Ratputer: The Anti-Bling.

[Bucko]

I have been thinking about my next case mod and decided I wanted a Rat Computer.

What is a Rat Computer I hear you ask? Well it's along the lines of my Rat Bikes.
See this thread for some pics of my bikes, or:

That will give you a pretty good idea about the Rat Bike scene. I know it's not to everyones taste, but I like it!

So I want a computer along similar lines. It will look rough on the ouside, but be good equipment on the inside.

Here is the case I will be starting with:

It's an old Gateway that Dad was going to throw out. There really wasn't anything worth salvaging from it, but I grabbed it and brought it home.
It weighs a ton! It's made from a lot thicker steel than other cases I have or have had.

My plan is to not have a tower, but have it lying on it's side:

I have started the mods by drilling out a whole lot of pop rivets to change what I need. I also stripped another case for some goodies I need.

At the back I drilled out the rivets holding the slot panel in place.
On the right you can see the original back, which I knew I would need to cut to get my new backing plate to fit in, until I looked at how it was attached and looked at my other parts case and decided to drill it out too and fit it to the Ratputer case.

I need to do some minor trimming to get it to fit properly, but it's a bit late here to make too much noise.

I also stripped out the drive bays from the donor case to mount in the Ratputer:

Because the case will be lying on it's side, I need the 5.25" bays orientation to be turned by 90 degrees. I'll be able to fit 3 slots in the case on it's side, so I'll need to trim off the 4th bay on the donor cage.

To fill in the space left at the front, I'll fill in with some perspex, then cut the drive slots I need.
Something like this (excuse my crappy MS Paint work):

The over all paint scheme will be flat black and rust.

Stay tuned for updates on this one!

[Bucko]

One of the things that tends to have a good showing on Rat Bikes is a skull of some description, so I want to integrate one into my case, but I wasn't sure where or how.

I was looking at the bits I had lying around and I was studying the front of an old case:

That's when it hit me! Those buttons are perfect for a set of evil eyes on a skull! Push the eyes to either reset or power up.

So here's a quick Paint pic of what I am thinking:

I'll cut the buttons out and keep enough surround so I have the power and reset symbols, cut, glue and bondo the whole lot into the front of the case.
With a little bondo I could even get the skull to be 3D like it's coming out of the case.

[SgtM]

Those bikes look cool Bucko, and I like the skull idea even more. Good luck with the build.

[Ichbin]

Finally, someting Heavy Metal. lol, very cool.

[Maz]

im partial to your hayden bike. but i can also see the apocalypse now! feel to the one with the gas mask on it. New theme or are you going with a cumulation of al your bikes into this one?

[Bucko]

Today's progress:

First off, I screwed the old motherboard to my computer desk shelf:

Then I did some cutting and trimming and riveted in the drive bays:

I went to K-Mart as I remember seeing some cheap plastic skulls there, so I grabbed one and trimmed it done some. Here you can see the skull, the hole in the side of the case to access the drive bay screws, and the power and reset buttons cut out and trimmed down:

I cut some more of the skull out and glued in the buttons and glued it to the case front:

And here is the first lot of filler on and trimmed with a knife before it cured fully:

When it cures properly I'll start the next lot of filler.

[Bucko]

Originally Posted by Maz

New theme or are you going with a cumulation of al your bikes into this one?

It's basically a Rat theme. I'm not really copying any one bike, but letting it grow and evolve like my bikes have.

[Ichbin]

Thats whats cool about that style. You look at something and think "Hey thatd be cool" and you just do it.

[Bucko]

Second lot of bondo is done now:

I super-glued some pieces of filler plastic below the eyes, then once in place epoxied them in properly, then trimmed it back properly with the sanding drum on the dremel.
Next I glued some cardboard in below the eyes to get a nice curve for the bondo to go up against.
Once it was applied I again got the knife out and trimmed it all down before it cured properly, and that is the result you see above. Tomorrow I'll sand it down with 40 grit and buy some spot putty for the smaller holes that still need filling in.

[Bucko]

One of the things I had forgotten about was front USB ports for the Ratputer.

I was going to just fill in the gap under the skull, but thought it would be the perfect place to put a couple of ports.

So another job for to do at a reasonable hour (2.30am isn't a good time to use power tools, and I'm too lazy to use a saw).

I'm trying to think of what else should be mounted on the front. It will be a little too plain with just the skull. Something has to go to the left of it.

The right hand (drive) side will have my DVD burner and a CD Burner drive in it, and I'll be mounting my Thermaltake cupholder/cigarette lighter combo in this computer and I also have the perfect lighter for this computer!