Project Stealthlow

[Waynio]

I think that the vents would break up the vast expanse of plastic well. Having just the text would seem out of place without some design around it in my opinion. As long as the price is right, I say go for it.

Yeah I think your right mate, just need to see what kind of price they say for the 156mm x roughly 750mm piece.

Just seen the funeral though & got back from the wake & I am soooooooo utterly mashed I was getting given tripple shots of whisky & was knocking them back & had countless pints of guiness all day & I very rarely drink, tomorrow is gonna be a naaassstyyy hangover I think, I feel like garbage already should have stuck with good old coffee for the wonderful level headedness, it's amazing I'm capable of typing this really right now.

[Waynio]

Sorry to hear about your mom. She sounds like she was a great person. Like I say; mourn the death, but celebrate the life. Sounds like you've got that well covered.

The new panel looks good too. It's a shame you have to resort to getting someone else to fab it though, just because everything else in this case you've done 100% from stock materials to finish.

Thanks 88 lol can't believe how wasted I got yesterday luckily no hangover though just felt a tiny bit rough, sorted now though .

Yeah thats right about it'd be a shame to go to a pro to get it done but as I thought the cost has scared me away from the idea .

Just got the price quote from the plastics shop.

Price for moulding tool £67.20 vat included
Price for each piece £43.20 vat included
Delivery £14.40 vat included

So for 1 piece say will be £124.80 & I think this is without vents being put in & to have a spare window it would be £168.

Soooo, 4 more clamps £24 -- a new sheet of acrylic for 3 more attempts £15 = £39 diy leaving more than enough change for a diy powder coating setup.

Or

2440mm x 1220mm x 25mm mdf sheet £25 which I'm unsure of how I'd get it here unless I can get b&q to cut it into smaller pieces for easy transport, cutout the shape of curve 7 times, jam them together, put the sheet of acrylic on a flat surface, use a secondary heat gun (dual wielding ) to get the whole sheet easily formable, then some how move the really softened acrylic to the shaped jig & use the trimmed away jigs as a pressing tool & this should do a perfect thermo form diy for a little more than the clamping method.

Either way DIY window is definitely back in the house .

[Waynio]

Yeah mdf is the way I'll go, it's totally possible to get the oven style with heat guns I tested it out on a piece & was able to bend it any way I wanted with ease, ideally though I'll need to put something on the edges of the mdf to keep it from marking the acrylic so possibly tin foil completely smoothed out, I'd also need to put some kind of guide lines in place so it goes precisely & straight.

[Waynio]

Revised clamping jig with excess length on both ends & for a precautionary backup plan if needed I'm getting some polycarbonate too which is tougher & more formable, when I go at it next time I'm getting it done at last .

So just ordered more tinted acrylic & a sheet of polycarbonate, no idea when I'll receive it with all the bank holiday madness at the moment.

The plan is to heat the sheet up on a flat surface so it's droopy, then place it on the bending jig & clamp it down & let it cool, I'll put guide lines so I put it on straight, I'll have to put something on the edges of the mdf so it doesn't mark the acrylic, tips on what to put on the edge of the mdf anyone?.

Still though I'm not 100% sure an mdf jig is necessary, if I bought 4 more clamps & used full length sheets of aluminium I think I could get a perfect result, it came very close when I did my last try & it also had no warping, I do think I'd benefit from using 2 heat guns also.

[Waynio]

Been a while since a real update but the project hasn't died yet lol .

There are many ways to fill the middle void but for the time being I want to focus on doing what I originally intended.

Here we go again sort of.

First I cut the 1mm sheet alu into an inner piece & outer piece, the scrap left over from the 2 cuts I clamped to the curve & put the motherboard tray in place so I could see exactly where the bottom end should be & to mark where the vents should be, I left about 10mm over for the bottom end of the acrylic.

Then I got side tracked with cleaning off all the red marker on the right side panels inside edges, started off using wet&dry strips but was taking forever so painted the edges with wd40 & it came off nice & easy .

I got the top mount block cut outs done with the internal alu sheet & had to unbolt 1 side of the curve bar so I could get this 1 piece alu sheet in place, if only this was the design lol would be an absolute breeze to just cut a grill pattern into this, oh well I chose the difficult route & I'm sticking with it .

Anyway I got the clamping pieces ready for tomorrow so might have a solid update of good progress then & if not tomorrow then day after .

[Waynio]

Oh yeah this will do me, at freaking last hehe .

Window cut to size & vents & top mounting holes added

Top little curve beginning, it was soooo difficult setting up this curving procedure with it just being me, but if I'd have been able to get a hand off someone it could have been done a lot easier, instead I had an ultra fiddly time & often had to use my head or chin to tighten the clamps lol.

Setting up for the big curve.

Crazy clampage .

It didn't take a solid form of what I was aiming for but once mounted to the bottom mounts & a few added tabs in key spots it should be good.

And I wrapped it up for the day since it hit midnight lol.

Still though I'll need to make some 3mm alu tabs inside & out to hold it flush to the bars & with the top mounting holes being so close to the edge I'd be wise to use washers too & I have done better top curves but this one isn't too bad but if it bothers me enough I might do what some have suggested & combine 2 winning pieces & do something to hide the fact it's 2 separate parts .

