Another TJ07 build - sorry

Zuma · 7 May 2013 at 22:53

some pics of the semicompleted case, albeit with quite a few more mods to go.

at this point i should point out that the front panel that covers the removed drive bay is a piece of 3mm smoked acrylic. the outside is painted with matt lacquer and the effect i was going for is that with the computer off and no lights on inside it looks like a solid matte black panel. I did the same to the side panel. the front panel is held on by magnets for easy access to the inside

arghh! apologies for the extra rubbish pics. i swear i will take some better ones soon.

Zuma · 7 May 2013 at 23:04

this is a side view with the pc running and a few lights on inside. i plan to do more extensive lighting and maybe some uv tubes also but my uv led lights haven't arrived yet

and another from the front

the res has and RGB led in it that is linked to an aquaro controller and changes from blue to green to red as the water heats up. looks really nice when i turn it on and it starts off blue.

you may be wondering what those digits are above it. they are from a nixie clock that i built into the top of the case. you can see a closer pic of it here

NoustieChris · 8 May 2013 at 08:34

Very nice dude - Definitely different with the colour scheme. Subbed

~Mike~ · 8 May 2013 at 08:41

Snail's nixie clocks are brilliant.

LtMatt · 8 May 2013 at 09:29

Good stuff Snail. I always appreciate a man that embraces the colour pink and makes it work.

Avathar77 · 9 May 2013 at 17:23

Very nice!
Always loved a TJ07 build

panyan · 9 May 2013 at 17:30

Nice build

Pink is a hard colour to pull off properly, even if the OP does claim its "blood red"

JCX50 · 14 May 2013 at 10:54

Very nice build, loving the front of the case with the 3mm smoked acrylic. Love how you can see the glowing red from inside

Zuma · 14 May 2013 at 11:23

JCX50 said:
Very nice build, loving the front of the case with the 3mm smoked acrylic. Love how you can see the glowing red from inside

thanks,
that's a key element of the aesthetic i am going for. hopefully i will get some nicer pics to show it off better in the near future.

also more updates before the end of the week with pics

Shawy · 14 May 2013 at 14:03

Not a massive fan of the all red interior.. The outside looks good though, definitely curious to how this will turn out.

BWoolley · 14 May 2013 at 15:08

I absoloutely love the exterior, mind if I ask for a link to that copper paint? Also do they make an aluminium or similar coloured version?

Edit: Nevermind just read through properly, that still looks awesome though.

Zuma · 22 May 2013 at 20:55

Update time.

So after a few weeks i decided that the sickleflow fans were not really up to the job.
reviews were patchy at best any most reviews that seemed to be done properly had them rated low.
I like the way they look though so agonized for ages about whether to get some gentle typhoons.
You can hardly find a bad word against them but they really don't look good in a red and black themed case.

i tried to find some highly rated fans that had red led's or at lest a red colour theme and couldn't.

If they GT's were all black i would probably have lived with it, but they blades were a can't be 'bothered' grey.

Nothing for it then, out with the spray gun.

I decided to paint just the fan blades because they are the offending part (may regret that later)
for an experiment and because it was no real extra effort i painted them Ferrari Nero Daytona (metallic black) and went over that with a red candy clearcoat.
Really pleased with the look of the colour although ironically most of the effect of it is lost when the fan is spinning. again the colour doesn't realy show up in the pics.

I also painted a small piece of vinyl at the same time to stick over the back where i had to remove the sticker. you can actually get a better idea of the colour from this vinyl. it looks black in some light and metallic burgandy in other light.

and here is a pic of the fan in pieces.

more updates soon

LtMatt · 22 May 2013 at 21:43

Everyday i thank the lord for creating gentle typhoons. Looking good Snailius.

Zuma · 23 May 2013 at 20:09

One thing that was bugging me about the side panel of my case was how the window was just bolted to the ouside of it. It actually looks better than i had predicted when i started the build, but still there was room for improvement.

i had already done the smoked and matte finish window panel. it looks like matte black when there is no light inside the case and you get a translucent blobby glow when there is light inside the case. hopefully you will be able to see the water tubes when i get some UV light shining on them.

It really just needs to be a flush fit, preferably with no bold holes showing. Here it is as things currently stand

So i cut an identical panel from some 4mm clear plastic. actually polystyrene sheet, which was a mistake i should have used acrylic. but my local shop didn't have acrylic. polystyrene tends to crack and craze up in reaction to solvents. i will never use it again!

After cutting out the sheet i had to rebate it so it would fit in the panel from behind. this took ages, because unlike the acrylic sheet that i tested my method on, this sheet i used would start melting every time i started grinding it with my sanding disc. very annoying.

But anyway i managed it, Here is how it looked fitted to the side panel.

so now i need to smoke it to make it darker. i used some clearcoat tinted black and sprayed on the inside of the window.

After that dried i glued the window onto the inside of the panel.

next stage is to fill the screw holes and repaint the side panel then matt lacquer everything so it looks uniform

Zuma · 23 May 2013 at 20:27

i ground out the holes a little bit and filled them with epoxy

then i stuck the window into the panel from the inside. i toyed with the idea of making it removable, but given it was already a bit cracked, and making it removable would be harder and possible risk it cracking even more i decided to stick it in with polyurethane adhesive.

then i masked it up and repainted the outside of the panel in black basecoat.

then i used matte clearcoat over the whole panel including the window.

And now i'm afraid i have run out of photos. So no money shot of the finished panel lol. It looks shiny in the above pics cos the clearcoat was still wet. didn't even take a pic after it had dried.

will try and get some more better quality pics this weekend if i have time.