Project AMD Skeleton

B1ng · 30 Jul 2010 at 13:00

Hi Folks,

I'm planning to go to work on an Antec Skeleton, themed towards AMD as i'm a self-admitted fan boy.

Going to be moving my hardware out of it sometime very soon into a freshly purchased spare Antec 300, allowing me to still use my machine and take my time with the modding.

I wanted to mess around with the case when it was initially purchased a few monthes ago, but as I was keen to try out my new hardware I threw everything in and never got round to making it as nice looking as I had in mind! Hopefully at the conclusion of this, that will have changed and I'll be happy with it.

Pictures and more information to follow, all ideas welcome!

Cheers,
B1ng.

B1ng · 31 Jul 2010 at 20:09

Up and running in spare case

Hi Guys,

A quick update for you. I am up and running in my spare case, ready to go to work on the Skeleton. Here are a few pictures:-

Before.

After.

As you can see, the Skeleton is now ready to be taken apart and make to look even more amazing.

G-Dubs, I quite like the idea of yours of a high gloss black, as my idea was to go for black on the outer plastic shell. Have you got any examples of what sort of finish you are thinking of?

Also, here is the cooler i've been using, with the fan that is now in the front of my 300.

That's all for now, more to follow!

Cheers,
B1ng.

B1ng · 1 Aug 2010 at 17:51

Muel said:
WTF is going on with your big toe? That's one deformed little ******.

If you have nothing useful to contribute to the subject of the thread, please don't bother.

I'm liking the sounds of that colour you have mentioned, will be making a trip down to Halfords to have a look see at some point this week. I presume you mean a can of spray, to be used after prepping and priming?

Yeah that's what they looked like previously. There were big gaps at either end, and during application of them most of the red paint flaked off; they looked appalling! Going to be doing a proper job this time around with a braiding kit, along with some green UV anti-kink coils.

Will be pulling the skelly apart after work this week, more news to follow!

B1ng.

B1ng · 3 Aug 2010 at 12:59

A quick update. Got the Skelly mostly in pieces last night, but couldn't find my Allen Keys to get the top of the fan off! Hopefully get that in pieces tonight. Then it's onto prepping!

B1ng · 3 Aug 2010 at 17:09

Yeah I was quite impressed there. Will be interesting putting everything back in the right place with the right screws though!

B1ng · 3 Aug 2010 at 19:10

I'll bear it in mind!

It's in pieces!

This is the part where I need some help with bright ideas. All i'm planning to do so far in terms of physical modification to the case is to spray the outer silver cowling to a shiny smooth black finish.

All ideas greatly appreciated!

B1ng · 3 Aug 2010 at 21:08

I'm pretty much open to ideas to be honest at this stage. I'm thinking about spraying the fan white and the frame black, that's about it as far as my ideas go right now in terms of the physical stuff .

The PSU braiding will be remaining black with green coils, and any other cables will be white braiding with green coils. Might put some white LED strips underneath along with a UV tube. Again that's about it.

B1ng · 27 Aug 2010 at 22:27

Quick update on things; sanding has begun. Not had much time due to heavy work commitments at the moment, but things are still happening, albeit rather slowly at the mo!

Still open to ideas here regarding an AMD themed build. Just purchased some 12" UV tubes that i'm hoping to find a home for behind the side panels to light up the cables under there. All ideas greatly appreciated!

That's all for now, watch this space!

B1ng · 30 Aug 2010 at 07:31

LED's under the arches sounds like a fantastic idea! I'd have to think carefully about how many to put in there though, as I don't want to overkill it and make it look tacky.

Maybe something like 5-6ish in either arch, equally spaced out?

As to my colour scheme, I have 3 colours i'd like to stick to as closely as I can (with AMD in mind) white, black and green. Maybe I could alternate the colours between white and green, as the rest of the case is going to be black?

In terms of including the AMD logo, i'm still stuck on that point. A friend of mine had the idea of filling in the ANTEC on the front and getting the AMD logo laser cut into it, though i've struggled to find anywhere nearby that may be able to do it.

Whatever 'text' remains cut into the front, I think i'm going to spray the inside of the cutout white, or try to find some UV reactive White paint.

Thanks very much for the input guys, really got me thinking now.

B1ng · 28 Sep 2010 at 21:47

Hey Guys,

Quick update. Been overflown with work commitments lately, have had very little time in the evenings but things are slowly progressing.

Here are some pictures of the current progress; have got the main fan cowling sanded back and have started on the arches.

That's all for now!

B1ng · 29 Sep 2010 at 07:11

Duesix said:
Moar please! it would be great if you could cut the AMD logo out over the antec one... not sure how it would be done but it would be great

I'm torn on this point at the moment. I'm quite keen to incorporate the AMD logo somewhere into this build, but i'm reluctant to take away the Antec logo, as we have them to thank for the case after all!

This might just be me being weird?

B1ng · 29 Sep 2010 at 12:59

Thanks much for the painting advice GB. Was planning to use Halfords Primer, but I was going to ask nearer to the time which paint to use.

