Project: Antec 900 Revamp

[x88x]

Wow, massive improvement on that corner! It looks great!

[slaveofconvention]

Thanks - for all of my "I want it PERFECT" attitude, I'm more than willing to accept this. There's one tiny chip like mark remaining and it'd definitely something I can live with...

[slaveofconvention]

Today I decided to make a start on those plastic front and top panels parts. Before I did anything new though, I wanted to check on the primer coverage. I've deliberately avoided priming up the whole panels because I've had problems in the past when primer, primer, colour, colour, clear, clear, clear etc ends up adding so much thickness to the surface that the parts don't fit back together again. I quickly popped the 4 parts of the front panel back together for a test fitting and, so far so good...

Pulled them apart again and gave them and the top panel plastic a gentle sanding with wet 600 grit paper.

Then I took the air powered sander to the windowed side panel. Those runs were just too heavy to be gently sanded out, so back to primer we go. After about 40 minutes work we end up back here....

But while I'm working with primer, it made sense to give the two mesh parts a quick scotchbrite to provide a key for the paint, and a couple of coats of primer.

Now I knew the orange pearl I had was semi-transparent, and I got some plain solid orange to base it up with so it'd cover nicely, but I thought I'd give SXRguyinMA's suggestion a try (well kinda....)

use something like a metallic white as a base, it'll make the orange light up

The only white I have to hand is solid white, but there's more than enough pearl in the orange to take care of the lighting up aspect... Time for a little experiment methinks! Grab one spare case side panel, and give it a quick sand down for some kind of smoothness, and add a coat or two of basic primer. I then added a coat of the same primer which is on the plastics. It's actually a proper plastic primer, but it seemed happy enough grabbing hold of the panel/primer...

I then masked off the bottom half (ok it's a really bad "half" but hey, it'll work for my purposes lol) and hit it with a heavy coat of white (way too heavy to be honest, but I was after the effect here, not the perfect finish)

And finally a good coat of the orange I plan to use on the plastics...

There really is no doubt that the orange over white comes up much cleaner and brighter than directly over the primer.

I know I could add several coats of orange and it'd end up looking exactly the same, but every coat is one more chance for something to go horribly wrong....

With that decision made, I decided it was time to get the rest of the colour on. I mixed up all three of the colours I'd be needing, the grey, the orange and the white (there is white in that cup, I promise)

Then I cleaned the orange out of the spraygun and set to work on the white... We have the top panel...

The re-masked front outer bezel...

The two side bars and the mesh panel from the windowed side...

And finally the bit that sits at the top/front of the case.

And this is where all the plans fell apart. When I was finished with the white, I cleaned out the spraygun again, ready for some orange goodness and.... used the last of my Standard Thinners up. I could have pushed on and gotten the rest of the colours on, but I only have 3 of these sprayguns, and while I could have used one for the orange, one for the grey, and the last one for the clear, I'd have had no way to clean them. By the time I get in from work tomorrow night, the clearcoating gun would definitely need to go in the bin, and the other two would need serious cleaning, if not a similar trip into the trash.

I do really want to push this project on to completion, but not at the expense of 3 sprayguns lol...

Here's hoping I get some time one evening this coming week - if not - next update will be next weekend - until then - cyas

[x88x]

Making some good progress here. Oh, and yeah, that orange over white looks much better.

[Snowman]

It's been almost 24 hours since your last update.. post moar pictures slacker.

[slaveofconvention]

I'm a weekend warrior - hear me roar!!!! :p

I just in from work and ate lol - the only thing I plan on doing tonight is properly cleaning my sprayguns as I had to kinda scrimp on the thinners yesterday lol

[Snowman]

I'm a weekend warrior - hear me roar!!!! :p

I just in from work and ate lol - the only thing I plan on doing tonight is properly cleaning my sprayguns as I had to kinda scrimp on the thinners yesterday lol

That's no good... the beatings shall continue until moral improves or worklog gets updates, this is one of the more interesting worklogs I have looked through in awhile keep it up

[slaveofconvention]

Aaaaaaaand we're back. Last weekend was a bust due to weather, and yesterday, well no excuse, I just never got around to it. Today I woke up with a rotten cold, sore throat, cough and a headache so I decided not to do anything on the project.

