

The front was carefully cut over the process of two days using an angle grinder and spending a lot of time sanding / filing the rough edges back by hand. After cutting a fair bit of copper pipe to 2 cm lengths and drilling the holes in the case and the panel I got the front panel mounted *phew. Sorry about the lens flares it was a pretty bright day and I was going on a run so couldn't stick around. Please bear in mind that the bolts aren't tightened, this was just to give an idea of what it would look like:

 

I intend to paint the front as well as construct a new top panel and sides for the roof of the case (which is why the front panel is to tall for the case currently) I haven't yet painted the acrylic shelf and would like to get your thoughts on it. Beyond that I have to paint the copper pipers brass, cut out the optical drive slot, install dust filters and drill / attach mounting points for the fans on the front and roof of the case. I hope to create a custom mobo shield and gpu back plate at a later date but currently I'm just working towards getting my PC into its shiny new case. I hope to do some more work over the upcoming weekend but with school starting on the Friday I may not be able to get anything done.

 

Thanks for reading

Tim