Hi there everyone. i thought I would share my experience of case modding by the way of removing rivets. I have an Antec 300 case which i needed to mod by removing the vertical 3.5" pressed steel drive bay sections.
They are riveted together with 'soft' aluminum rivets. The most common way to remove them is by drilling out the tops with a 1/8" metal drill bit. However with this case (and I suspect many others) you cannot easily access a lot of the rivets to drill them out without substantially dismantling the case rivet by rivet which is both time consuming and unnecessary.
So how do I do it? Simply grab an old flat blade screwdriver, align flush with the riveted surface and against the domed rivet head. One or two short sharp blows to the back of the screwdriver shear the head of the rivet off very easily and arguably leave less mess than drilling. Most of the time both halves of the rivet drop out but occasionally the 'bulged' part remains in the hole and can be pushed or pulled through the hole.
I even did this with my components still inside the case though there is a possibility that the impact of the hammer > screwdriver > case may transfer shock to the components so to be safe it might be better to remove everything before hand. A further word of caution, my rivets were aluminum and i think most cases use the same, however I imagine my method may not work as well with steel rivets though worth a try!
Quick, easy and clean. I removed my drive cage in about 3 minutes!
They are riveted together with 'soft' aluminum rivets. The most common way to remove them is by drilling out the tops with a 1/8" metal drill bit. However with this case (and I suspect many others) you cannot easily access a lot of the rivets to drill them out without substantially dismantling the case rivet by rivet which is both time consuming and unnecessary.
So how do I do it? Simply grab an old flat blade screwdriver, align flush with the riveted surface and against the domed rivet head. One or two short sharp blows to the back of the screwdriver shear the head of the rivet off very easily and arguably leave less mess than drilling. Most of the time both halves of the rivet drop out but occasionally the 'bulged' part remains in the hole and can be pushed or pulled through the hole.
I even did this with my components still inside the case though there is a possibility that the impact of the hammer > screwdriver > case may transfer shock to the components so to be safe it might be better to remove everything before hand. A further word of caution, my rivets were aluminum and i think most cases use the same, however I imagine my method may not work as well with steel rivets though worth a try!
Quick, easy and clean. I removed my drive cage in about 3 minutes!
Last edited:
