old tower case upgrade.

[McCoy]

G'day all,
I picked up a musketeer gauge set last week for free, which made me decide to
revisit a hobby that I hadn't done in quite a few years....making beige boxes look good. I havnt modded a case in over 5 years, and it is good to see how things have come along in that time.........There are now Australian suppliers of
the gear I need !!
Anyways, I found an old tower, and started work,
Im not planning on doing anything special, but I do like the muskateer dial gauges, and my current box is a domestic NEC box, so time for a change.

this is the beige box Im starting with.

I actually like the NEC drive bay panel, so ripped it out of its case and started cutting...

After getting it to fit in the bezel, I realsied that the musketeer wouldnt fit in the NEC panel, so had to enlarge the drive bay slot,
(about now, was when I was glad I picked a full sized tower )
I also cut a hole for the blower fan, so I could work out the next bit of my plan....

Next, I didnt like the bottom part of the bezel, ( if you look at top pic, its curved. I wanted it flat, but also to have a similar "triangular" feature to the edges on the top of the case....
A bit of sheet metal work later.....I made a false front, and started work on the obligatory, turbine fan blower hole...(nose cone just sticky taped to fan for effect )

So far, Im up to "prime it" and see process. I havnt attached the fasle front yet, but this is how it looks so far.... I decided I should probably slot it all together and make sure that its all going to fit .......

Well, Thats 3 afternoons work.....

Ive got some idea's in my head about shapeing the over lap of the blower cowel, and because the case cover is 1 piece, about what Im going to do in the way of a removable side panel, although, the MB chasis does slide out the rear of the case, so I have a few options there.

Hope this is where Im meant to post all this, if not...please move it to where it should be

[OvRiDe]

Welcome to TBCS, and what a great start! I love it when projects take the best parts of other cases and hack them together to make a truly unique piece.

Looking forward to your progress!

[The boy 4rm oz]

With an intro like that you must be Australian lol, welcome to TBCS, it's good to see another one of us on the forums. I know what you mean about modding suppliers, you can basically find anything you need now. You have made a great start so far, I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

[TheGreatSatan]

It's interesting that you cut out the hole for the whole fan and not just the circle for intake

[chaksq]

I'm liking this! I like the way you are using parts from the old case too.The front looks good. I notice you have a single piece main cover, I'm looking forward to see how you mod this. Reminds me of few old cases I have had except they were way shorter.

[DZ469]

Nice start so far. Good use of the other drive panel. Cant wait
to see how this goes.

[McCoy]

It's interesting that you cut out the hole for the whole fan and not just the circle for intake

Because of the shape of the original bezel, and the cowl, Im mounting the fan to the case chassis. So I had to cut the square out for clearance. I could have probably cut a much bigger piece out, but like to keep as much as possible of the original bezal till the last minute.
But yeh it does look weird atm.

[McCoy]

Well, its been raining here, which is not as bad as it sounds, cause most of the state is in a pretty bad drought atm. Just means Im a bit restricted on working on the case, the shed has no power and for some reason, the missus dosnt like "bog" dust all in the house......

Oh, I named this case, "tangled up in blue", you prolly noticed the banner up the top of the thread ? I photo-shopped a pic of the case as it is, to the colors Im planning on using, goes with the front drive panel (black) and every thing that "lights up" ..blue. Its also the name of the only Bob Dylan song that I like.
Seems I cant change the title of the thread, maybe a mod can ?
"Project - tangled up in blue" was what I was going to call it.

Anyways, Ive got the bezel looking good enough, that now its time to start work on the chassis, and I have to start planning a few things.
here is a pic of the case up to this point, showing how the MB base slides out the back of the case ( one of the things I love about this case)

ignore the pop rivets holding the cowel onto the main bezel, they are just there for construction.
The red square shows where Im planning on cutting the cover and making the side panel, highly unlikely it will be a clear window, but there will be a pattern cut into it to let some "light" out. Im thinking, Im going to hinge it at the bottom with chrome case screws at the top corners, so Its mainly for access to disconnect plugs so I can pull the MB chassis out the back of the case. If a drive or the power supply dies I'll remove the rest of the case cover.

Im interested in input as to what I should do, where the "red arrow" points at the top of the case, I can either use it as a hard drive bay, or wack a 120mm intake fan there. From the angle of the pic (sry) its hard to imagine, but, I also have room to fit a fan in the top, between the bay the arrow is pointing at and the front bays, but Im a bit conserned about having a HD sitting 15mm above the PSU,........comments most welcomed on this point.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Well in the Thermaltake cases I have seen people mount their HDDs up the back next to the PSU so I can't see why you shouldn't be able to. What if you mount a HDD there with a 120mm exhaust fan installed above it to keep it nice and chilly?

[McCoy]

cool,
no room for HDD and fan though,
so, its either, or..
I should still get decent enough air flow with the fan blowing down "between" the PSU and HDD and the front drive bays is what I was thinking,and if Thermaltake do it, all should be good .
I just want sure about the current idea's on having a HDD sitting on top of a PSU, thanks for the answer.