Project: Frankenstripe

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As much as I like the false front idea, I don't think it's going to see the light of day. I was doing some cleaning and rearranging and came across some styrene sheets that I forgot that I bought.

Fairly thick stuff--I'll have to take either the jigsaw or the dremel to it to cut it down to shape.

Then it will be measuring time. The blowhole is going to be resurrected. No lip this time, completely flush, and covered with the gutter guard and a custom yet to be made fan guard, the design of which has been posted already.

A little cleanup left to do. Not much, but enough to annoy the hell outta me.

I finally got around to popping the 5 1/4" drive bays out. Something tells me that I might want to hold onto these...

80mm fan? I think not. 120 mm is more like it. I now know where to put those two knockouts. JB Weld ftw.

Case feet that need to be replaced. With what is yet to be seen, but I'm sure I'll think of something...rollers might be a possibility. I'll have to look around and see what I can find.

I'm hoping like hell I'll be able to have an actual update tonight.

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It was a beautiful day outside...so I spent a good chunk of the afternoon working on this case.

Busted out the dremel and the window now looks pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. But hey, don't take my word for it, have a look yourself:

So, having fixed that mess, I turned my attention to the front panel. And I like where this is going. Here's some progress pics with a bit of chit chat from me where I feel it is appropriate:

Ok, so there wasn't any chit chat from me after all. The pics speak for themselves. Obviously, I've got a lil bit of bondo work left to do, but now that I am privy to how to work with it properly, it's gonna be no sweat at all. I've also got to strengthen the bottom half of this as well--the bondo didn't hold up too well and started coming off--too big of a gap for it to fill. I've got all sorts of scrap plastic around here, so filling it in shouldn't pose too much of a hassle.

My biggest threat right now is the weather. T'was 60 degrees today, tomorrow it's suppose to get to 35 and snow. Next week's out of the question, I've got a trip to Kalispell MT planned for a doctor's appointment (that'll be a 1 day trip thankfully) and then my parents are going to be in town for the weekend.

Anyways, here's what I can think of that's left to do:

Order window trim
Make custom fan guards
Case feet (I know how I'm going to approach this one now, you're just going to have to wait to see for yourself)
LEDs. Lots of LEDs. White and red. Probably should wire em up too
Paint

I'm going to price the trim (and possibly order) tonight, along with what I need for the feet.

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Forgot to add this:

Fear my photoshopping skillz!!!

Honestly, if the end product looks half a good as this does to me, I'll be very happy.

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Urgent update: I've just made a bit more work for myself--the case took a small (less than a foot) drop but landed in such a way that I bent the frame.

Even though I was planning on tearing it down completely, I wasn't planning on doing it this damn soon. And I sure wasn't planning on trying to straighten the frame either.

Edit: The damage:

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Feet! I've decided what to do for the feet!

Four of these lit by four of these.

I'm still working on how to attach these to the case. My initial idea was to drill and tap, and that might still be a possibility if I use an odd numbered side of the die.

I'm planning on implementing something similar for the fan controller knobs and possibly the on/off and reset switches as well.

Edit--just realized how small 19 mm is. I'll have to keep looking, I'm thinking the smallest I can feasibly go is 25 mm for the feet. But this is the general idea.

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More of a reference for me than anything else: rivets that are about to be removed.

I've got the JB on standby just in case this gets ugly.

And since I'm going to have this beast completely torn down, I might as well figure out what color to paint the chasis.

[jdbnsn]

Hey Joe,

I'm sorry I haven't had time to browse the worklogs in a while but after you mentioned your mod in the CR I had to come check it out. I haven't seen this in a long time, it's coming along great! I'm a big VH fan and even painted my first elec guitar in that pattern (somehow thinking it would make me play better, it didn't). It's been so long since I've read this from the beginning I need to go back through, but before I do I thought I would throw a couple of ideas at you (hoping that they aren't already in the pages before). You know what I think would look cool? Replacing those fan control knobs with tuning keys and placing alternating red and white LED's behind the knobs.
Okay, I'm going back to the beginning to see if I'm stating the redundant.

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Hey Joe,

You know what I think would look cool? Replacing those fan control knobs with tuning keys and placing alternating red and white LED's behind the knobs.
Okay, I'm going back to the beginning to see if I'm stating the redundant.

I was thinking about getting some knobs off of a 5150 head and using them. But the tuning knobs, that sounds like it might be a tad bit cheaper. I'll look into it some more.

Red and white leds...hmm...lots of possibilities. Alternate, or wire em up somehow to the pots inside the control unit? Start with red at the low end and white at the top end maybe? Or perhaps wire in some kind of sound activated module? LOL, damnit Jon, now you've got me curious. And since I'm already knee deep into some pretty serious soldering on the jukebox, I'm thinking I've got a good chunk of resistors and whatnot I'd need for the sound unit.

Anyways, I'm thinking I've got the front and back panels back to some sort of straightness.

I'll be finding out, well next week now. Painting throughout this week and will let this cure for a week before I rivet it back together.

Thanks for the input Jon, I can understand being busy. Especially given your occupation.

[jdbnsn]

Red and white leds...hmm...lots of possibilities. Alternate, or wire em up somehow to the pots inside the control unit? Start with red at the low end and white at the top end maybe? Or perhaps wire in some kind of sound activated module? LOL, damnit Jon, now you've got me curious. And since I'm already knee deep into some pretty serious soldering on the jukebox, I'm thinking I've got a good chunk of resistors and whatnot I'd need for the sound unit.

I was talking about using two of each color, one per knob. Not alternating colors in a single knob, but arranging them red-white-red-white. I don't know how hard it would be to do what you were talking about.

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Got the feet. Now I just gotta drill, tap and mount some LEDs.

Also picked up some inspiration for my next mod:

The Dark Tower Comic Book, issues 1 through 7.