mnpctech

The Wall

Category

Case Mods

Status

Ready for Battle

Deets

About the Maker

Bill Owen lives in United States. In 1999, Bill turned his case modding hobby into a fulltime business that offers professionally modded cases and supplies. His website is http://www.mnpctech.com

The Story Behind The Wall

2004 was the year of Doom 3 and Half Life 2. Gamers armed their systems for battle by upgrading to the latest videocards. Doom 3 and HL2 theme case mods were featured on Hardware review sites and in popular PC publications. Though these were the trend of the moment, I’ve never followed the crowd. I wanted my first case mod theme based upon what inspires me, and that’s rock and roll. Classic rock has always filled the airspace of my workshop. Throughout my school years, Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall/The Happiest Days of Our Lives” from The Wall album was my mantra. The song has become a staple of rock radio and it’s probably being played somewhere right now. The sights and sounds of Pink Floyd’s movie of the same title. What remained emblazed on my mind was the animation by Gerald Scarfe. I bought the DVD just to watch Gerald’s strange and fascinating segments. As I watched, I wondered how one could implement case mods from these?! I watched the movie several times and had to stop after Mrs caught me arranging dismantled computer parts on our living room floor. The plane spawner from Gerald’s first segment for “Goodbye Blue Sky” presented one idea. Maybe a cylindrical shaped Demon with several hundred war planes omitting from its belly was a good idea. That would be cool, but not really practical is it? I paused DVD and took photo of it anyway.

Building the Wall from the case up

I’ve always followed function before fashion. After seeing Gerald’s marching hammers, I imagined a Hammer as a carrying handle. This idea set my project in motion. I chose Kingwin’s 424 aluminum mid tower ATX case. It’s lightweight and looks like the result of a marriage between Coolermaster and Lian Li. The 424 is ideal for modding because it’s easy to disassemble. I get frustrated when switches and LEDs are glued instead of fastened. Now that I found inspiration, I ran to the local hardware store to find the perfect hammer. I needed to reinforce the top panel for my handle idea. I grabbed my jigsaw and cut a reinforcement plate from 16 gauge steel to mount beneath the panel. This plate would reduce any flexing or stress on upon panel while carrying the case. I welded 3” x 3” mounting plate onto Hammer head. Once attached, this would handle brunt of the system weight. A threaded rod was inserted into hammer butt and bolted beneath the panel. This rod was concealed inside another hollow rod. I painted details on the hammer to match the flag insignia shown in movie. The handle was comfortable and really worked great.

The original intent of case modding was to optimize performance. I wanted my 2.8 GHz P4 cpu and it’s pacifier, a Swiftech MCX478-V heat sink to have plenty of cool air. I removed the restrictive 80mm front fan grill perforations with my Dremel. I modified rear the 80mm hole to 92mm with 3.5” Dye Cutter by Greenlee. I used this tool again with 4.5” Dye Cutter to make a 120mm fan hole in the top panel. A Greenlee Dye Cutter consists of a punch, die and draw stud. It operates manually using a wrench to turn the threaded draw stud into the mating threads of the punch. This draws the punch into the die, shearing a hole in the material being punched. It requires a pilot hole large enough to insert draw stud through. Dye Cutters are used by electricians and make clean, accurate, burr-free holes in metal up to 16 gauge thick. I used a Roper Whitney Hand Punch to make clean ¼” fan mounting holes. Now the chassis and 5.25 bay covers were ready for Blood Red powder coat finish. Powder coating is a mixture of finely ground particles of pigment and resin, which is sprayed onto a surface to be coated. The charged powder particles adhere to the electrically grounded surfaces until heated and fused into a smooth coating in a curing oven. The result is a uniform, durable, high-quality, and attractive finish. After the chassis arrived back from powder coat shop, all of the fan holes were dressed with black u-channel molding and anti-vibration grommets. Coolermaster 80mm White LED fans replaced intake fans. One 120mm Coolermaster Red LED fan now resides in the top panel. A 92mm Panaflo low speed fan was utilized as exhaust. I’d read how Model Railroaders use sheets of Plastic Styrene for scenary. Short for Polystyrene – Styrene is one of the most versatile materials used in the hobby. Its inexpensive, easy to work with, and comes in a variety of shapes and sizes with thicknesses ranging from .005” through .100” and thicker, with .020” and .030”. Armed with my Dremel and array of cutting attachments, I made a 92mm fan grill from .020” thick Styrene shaped like Gerald’s marching hammer design. I made another to mount upon the steel ring I made from 120mm finger guard. I sprayed Flexible primer over each styrene grill and painted them with Testors model paint. Each grill was later clear coated to resist scratches. I cut “Pink Floyd Inc” with an Exacto knife in .010 thick styrene mounted on clear plexiglass. This covers two 3.5” FD bays. Its illuminated from behind with 4” Red Cold Cathode light.

