Rise of the triad, The 2014 Area 51

Cenedd said:
Sounds like a proposal for a forums ROAD TRIP to me! :D
Click to expand...

Stack the fridge and stoke the bong :D

All of the parts I need for the spray booth have been ordered :)









I'm sure I will need copious amounts of this.



And I got this. Most of the paint itself will go through the extractor, but it still stinks.



And I needed this also for the nose cone :)



So yeah, once it's all here it should take me a few hours to be able to begin painting no matter how terrible the weather is :D
 
Well all that came today was the tape. The most expensive part of the paint booth at £5.50 lol. I could have gotten cheaper tape but I wanted it clear. Not because it makes it look better than using gray but because I need to be able to see what is going on inside the filter when I test it. I need to make sure that no actual paint is getting past the filter.

So being air tight is quite important, so I set about sealing what I could. First up there was a large crack in the bottom. By the time I had done this I was getting quite tired and began to rush. Typical though, last hole I pushed the drill through hard and it split. I tried to weld it but it seems whatever these tubs are made out of doesn't weld.



You can see the power socket there too. I will run this from an external PSU as 1. It means I don't need to sacrifice a PSU just for this and 2. the unit will be much lighter. It also stops me from having to seal up the PSU to stop paint getting in. So I just put a run of tape down both sides, problem solved.



And then I sealed the fan to the adapter.



Replaced a missing piece with tape (it was curved and stopped the fans going on properly.)



And then sealed up any holes on the two intake fans :)



I've now packed it away. There's no point putting in the rear fan without the hose as I would only need to remove it again.

Hopefully some more stuff will come tomorrow :)
 
The paint booth is finished :D Firstly the hose came.



I then fitted it. Note you will need scissors and a pair of clippers for this (so you can cut through the wire support)



And then sealed it all down.



Then fitted the fan.



Test :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwHxchFPv1Q

Yup that works alright :D I then fitted the front intake filter.



Secondary internal filter.



Tested it again with all of the fans and lights running.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4aDZ2BJ2MA

And then sealed it all up



Noting that I had to remove some of the internal filter as it was too dense and blocking airflow. I then did the "vape test" where I use vape to test air flow (I do this in my rig as well with my fans) and it is doing what it should :) the goggles and mask arrived today but sadly the goggle lens is broken :(
 
OK so the serious crap has begun.

Here are all of the primed parts except one.



There are three errors. Two where I accidentally touched them whilst laying down other parts and one where I didn't use the tack cloth (across the top of the masking tape).

That's OK though, because it's on the masking tape which will be coming off.

Here is the last part, the nose cone.



The booth is kinda dirty now but man, it's exceptional. I mean obs it stinks of paint in the kitchen because the parts are drying in there but if you look at the sunlight it's completely clear. All paint that would be floating around has been extracted :)

If you look at the back filter you can see how much crud it has removed.



It will need a good clean with alcohol before I paint in it again but yeah, don't know how I lived without this thing tbh. I now need to let the parts fully harden for a few days before I can repair any bad areas and wet sand them with P1000. I reckon I may be putting on finish coat this time next week :D
 
Ah the pains of being human. So I messed it all up pretty much. I went out to check the panels were dry today and they were so I started off wet sanding with P800. That went really well and it didn't take long before they were ready to be painted. However, it's hot today and I probably should have just left it but I decided to paint on any way.

Mistake 1. Not making sure that the booth had been completely cleaned out so the first part is now covered in bits /facepalm. Not too much of a problem, because mistake 2 would have seen that part needing more paint any way. It seems that Montana Gold is not the same finish as Montana black (not the colours they are the range names). So Montana gold is a really nasty shiny satin which I really don't like.

And then I went on to make the same three mistakes I made before, on exactly the same bloody parts. It seems the board I was laying them out on was not big enough and I was clumsy and touched two of the sodding panels, so they'll need repainting too.

Ah well, the joys of PC modding I guess. I did take a pic but all of the parts are still very wet and this paint is weird because when it's wet it looks like you have the worst orange peel ever, yet when it dries after about an hour (well, dry to the touch) it seems to have smoothed out. Odd !



And I even made a video :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqrrQUWMyi4

What's annoying is this paint takes about two weeks to fully cure.
 
OK so after basically throwing a strop yesterday I decided to look at my options.

Option 1. Wait for the paint to full harden so I can smooth it down and repaint. Thing is, this paint takes about two to three weeks to fully harden so that option would have been painful.

Option 2. Make the panels again. This is all well and good but the side panel was a PITA and took me about three days to finalise the design and get it done.