[Waynio]

I've had a good relax after that & been thinking about how to make the tabs look like a good feature of the mod & other bits of the mod & I've blown the rest of the money from the motherboard switchover refund, could be a few weeks before I get to assemble it all, could be sooner, depends on how things go, I'm going to start getting quotes for anodising tomorrow but have no idea on how to enquire about it to be honest with there being many different pieces, sizes, thicknesses & a couple of different spec of alu, I still need to remove the steel helicoils & brass inserts but I'm not worried about that, it'll get done soon enough & I'll have an alternative ready for once it's been anodised, also gonna have to get the case feet anodised but don't know if they already are or not.

I've ordered some copper so I'll be changing from doing anodised blue internals to anodised copper internals to keep with the colours, was semi split between polished alu or polished copper & copper won as copper & black just looks awesome together , got it with the refund from the replacement b3 revision motherboard, I was gonna use the money for a few upcoming games but to be honest I doubt I'd play them until this mod is done so put it into the mod & I'll buy the games once I get this up & running, was gonna get the witcher 2, fable 3 & possibly brink but I think I'll get to see how they do in the reviews now.

The real copper I'm adding is.

DIY mesh for the vents on the window to fill the shape of the big vents I made.

10mm copper tabs that go 15mm over the acrylic & 15mm over the alu bars above & under & nicely rounded & about every 90mm along the full length of the case, even to the bottom so it looks right. Where the vents on the window are they will possibly get full length tabs, all the tabs will be polished & given a protective coat.

And the bottom front alu panel 1mm thick exterior panel brushed anodised black with some cut out details with a 2mm thick copper panel with diy mesh & the optical stealthed with 3mm copper piece, sure that isn't exactly stealthed but it should look good .

And since I ended up using body filler on the internal fan bars I'm redoing them in copper with properly aligned mounting holes so that's my refund gone .

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Parts getting anodised black
Side panels, curve bars, back panel, external bottom front panel, Bottom panel, a few pieces on the hdd platform.

Parts getting anodised copper colour
Mobo tray, 2nd level, hdd cages.

Parts getting painted either copper or black
Fixing bars, pci/io piece, optical drive.

Parts that will actually be copper
All front meshes, all the holding tabs & all the fan bars.

[Waynio]

Sanded the pci/io piece & primed it, I bought some copper paint to cover it - Toyota Copper metallic & Vauxhall Bright Copper metallic so hopefully between the 2 I can make it look somewhere near the look of copper, was either this or black & since the back panel is going to be black I'd have a go at copper paint, how I left it last night I really wasn't sure about it but I think it turned out pretty good .

The copper came yesterday & wow it weighs a lot compared to aluminium (never worked with it before), on the sheet copper though the place sent correct sizes for 2 of the pieces but what should have been a 200x200x2 piece was the same as the other 150x100 sheets so just ordered another sheet & sorted it with the ebayer to refund the difference with free postage.

Printed out the layout for the cut-outs & drill marks & cut the patterns out & stuck them on with cello tape lol it worked though I also pre drilled the curve bars, I'll still need to file slots out of the motherboard tray to take the underside tabs.

Here is all the tabs & the optical tray cover to a basic cut done on the power fretsaw I got it out & messed around with it & wow, wish I did sooner lol it will change the way I mod quite a bit in future mods .

Test fit of the 2 full length tabs.

All of them with perfectly flat edges & rounded corners.

And a finishing shot for this session of the copper pieces with the pci/io piece , for the tabs I still need to do the underside ones in aluminium & polish the copper & aluminium then the tabs are done, also got to make the copper vents where the vents in the acrylic is, might be tricky as they'll have to be a very good fit & perfect faint curve but it's copper & it's easy to shape when hot as I accidentally found out .

I didn't get around to phoning the anodising place but will do on Monday they'll do it for me .

[Waynio]

Aluminium underside tabs.

Printed same template & stuck with cello tape, spot drilled, drilled, tapped, cut, put helicoils in & got all the edges straight & gave them all a bevelled edge & mounted to the case, need 2 people to put the window in so left that out for the time being .

They still need sanding & polishing & 1 of the full length copper bars or aluminium bars need re doing as 1 of them doesn't line up 100%.

[Waynio]

Got the window installed so I could find the precise line I need to cut & also marked up on the right curve bar for the notches on the mobo tray that need filing down a little, I found 1 of the front fan mount bars was extremely close to the tabs so when I make the fan mount bars out of copper I'll need to file a tiny bit off so it fits without touching the tabs.

A random bunch of pictures with todays effort completed, 1 of the full length tabs is missing it's internal aluminium tab as I'm waiting for helicoils but wooooo I'm happy with todays progress .

Things to do in order.
Remake the fan mount bars from copper.
Make the copper mesh pieces for the front vents.
Make a 1mm thick aluminium bottom front cover.
Make a 2mm thick copper bottom front cover.
File some notches in the bottom hdd cage platform bars for fan cables to pass underneath.
Extend the fan cables & sleeve them.
Install some cable clip tidiers.
Polish the curve bars & tabs.
Brush all panels 1 last time lol.
Take the sandy bridge gear out of air cube, clean it up & install into Stealthlow & jump around like an idiot shouting wooooooooooooo .
Take some good pictures .