The window takes shape

All the case panels except for the access panel were ready to be prepped for paint. I removed and sanded each panel with 3M brand 600 grit sandpaper. Then I applied Black “Self Etching” Primer for color base coat. This versatile primer adheres to any painted surface as well as steel, aluminum, brass, and all stainless steel surfaces. I then applied 4 coats of Gloss Black Laquer aerosol paint. After the paint cured for one week I applied two coats of the same brand of Laquer clear. 48hrs later I wet sanded the clear starting with 1200, 1500 and 2000 grit sandpaper before buffing it to luster shine with rubbing compound. The access panel was shipped to my friend, Chris Baltar of customwatercuts.com in California. Water jet cutting is a computerized cutting process using a stream of pressurized water passing through a tiny hole. It can create thin details and almost any shape. There is no heat generated during water jet cutting, the part being cut does not undergo distortion. High cutting accuracy is achieved without leaving any frayed edges or burrs. Therefore, edge quality is good and the need for secondary finishing processes is usually eliminated. I described my idea for a three dimensional window to Chris. I wanted it fashioned after Gerald’s marching hammers. Portions of the hammers would be cut from ¼” stock aluminum and translucent colored acrylic. Chris programmed the waterjet to cut circular 12” opening in my access panel first. Then he cut the intricate window pieces in red and black translucent colored acrylic. The window was shipped to me without aluminum pieces attached (head & handle trim). Chris wanted my confirmation that everything looked good before he would permanently install these pieces. He included a tube of Devcon’s “weldit” all purpose adhesive. After I glued the last aluminum pieces into window, I stood back in amazement.

Its not Play Doh, its Super Sculpey!

The window is kick ass, but why stop there? I first heard about Super Sculpey from case modder, Paul Capello. (www.bestcasescenario.com) He used it to mold the baby embryo in his Matrix Rebirth 8.0 mod project. It’s a Polymer clay that’s chip resistant and shatter proof after baking. Excellent for prototypes requiring a hard finish and fine detail. I bought a 1lb box and set of wooden clay tools. The plan was to mold the “face in the wall” image from the DVD over the intake grill (roughly 3.5” x 5”) The open mouth would act as a cool air intake. A large air gap already existed beneath the bezel so a smaller front intake wasn’t detrimental to airflow. I hadn’t worked with clay since I was a kid. I doubted I could do anything that looked remotely like Gerald’s famous image. I stared at the Super Sculpey for weeks. I was waiting for inspiration to get started. Then my 2.5 year old daughter discovered the box and asked “Is this Play Doh daddy?..Can I use it?” “Sure you can” I replied. So began my odyssey in Super Sculpey. Polymer clays must be conditioned. Simply knead and work the clay with your hands for a period of time. Conditioning your clay softens it and makes it stronger once it’s baked. Super Sculpey is sticky so work on a smooth surface (wax paper, marble, glass, formica). I bought a set of wooden sculpting tools to add facial details. In order for the molded face to attach to the case, I fabricated a steel plate with a ventilation hole to cover Kingwin’s mesh grill. I had to epoxy the face onto the plate which allowed its mouth to become the air intake. The mouth was illuminated inside by two 80mm White LED fans.

Airbrushing

My modding partner Lin Anderson had painted show cars and choppers for nearly 20 years. He’s what I’d call an Airbrush Gawd. Lin airbrushed bricks over the bezel and beneath the window. Then he colored in features of the face and gave the appearance of skin being stretched over the bricks. The mural of hammers marching under an approaching thunderstorm could have easily come from one of Pink’s nightmares. The lyrics on top of the case are from “Outside the wall” and were cut from red vinyl. The font is called “Floydian” and I found it at one of Pink

Thank you to Gerald Scarfe and Pink Floyd

My biggest concern during the project was that it would pass the scrutiny of Pink Floyd’s fans. Though it’s received lots of positive comments so far there are a couple things I might have done differently. I think the handle would look better if the mounting plate was hidden underneath the top panel. I thought about incorporating an LCD monitor in the bezel for displaying scenes from the movie. All in all I was proud to implement some features never seen before. I couldn’t have done it without being inspired by Gerald Scrafe’s memorable animation and the music I love.

Intel’s Mb D875PBZLk
P4 2.8 GHz cooled by Swiftech’s mcx478-v with 92mm Panaflo fan
1G of Kingston HyperX 3200 ddr 400 memory
Ati Radeon 9800 Pro
Sound Blaster audigy 2
Logitech 5.1 speakers
80 gig Western Digital Caviar hard drive as master drive and
200 gig Seagate Barracuda as slave.
TDK DVD-RW and
Lite-On DVD-CD-RW