I suspect I will be beginning some painting this weekend.

G-Dubs, did you use Primer and then paint when spraying the fan body?

B1ng · 2 Oct 2010 at 09:12

You do seem to be able to see the direction i've been sanding in, but what you see so far is just getting rid of the old paint with some mildly coarse sandpaper. Once all the paint is gone, going to have another round at it with some much finer stuff.

To re-word my earlier query, did you sand down the fan blades before you painted it? Then also, did you use the same Primer then paint combo as the rest of the main case frame?

A stencil sounds like a good plan. Could paint it below the Antec cutout, and then hopefully it would catch the light from the UV tube and stand out well enough.

Thanks very much for the painting advice, never done anything on this scale before!

B1ng · 11 Oct 2010 at 07:44

benhomer737 said:
this is gonna look awesome!!

When I get around to finishing it, yes indeed!

A tiny update; tested some primer last week and looks good, got some paint, primer and lacquer on order with a good mate of mine. Just need to get the sanding finished. Watch this space!

B1ng · 28 Dec 2010 at 10:13

*Update 1*
This update is a long time coming! Since beginning work on the sanding, the Antec 300 I was using to keep the machine running has moved on to a new owner, sooner than expected.

*Update 2*
Sanding was almost complete further down the line, and planned to be completed over the christmas break. However, thanks to the arctic weather and lack of anywhere but outside to carry out painting type activities, the mod is currently on hold. The case is currently back in one piece, as the pair of 6970's really need the big fan in place! Many thanks to Sk3lph and G-Dubs for their help and advice on deciding whether these cards would fit!

You can see the areas that now are black plastic where I have been working on it, honest!

You may or may not be able to see the dust filters now in place over both the HDD and top fans. This is an experiment of sorts to see if it really is possible to keep this case free of dust. For those who havn't seen my other thread asking for a suitable material, the filters have been fashioned from a set of tights.

That's all for now, more to follow come warmer climes!

B1ng · 3 Feb 2011 at 19:49

That's the great thing with this case, it's really simple to strip down to components and go to work on.

I'll be picking up my paint this weekend hopefully, and assuming the weather doesn't go sub-zero again should be good to go! Need to finish the sanding off, give it a good clean and then get to painting. Never done anything before on this scale, so it should be an interesting result. With a bit of patience, you can achieve any look you like with this case I reckon.

A quick question to the PSU re-braiders among us; when it comes to braiding the 'addon' modular PCI-E cables of your PSU's, how did you do it? The hard-wired ones will be easy enough, but i'm not sure what to make of the modular jobbies. They seem to have a big lump of rubber just before the connector itself. Will put a picture up soon to clarify. My PSU is the Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply, which can be found in the shop akin to this wonderful forum.

Support is much appreciated as always! More to follow.

B1ng · 11 Mar 2011 at 18:11

Nothing new to report! Dad is planning to bin everything out of the garage into a skip at some point. Basically, it's a wasteland at the moment so can't get in there to get anything done.

In the meantime, i've been looking into getting some braiding for the PSU and other cables. Any chance you can help with the braiding question in my previous post? Much appreciated.

B1ng · 9 Jul 2011 at 22:54

Evening all!

This update has been long overdue. Work has continued on the case, in small amounts. Here is the current state of things:

GFX Card Cooler Replacement

Fitted a set of aftermarket coolers to my 6970's before I pulled the case apart again, working brilliantly. More than halved my running temperatures, plus you can barely hear them!

Case Stuff

Painted the front panel and the fan cowling in black so far, looking pretty good if I do say so myself. The side frames are still in primer, awaiting a coat of black. Picking up some LED's very soon to get to work on the CPU and HDD fans, and i'll be ordering some braiding to do the PSU sometime next week. Oh, and not forgetting the green Anti-Kink coils. As a friend of mine says, I think this is going to look the hound's knackers!

More updates soon, watch this space!

B1ng · 3 Aug 2011 at 07:46

A quick update without pictures at the moment as I'm too lazy to upload them!

The main body of the case has now been coated in black and is awaiting lacquer. Tried some of the lacquer on the front panel piece last night, hopefully looks ok when I have a look at it tonight,

Got the Big Boy fan painted in white, need to mask up the CPU and HDD fans now and do the same.

After that, gonna wire in some LEDs to these fans courtesy of Teal'c s guide, braid everything and then back together again! Will update again soon with some pics.

B1ng · 4 Aug 2011 at 19:36

Some pictures of the progress mentioned:

This has turned into my guinea pig piece, always gets painted first! Looks quite good I reckon. The light makes the sand lines look way worse than they are.

Had a bit of an accident on the cowl, noticed some crap that had appeared on it, so end up putting finger prints everywhere.

Hopefully won't look too bad when I re-do the gash areas.

Here's the main fan, now in solid white.

Here are the other fans that still need to be masked and painted. These are both getting custom LED jobs once painted up.

More to follow as things progress.