This is looking awesome man. Keep up the good work. BTW your g/f rawks. Tell her I said hi.
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This is looking awesome man. Keep up the good work. BTW your g/f rawks. Tell her I said hi.
bahahaha.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oneslowz28
:P
good work on the case sir, coming along quite nicely!! this thing is gonna be sweet when its done.
Lookin great! Can't wait to see it done
Ok, I'm not going to lie. I'm starting to get really frustrated with this case. It is almost all together and I'm completely unsatisfied with it. Now that you have my bias before looking at the pics, see for yourself and make a decision:
Started out trying to find a way to get ledges on the arc:
I then glued the leather down to the front of the case. The effect is still good but I need to redo the corners:
Ending up getting pissed at all the gaps and cracks in the arc, ripped the crappy ledges off and called it quits on them and filled the thing with Great Stuff in the hopes of coming out with a clean product:
Sadly the expanding only created more cracks that I have yet to figure out how to fill. Didn't take pics of them though.
Painted the ring around the power button gold:
Test fit:
Got it in there nicely:
Testing:
Glued down the panels and trimmed the edge close to the arc:
Cut out the unnecessary bays that would be in the way of the fan. Took me two reinforced dremel bits and 15 minutes with some super sharp wire cutters:
I got frustrated so I went to the "I don't know what I'm doing so I'm going to doodle until something nice shows up" phase:
Once I come up with an idea for putting that design on the arc effectively it will look similar to that.
Here is where I start to get super frustrated, it just isn't coming together the way I wanted to:
I did a pretty decent job hand sanding all these pieces to the same height and level. The feet are pretty flush, and the base is about a millimeter or two short but that will provide give for the center weight when it is all together:
And again, super unsatisfied with this thing so far:
The sides just look too high for the case, maybe I should have taken the advice to keep it as a tower and do both sides as a cutout... idk, maybe it'll get better tomorrow...
looks great man!
I Think it looks pretty sweet man. Also, I think the idea of fllipping it on it's side is a good one. Makes even more unique, since you just don't see that very often.
Take a break for a little bit. I'm at that poit with my case too, where you just can't get it to look like you want it to, and now that original image you had in mind isn't quite as clear anymore....
Anyway I think you do good work man just my $0.02
Sure does :).Quote:
looks great man!
I agree with Mark 100%. :up:
Your mod is good; it will be great. Its unique and the Versailles panel is a very cool idea with great execution. Everyone hits the wall, especially when you start free forming (modding to see where it takes you).
Like Mark_Hardware says, go back to your original idea. What were you trying to say with the vinyl/leather? As well, why the Arc du Triomphe?
I ask because these seem to be contrasting ideas to the garden which is good if that is your intent.
A couple of ideas that may give you inspiration
Miniature knot garden
http://www.raftertales.com/home-gard...r-knot-garden/
Antique trunk
http://www.antiques-atlas.com/antiqu...runk/as064a122
Golden gate
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3369/...4d2f0706f0.jpg
Paintings on walls of Versailles
http://www.dudziak.com/picture.php/paintings2320
I agree with Mark_hardware. sometimes, letting a project go for awhile until you can get back to the original vision, or even a modified one that you are happy with, sometimes a break is needed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark_Hardware
Well you gotta remember this was a birthday present for my mom, and her birthday was last weekend. I changed some things though, and I'm getting happy with it. Delivery date is tomorrow, so I will have finishing and delivery pics up tomorrow and I'll be done with this dang thing.
Hey it's pretty sweet. I'm sure your mom won't mind the delay one little bit :)
Alright, barring the final photos at my mom's place, this case is done. I'm happy with it now. You guys and the work Girlfriend did helped me come back to liking the case. In some respects it is better than what I had envisioned from the beginning, but in others I feel I could have done much better. It is far from the professional and clean cut case I was striving for, but as we all know time delays and time crunches don't always bring out our top manufacturing skill (especially when you're only using a Dremel for 90% of the work). Either way, the case is finished, and it came out ok. I'll let you guys judge from the pics below.
Started out trying to come up with a fan grill since it was Friday and an Xoxide one wouldn't be here until Tuesday.
Gave up and just cut a hole.
Super glued it and eventually taped the edges as well.
Works out just fine.
Super glued the fan in as well so I didn't have to worry about screw holes.
Test run in the light shows a nice blue glow.
Installed mobo.
The RAM setup on this mobo is weird. The clips are different on the two sets of DIMMs, and the recommended RAM setting for two sticks is 3,4,1,2 (y,y,r,r) instead of the more common 1,3,2,4 or the common sense 1,2,3,4. Oh well, works fine.
This Gelid cooler really is incredibly quiet. I didn't Prime the CPU, but I can imagine that the variable fan keeps it perfectly cool and still completely silent. I wish I had time to review it but the case is headed off and I'm not taking a chance with the 60mm stock HSF. For those that care, Gelid receives my complete endorsement.
Wire managing is so much easier with a 500W PSU.
Found the perfect textured gold for the bottom that most people will never see.
The biggest change is that we decided to paint the arc the same gold color. This makes the arc stand out less than if it were still primer, gives it a gloss to match the case, and lets us worry less about the artwork that would make it look like a proper Arc de Triumphe but still retain the symbolism of the Paris landmark.
Then awesomeness happened.
So, now for final pictures! First we start out in complete darkness:
Lights please!
Placed the trees on there just to see. Girlfriend likes them, I'm skeptical and think I need 8 more, two more in the center of each side, but we decided to let my mom decide tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will have final setup pictures and a wrap up of my thoughts (don't worry, you won't be quizzed, just enjoy the pretty pics, Oneslowz28 never proofreads articles or worklogs when I ask him to either). Hope you all enjoyed the quick and fairly painless mod so far, and I hope I can increase my product quality from here on out.
looking great mate!
It came out well, rush job or no. You get my mostly-worthless seal of approval.
One thing - the last photo appears to show rough, unpainted plastic edges around the top of the archway? Are those just the flash, or are you planning on sanding 'em a bit and touching 'em up with a brush (or even a Sharpie) when you get a chance?
That was mostly the flash. In trying to smooth the edges of the Lexan I ended up cutting into them in some places. To the naked eye the paint did a good job covering it all, but the flash brought it out there. I honestly didn't notice it was like that until you pointed it out, IRL or in the pic.Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyPlushroom
But, it is finally finished, delivered, setup, and in use! I know my mom genuinely liked it and appreciated the effort even if the box didn't have the wow factor we all hope for. She was definitely very appreciative of the components inside, which were a huge improvement over her P4 with 512MB of RAM. Her Windows Experience rating actually came out to a 4.9, and that came from the graphics card. All the rest were high fives with the RAM coming in at 7.1 on the new 7.9 scale for Windows 7.
Here are the final pics. Setting up:
She ended up liking the trees. She also got the idea to go to the local train and hobby stores herself and decorating the top how she wants. I told her to take pics if she did that and let us know how it evolves over time:
Yay Windows 7!
Thanks to everyone who helped with this case and also thanks to those who gave me encouragement throughout this worklog. This was definitely my burnout case that I should have completed over a longer period of time, but oh well, I can always go back and modify it later (after a 3 hour trip to South Carolina to pick it up, of course). Enjoy!
Finally got around to making a complete video worklog for this, and got some banners.
Damn those banners look good!!! Wonder who did them? :D
It looks a lot better on Vimeo in 1080p resolution.
Direct link cause you cant embed Vimeo
Man thats cool loving the leather too
