Evolutionary

[Franklin]

Thanks

After 5 days of using bondo and (wet)sanding, the lid is perfectly smooth and ready for the next step.
This weekend I can glue the vents to the lid. The glue is perfect for this job. But first I'll need to cut some acrylic rings. Thes acrylic parts have to fit perfectly into the inside of the vents. Every vent is slightly different so I need a ring thet fits every vent and number them so I will know what ring is for what vent. This is a picture from the airduct, head on. You can see that it looks like a circle from this angle. I used some sticky tape to keep things in place. I only cut the outside of the ring. Before I'll cut out the inner side I need to sand the outside. The ring will be 6 mm. wide so it will be fragile.

I made 1 paper "arch", there will be made many more for each vent ofcourse, to visualize what I want to do. It will be a lot of work, need 52 acrylic parts for the four vents :eyebrow:

[Franklin]

Yesterday I glued the first two vents to the lid. Some weigt on it to keep it in place.

Today the last two vents.

After drying the inside looks like this.

Turning the lid over to look at the result.

I think it looks good.

Now I can glue the sides to the lid and then it will be time to use some bondo again for the finishing touch.

[Franklin]

I'm a slow modder, I always take my time. I had some problems with the polyester part that I wanted to use to fill up the holes in the side of the lid, this part I mean.

It just wasn't straight enough. That's why I changed plans and made a new polyester part. I used some glass to make a perfect flat polyester sheet. I will cut this sheet in pieces to fill up the side of the lid. It works perfect, but it takes time. After glueing a part I'll have to wait 24 hours for the glue to harden. To make sure the lid keeps absolutely straight I used some wood.

I cut up the old fibre glass part and used parts of it to attach the sheet to the lid.

After this I turned the lid upside down and glued the sheet in.

This is what it looks like now.

Later on I will have to cut out the openings again, but first I want to close both ends, those triangles. But it takes at least 5 days to glue everything in place. In the meantime I'm searching for all the information I can find about airbrushing.

[Franklin]

And the sides are being glued in there. Used some wooden plant sticks to keep the triangles in place.

Tomorrow the glue will be hardened and I will glue in some reinforcements in the inside of the lid to be on the safe side. Then I will have to cut out those half ovals again.

[Franklin]

The lid is almost finished, for as far as I want to go for now that is. The final touch, bondoing, sanding and painting it, will be done at the and of this project. I can only damage the lid while still working on all the other stuff. The oval holes are back in the side again and Im ready to start working on the "fingerguards". The ring for the inside of the airduct and the oval ring have been cut now to the right size.

The upper ring is slightly smaller then the lower one, this is because it will be mounted inside the airduct. The lower oval ring will be as wide as the outside of the airduct.

Both ends of the lower rings will have to be filed under an angle of 45 degrees. Wehn you take a look at the opening of the airducts from the side it looks like a circle.

[Franklin]

The acrylic rings are glued together, I only will have to file it a bit.

The lower ring is a bit wider than the upper one, that because the upper ring will be mounted inside the duct and the thickness of the fibre glass will add up to the thickness of the ring.

I glued the first acrylic to the rings, many more will follow.

[Franklin]

The "fingerguards" are starting to shape up quite well. It's not really a fingerguard because there is not a fan just behind it. The part needs a lot of filing, but that will be no problem because it turns out to be much stronger than I expected.

Just to get an idea what it will look like when it is in place.

The fibre glass lid will be sprayed black so you won't see much in that vent when the case is finished.

From above. It looks like the acrylic parts are not straight, but don't worry it's perfectly straight.

Will have to add two pieces on the right side and three on the left before the first fingerguard is finished.

[Franklin]

Almost there....

I started filing all the pieces as you can see. The outer piece on the right is the best place to look what I mean. I will have to add one small piece of acrylic on the sides and then it needs more filing and sanding before I can use a small torch to make it shiny again. It already took me four days to get this far and I will have to do this work another three times

[Franklin]

The first fingerguard is finished for now. I will clean it up later. I starting to doubt wether I should add that reinforcement. I will create one and if it doesn't look better I will forget it. The construction doesn't need it. I expected the contruction to be much more fragile before I started on the fingerguard.

Now you can see why I made the aluminium construction the way I did, with that strange looking top. That's the place, lefttop and righttop where the vents are now.

I will start on the other three guards later on. Want to do some other things now. I hope the weather will get better so I can start on the fibreglass sides for the case. I'm also searching for all the information I can find about pinstriping and airbrushing.

[Franklin]

After all the work on the fingerguard I wanted to work on other things for a while. A little less fragile parts. I had to close the gap from the radiator to the top of the lid. This because the air must be forced to go from the radiator to the vents on the lid. I used a piece of acrylic and cut out a small piece for the aluminium frame.

Here the part is in place. You can see it on the right of the picture. Another piece will be mounted on the left as well.

The piece I cut out to fit around the aluminium tubing.

And a photograph with the radiator in place.

Right now you can still see through the transparant acrylic, but that will have to change.