Until about 5pm that is lol - two weeks is long enough and if I don't get this finished soon, it'll get too cold to paint again so - pushing on....

Because I didn't get around to clearcoating a couple weeks ago, I had to give both of the side panels a quick rub down with some 800 grit. I could have gone a little coarser, but as I only used a low-build primer on the windowed panel, I didn't want to risk going through (again). After the sanding, I gave a new weapon in my painting arsenal a try....

Farecla G-Scuff

This is a relatively new product which is designed to help prepare a previously painted surface for fresh paint. You drop on a couple of, well, splodges lol, of this and thoroughly wet your scotchbrite pad then go to work.

Prepared Panels

You end up with what looks like a layer of soap but under the soap you get a very nice, even layer of keying scratches. The G-Scuff also acts as a cleaner and degreaser and my first impressions of the stuff are very positive. That small tube is about £8 which is around $13 and I only used a tiny amount so it'll go a LONG way. In the above pic, I've done both but the white foamy residue doesn't show up as well on the light grey as it does on the dark.

Time for some colour anyway. As this will, hopefully, be the last time I'm using the grey colour, and I happened to pick them up when I got the Standard Thinners I ran out of in the last update, I strained the paint. I actually used the paint I mixed 2 weeks ago. It's been sat in that cup for 2 weeks, in the shed, and it was just fine. I like basecoat lol - it just lasts!!!

A Used Paint Strainer

And I hit the solid side panel with a fairly wet coat of colour...

Solid Side Panel

I then gave the windowed panel the same treatment, except the first 2 coats were dustcoats.

Windowed Panel

Then I went back n forth until I'd used up all of the paint. I gave each coat about 5 minutes to flash off before applying the next, with the final coat going on about 15 minutes after the one before. I figure there are between 8 and 12 coats on each of these panels, maybe as many as 16 more on the solid one.

Painting Done

Painting Done

And then it was time for some clearcoat. The product I'm using is a 2-pack high solids lacquer. Excuse my language but, as one of the guys at work put it "Basecoat isn't too bad. 2-Pack is different. That ****'ll kill you!" so it was time to cover up my stunning good looks....

Me!!!!

I laid down 2 or 3 dustcoats of the Clear on each of the panels as well as the top grille. (I painted that today too lol - I just never took any pics of it). Once they'd had time to flash off, I hit them both with 2 or 3 nice wet coats, resulting in this...

Solid Panel Cleared

Solid Panel Cleared

Solid Panel Cleared

Windowed Panel Cleared

Top Fan Grill Painted and Cleared

And finally, one gratuitous shinyness shot. This is the solid side panel. The reflection you see is my house. This was taken AFTER the clear had flashed off so it isn't just the wetness reflecting. I can't wait for it to cure properly so I can flat and polish it up properly.

My abode...

Until next time (probably next week)...

[x88x]

Looks great.

[slaveofconvention]

So when you have to scroll through to halfway down the 3rd page of "Works in Progress" to find your project, you know two things.

1. There are a lot of kickass mods in progress out there which is ALWAYS a good thing... Keep 'em coming guys, it's great to see us producing so much good stuff!

...and...

2. You seriously need to post an update....

So, here we go....

Last time I was here, I was talking about how good the main side panel was looking and how I couldn't wait to get it flatted and polished. Well that's now done...

As soon as I got it home, I put it straight onto the case chassis because I couldn't wait to see how it looked, and I figured it was the best place to keep it where it wouldn't get knocked over or scratched etc.

I also got the orange onto all of the parts which needed orange. I based them up with white to help the orange really pop, although to be honest, there ended up being so many coats of orange, it probably wasn't needed.

And again, because I'm impatient, AND to protect them from being dropped, lost, eaten by a pet etc, I put them into place (temporarily) on the case...

I'm really liking the way this is turning out. I'm going to give them another day or two to fully cure before I start reassembly proper, but I'm definitely well on the home stretch now. I'm not going to put a date on it, because that'll be the kiss of death, but I seriously expect some REAL progress towards a completed job by the weekend