I wanted to wait for the paint to harden but I remembered that if you then try and sand it it's still quite soft underneath. Fully removing it would probably destroy the panel. Ugh.

Any way, I looked at the parts that did come out properly...



And it reminded me just how much I love this paint. When it goes off properly after a couple of weeks the finish is just incredible. It's like touching an egg shell and is rock hard.

So I decided to make the two ***** panels.



And the back which took the longest.



And clean :)



I will melt the screw holes in later today and then prep them. Shouldn't take long, they're a lot better than the originals.
 
That does suck. I would have suggested some sort of paint stripper and start again...but anything I could think of would dissolve (or at least deform) the panel as well as the paint :(
 
ALXAndy said:
Painting anything is all about prep fella. The more time you put into prep the better the finish will be.

Paint has improved over the past few years so long as you avoid the cheap crap. You can get a very good finish on things these days with a rattle can but that doesn't mean prep is any easier.
Click to expand...

In the end, I found a way to satisfy the lazy part of me while pacifying the perfectionist.....I cheated :D I dipped the entire thing in the Hammerite pot and let it hang from a string to dry. If I'd done that to start, I think the finish would have been perfect but, like you, I'd got base coats that were stuffed. I love it when a [lazy] plan comes together! ;)
 
Cenedd said:
That does suck. I would have suggested some sort of paint stripper and start again...but anything I could think of would dissolve (or at least deform) the panel as well as the paint :(
Click to expand...

Yeah that's the problem. It was made worse by the fact the outer skin was perspex and not acrylic, very fragile.

Ah well, the new panel is done (all screw threads melted in) so tomorrow I can paint it along with some other parts :)
 
Awww fudge :D I forgot something lol.



It's the front/bottom intake panel. This is the panel the fan with the nose cone will go in and I forgot that I hacked it around when I got the rig. It had a 2mm deep channel around the fan and because the fans I switched to had rubber gaskets they wouldn't fit. So as you can see, I did a sterling job of modding it :D I didn't think you would see it but it was visible and looks like poo.

So today I will prep and try and get that done. I also forgot to paint the mobo heatsink cover, so that can go in the booth with it.

Here are all the painted parts happily drying :)



I have also removed the masking on the bottom panel so it's ready to have the strip covers fitted and the cathodes.
 
Well that didn't go as I thought it would :D it turned out that in my impatience when removing the lip over a year ago I broke into the surface, so it wasn't just a case of sanding it flush. I had to do some bodywork on it.



And it's masked up ready for cleaning and painting :)

 
It's now been over a week since I painted the first run of panels and as such I haven't really had that much to do apart from sitting around twiddling my thumbs and thinking about future projects.

I made up some GPU extension cables but the blue Cable Mod ones (I made the black ones) are thin and don't hold in the combs I have properly. I may end up not using them, but it saved me from terminal boredom yesterday so that's good, I guess.



However the paint seems to be nice and hard now so I can present this, the first almost completed part, hurrah !*



*This is the panel that needed bodywork and it's come out splendidly :) it's not complete yet because I have not assembled the nose cone but I think it looks awesome.

I will start work on the nose cone later tonight :)
 
Thanks dude.

I spent most of today modifying a headphone amp but tomorrow I'm hoping to really get stuck into this.

The button panel and light floor will take the longest. Don't want to rush now :)
 
Here's what I have been up to today :)

Firstly the completed nose cone assembly.



I'm very happy with that. Especially as it literally came from junk.

Here is the back/side PSU cover and the radiator covers (they are numbered :) )



The front of the PSU box / control panel.



The SATA port cover.



And finally the "main deck"



The only panel I have left to do now is the upper deck where the SSDs will live. However, I now need to focus on wiring and fitting lots of LEDs (and of course the cathodes) so I will probably tackle the SSDs last.

I absolutely love this phase of a mod. It's when all of the ideas you have had comes to fruition.
 
Coming together nicely. Was expecting "HARD DISK" instead of "SATA PORT" as the glyph...but that's just because I was counting letters :D What's the 010 <Alien head> on the "CONTROLS" panel?
 
Cenedd said:
Coming together nicely. Was expecting "HARD DISK" instead of "SATA PORT" as the glyph...but that's just because I was counting letters :D What's the 010 <Alien head> on the "CONTROLS" panel?
Click to expand...

It should say 016. Maybe a bit has fallen off :D

Seeing as you are having fun see if you can decode this one.



That will be atop the PSU. I figured it was perfect for PC modding :D

Once you decode it look it up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom