Colin McNally

Hi all back with my weekly update and over the last week iv started to fit the waterloop.
I started with the gpu waterblock which I always get nervous doing.
When I figured out what way the pipes would run I started bending.when I got all the pipes in i filled with distilled water to test for leakes and clean the system out.
Now I've got to adjust the pipe and change the coolant to white. Its getting close now not much left to do so hopefully next week my build will be done.😁
 

Finally here with my final build post. It's been fun and stressful but its done. Thanks to all the sponsors 
Thermaltake 
Scan computers 
Amd
Seagate
Asus 
I've put white coolant in added some stickers and some finishing touches 
I'm happy the way it come out in the end.
Good luck to the other competitors in the tt2020casemodchallenge 

Finally here with my final build post. It's been fun and stressful but its done. Thanks to all the sponsors 
Thermaltake 
Scan computers 
Amd
Seagate
Asus 
I've put white coolant in added some stickers and some finishing touches 
I'm happy the way it come out in the end.
Good luck to the other competitors in the tt2020casemodchallenge 

Ahoy hoy Mod fans!
A working week since the last update, quite a lot of that time has been spent on a rather large piece of work that I can't show just yet. 32 pieces measured and cut, 102 holes drilled, come to construct it and one of the 2 types of bolt I'm using was too short 😖 Just 2mm longer and would have been fine. 🙄 But new bolts should be arriving in the next day or 2.
That's what I've been working on in the shed during the day, but in the evening I've been working on case internals, especially the wiring. Seems even my tools are Division themed 😂

First off are the 36 motherboard cables for the front section, which are all going to be pretty darn short.

Then the GPU cables, which have a path even Lewis Hamilton would struggle with. You can also see the loop starting to take shape and 2 nifty little brass ball valves that will be being used.

 
I was very lucky as the 18AWG wire I got from Pexon is too thick to fit into the GX16 connectors, but luckily I had that orange wire got just before the comp when I was planning something with my own rig. Had just enough to get all the front section wires, apart from 1 of the GPU wires, came up just 1 inch short. 😟 So the 6 pin connectors will get 2 orange and 1 white and will hopefully be able to hide the thicker wire in between all the others.
There's also been lots of other little fabrication and case work been done. Knocked out these brackets, which you may tell from the treacherous proximity of the countersunk holes to the edge and hastily shortened bolts wasn't quite fully thought through. 🤔

But they work 😄

And now you can see the reason for the deep scoring on that 2nd PSU mount cover. There will eventually be something a little more secure than just a thumbscrew to hold the cover in place 😜

The pump/res is going to be mounted on top of a shoggy sandwich to kill vibrations and noise, but I can't just plank a fat wedge of foam under it and call it a day, so I made a housing for it and got it glued and clamped, but it's still in the shed curing. I might put some holes in the side as the orange and black of the foam fit the colour scheme and a few round holes will make the alu angle look a bit more structural.


As the THICC 360 rad will be going in the front chamber and fan in the rear, I needed to make a 30mm hole for it's drain-port and Thermaltake's brilliant rotating drain valve.

As well as that there have been a few minor modifications made to the case here and there. I cut out the last rung of the vertical rad support as it wasn't going to be used and was in the way of the pass-through section. A couple of cable tie points needed to be Dremeled off as they got in the way of things, few other holes for cable routing and such and I modded the GPU support bracket to cope with it's decreased living space, but forgot to take any pics. There will be plenty later don't worry 😉
Also needed to put in a few more holes to the new motherboard tray, mostly along the bottom edge. 4 small holes for it to be screwed into the original tray and keep the lower edge steady, 4 larger holes for cable pass-throughs. There's also a couple of holes will sit behind the motherboard itself for a little sneaky sneaky cable management 🤫

That's all for this update folks. A lot of the work being done now with the cables and everything is just very fiddly and awkward and visually very unimpressive. Hopefully have something very soon for you that is. As it's now so far into crunch time that I've no teeth left, I might just pop in with the odd pic here and there. T-minus 7 days 7hours 7 minutes....... Until then Crap fans, stay tuned! Same Crap time, same Crap channel.

Gooood Moooorning Modding faaaaaaans!
These regular updates are becoming a terrible habit After the previous days eye drama I'd had to finish early, so there were bits that needed removing from the original motherboard tray to make room for the power cables. So, first thing was to mark them up and cut them out.

I started using my jigsaw, but the spaces were too tight, so I knew it was time to break the newest member of the Makin modding family, the new Dremel!
(Whoof whoof!)

No not you Dremel, the other Dremel, this one.
(Whimper 😢) Don't be sad boy, I'll take you modding later.  😄
With those sections cut out there'd be plenty of room for the aviator connectors. I'll probably need to have a couple more cut outs for front panel connections etc, but I'll wait till I've had a chance to play with the layout before making any decisions on those.

Need to cover up the rad section with the steel sheet too as although just stripping the paint off the original probably wouldn't have looked too bad, there were a few too many holes in it.

Got the sheet cut to size and then marked out all the hole positions to see what would need removing.

I removed the middle section where air would flow through and where the rad would be screwed into the rad, but the rad would still sit on the steel so you wouldn't see any gaps, plus a little window for a fitting to pass through from the rad to the rear chamber.

It fit great, but I had trouble with the lip around the large hole round the top stopping it fit flush. I had considered leaving that and trying to remove material from the steel sheet piece, but the easiest thing was to remove the lip.

(the action you saw in the short video clip)

It all fit together beautifully. I drilled out another 20mm hole for a pass-through, at the bottom right of the rad.

I'd had problems with the sheet sitting flush into the lip at the front of the case, so I'd also drilled a few holes through the sheet to line up with existing case holes. I could then screw to 2 together and keep it in place nice and tight.

With all the power and watercooling holes cut into it, I can get to work on the wiring and plumbing. That will probably be an evening job while I work on other little projects in the shed during the day :naughty:. That's all for now folks, but I'm sure to be back soon. Same Crap time, same Crap channel. Until then Crapfans.
 

All great work mate looking forward to seeing the finished result.

Ahoy hoy Crapfans!
Despite telling myself that I'd update more often I just don't like showing stuff before it's finished, but the end result today is worth the wait.
So, remember that big package?

It contained a sheet of mild steel, 1000mmx600mmx0.9mm. 😲

It's a heft beast, you don't appreciate how light aluminium is until you start working with steel. Getting this first piece cut was quite an ordeal, having to try and balance it with one hand and cut with the jigsaw with the other hand. Was much easier when I got the first cut in and it fit on the workbench properly.

Now I had thought that the corners of the piece that came would be nice and square, but they were slightly out so my piece ended up a bit off and needed some careful adjustments.

Filing the 0.9mm steel was a lot tougher than the 2mm alu too, was really hard going and took 2 days to get it finished, but finally had a nice square piece exactly 360x460 😁👍

Which will be a new motherboard tray and pass-through plate.

This bottom left corner has a bit of a tricky profile to it, which meant the sheet wouldn't sit flush.

At least until I gave it the profile to match 😉

This sheet isn't replacing the original motherboard tray, as that provides a lot of the rigidity and support for the case. To attach the new one, I'll be drilling the motherboard mounting holes through it, then sitting it on top of the original motherboard mounts and #### the new one's into them. To get the hole positions I clamped the trays together, used a Sharpie to put a mark where the hole was and a centre punch to scribe the centre.


With the hole positions marked out it was time for drilling.

I started with a 2mm hole so I could check the positioning and adjust the hole for any errors in either the marking or drilling. There were a couple that were a bit off, but I was able to pull them back to the correct position with a round needle file and then my 6" smooth cut round file, also using them to enlarge the rest until they were all 3.5mm and centred.

To give me more room for the fittings, tubing and cables I took out the original cable holes out with my Dremel. Sadly, when removing the lip on the motherboard tray it attached to, my Dremel died 😭  But at least he died doing what he loved best, destroying cases 😄

Now with the motherboard and CPU block having new custom armour, the clear plexi block would look a little vulnerable so...

Getting the design sorted was such a faff. it was just small enough to fit onto an A4 sheet of paper. "Brilliant" I thought, "I can make the design in SketchUp and print it out so it's nice and accurate ". Could I get it to print out properly scaled? Could I heck.  Spent ages searching for how to guides, none of which worked when I tried. 🤬  Sod it, I'll just draw it, but at least I can set the Division 2 logo size in paint.net and print that properly...... Nope. 😖 That wanted to play silly-beggars too. I ended up putting the picture into word and setting it's size using the margin ruler to get the right size printed. 🙄 I glued the paper to the sheet of alu I'd be using, drew the pattern onto it by hand, cut out an 80mmx80mm square with my Stanley knife for the logo and glued that in.
First up I drilled out the outer circle using a 3.5mm bit. In hindsight I should have used a 3mm bit as the 3.5mm didn't leave much room for error, of which there were a few 😬

I had planned on filing that out before doing anything to the '2', but luckily I realised if I did that, there would be very little holding it in placed when drilling and filing, so that got drilled out too and was the first bit to be filed.


Came out just perfectly 😃👌

Here you can see where the drill has strayed over, so annoying, but I should be able to work it in ok.

The circle was MUCH tougher to do than the '2', with such a small space to work in. I'd increased the size of the 2 from the original design so you'd be able to see more of the block through it. It was easier than trying to get the circle thicker, but I wish I'd spent a bit more time trying to get the circle thicker. Still looks great though and good to finally have something Division related going into the mod.

With the logo pretty much done it was time to get the rest of the shape out.

In no time I had it filed out and stripped the paper off. I needed to get a better look at the circle and see what needed doing. The 2 looks perfect though, just needs the burrs on the edges taking off.

Couldn't resist getting it on the block for sneak peek.

It wasn't till I was doing my morning download of pics that I realised I'd forgotten to file out the gap for the power connectors 🙄 Had to redraw the pattern on the metal and hope I'd filed the rest accurately enough not to put the measurements out.

Soon had the gap done though and afterwards I set to work tidying it all up. I did some work on the circle to smooth and even it out and deburred it all. I'd also started work on trying to sand out all the little pock marks where I'd got a little "overenthusiastic" with the needle file 😅

I'd also filed a small bevel around the edge of the piece to soften it up.

Much MUCH sanding and brushing later...

I hadn't been able to remove the pock marks entirely, let’s just call them battle damage 😅 Still looks 🤤

Now it was time to make it a shell. I used my square files to cut a grove in the sheet to make the bends cleaner and easier.

No bending brake here. Just some steel grips for my workbench and a bit of brute force.

What I hadn't accounted for was that the hole for the power cables making that section very tricky (and unwilling) to bend. There may have been a hammer involved 🤔 The tab on the side didn't go smoothly either, I hadn't removed enough material for the bend to go 90degrees, so I had to bend it back to file some more out then try bending again. This unfortunately led to stress fractures forming on the edge, might be able to do something about them, will have to research that. If anyone has any tips that'd be much appreciated.
You might just be able to make out the be able to make out the errant edge here. Hopefully I can smooth it out, maybe a light hammer tap and a sand?

It doesn't look bad though 😃


Now I was going to end the update here, but then this morning I thought, why not put everything together for a few shots? 😉 I'm going to try and gets updates out more regularly, every couple of days in the morning when I have a bit of time in between my morning physio that gets me moving again, along with a Columbia's worth of coffee ☕ So stay tuned Crapfans! Same Crap time, same Crap channel. Until next time.....
(*larger expandable pics)





😍😍😍

yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Hi I'm colin Mcnally from consett in durham. Iv been building gaming PC's for around 10 years when I started sim racing after moving from console's. The last 2 years iv started doing full custom water loops in mine and a few friends PC's. This will be my first themed build so I thought I would include my other hobbie/passion which is motorbikes. Project motogp will include moving parts and a motorbike stand.
I'll like to thank all the sponsors for all the hard work in these tough times for making this possible.
The first parts from scan arrived yesterday which include 
ThermalTake View 51 Snow ASUS ROG STRIX X570-F Gaming ASUS Radeon RX 5700 500GB Seagate FireCuda 520 14TB Seagate IronWolf Pro 850W Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 Thermaltake Pacific Hard Tube Water Cooling Kit Thermaltake Pacific V-RX 5700 Series Plus GPU Waterblock Thermaltake Water Cooling Pacific Hard Tube Bending Kit 300mm Thermaltake TtMod Sleeved Cables 300mm Thermaltake TT Premium PCIe Extender With more parts coming soon I'll be starting my build in the next few days and will post as much as I can.
Thanks again to 
Thermaltake 
Scan computers 
AMD
seagate 
Asus 
Ttuk2020casemodchallenge 
I'll also like to wish the other 4 competitors the best of luck stay safe and have fun building.

Starting to come together mate keep it up looking forward to the final product

Ahoy hoy modderinos!
What's this? Another updatealready!? And it doesn't involve the motherboard armour!!!??? 😲
Yep that's right, mostly due to needing one last part for it, but also because I need to do something else before I go mad 😅 So inline with the brightenisation of the motherboard, the CPU block was next up for an enlightening. First I needed a good copy of one, didn't work out too well just sticking it on the copier.

 
By cutting out the first copy to reflect the light in the surrounding area and then shining a bright torch through the plexi block....

 
I was able to get a much better copy and clearer image. I put the block back together and taped up the coldplate for it's trip to the shed, to make sure it didn't get damaged.

 
First up to the chopping block were the mounting arms. Soon got rid of that paint with a Dremel sand drum. Nice and easy 👍

 
What wasn't so easy was getting rig of the deep score lines from using the roughest grit sanding drum 🙄 I went over it again with the higher grit drum I have, it was already used, but I thought that would be better for not putting more score lines in. It helped, but the worst bits remained still. I was conscious off taking too much material and the arms no longer fitting the block properly, so I thought it would come out when sanding the finish into it.
Much, MUCH sanding later and there's still some deep scores about. I try one of the abrasive wheels I got for the Dremel. That only removed the sanding lines and did nothing for the bad bits. More sanding, still looks crap. I remember I have scotch pads, give them a go, get a nice finish pretty quick but there's still those bad bits. 🤬 I think about giving in and just having it crap, so I go indoors and clean them up. But I just can't leave it.
So I go back to the shed. I tidy up a little while I have a think about how to solve it, put some Dremel bits away. I do have some new drums, let's try again with one of the new higher grit ones..... Yep, that's done it. 10 mins later they're good for a quick final brush with a scotch pad. Another 20 mins. Done.

 
And I'm thoroughly done in. However seeing as they're steel I don't want them rusting, so knock up a quick paint booth and give them light dusting of clear coat to seal them.

 
Onto the next day and the next part, the block. In a similar vein to the motherboard, it'll get a nice new aluminium cover. I stick the photocopy on a small piece and cut out the rough shape. I decide to do the 2 inner holes for the fittings first before doing the outer edge. First I need to find the middle.

 
After finding the diameter of the holes, I dial the compass into half that value and make a small arc in the middle from 3 points on the edge. They didn't intersect exactly as there's a fair degree of inaccuracy from my initial measurement, compass setting and then placement, but there's a tiny triangle there to centre on and punch.

 
I drilled out a 4mm hole then used the step bit to it's largest diameter, before filing from there using a round file.


To finish the inner circles I switch to a half round file when it will fit. With those complete I started on the outer edge and neatened it up with a rough hand file.

 
From there I moved to using the flat side of a second cut half round file to get a smoother finish and begin getting it to a better shape.

 
When I got close I moved to a smooth cut half round file. I'd go round the edge once or twice and then check against the block to see how it was going. The cover on the block sat in a little lip and wasn't completely flush to it, which combined with a little bit of light bleed meant the size I was aiming for would probably be before I hit the black edge.

 
I worked slowly at it, brushing the file often to keep the file clean and the cut true. I moved from working at it from a very front-on position to almost from the side, after I found I hadn't quite been getting it perpendicular. From this angle I could better watch the file and how it was working the piece. Slowly i edged in, checking it on the block until, bingo!

 
I gave it one last very light passing just to smooth the finish out, put it back into the vice, tilted it back and filed a bevel into the edge, then finally cleaned the template off. I had intended on brushing the surface to have it match the motherboard, but the smooth sheen of a finish the alu came with is just gorgeous and I was very tempted to keep it that way.


 
The mounting arms ended up looking great with just a couple of light dusting coats and really complimented and evened out the finish.

 
Rather annoyingly I managed to scratch the surface of the cover when trying to twist it into the right place, just above the right hand port, so I'll definitely be refinishing it now. It was the original plan though and I think will look better if it matches the arms and the rest of the motherboard. Might look out of place being shiny with the rest a more matt look.

 
I will however be trying to polish up the bevelled edge to give it a little highlight, which I wanted to start on before brushing the face. Using some sandpaper wrapped around an off cut of aluminium to make sure it's flat, I first sanded the outer perpendicular edge to make sure than was nice and even and smooth, then gave the bevel a quick going over to try and get the worst of the filing marks out.

 
And with that we have to end this episode, for that's all I had the time, energy and mental capacity for. 😔 But fear not, for I will return in no time at all for our next enthralling encounter, so stay tuned Crapfans!  Same Crap time, same Crap channel.

Just another update from work over this past weekend, reassembled the case (replacing rivets with screws) so I can add a little grime to it and check on fitting / spacing:
I had a broken amp I keep tripping over that's been waiting to go to the tip (when they re-open), but thought I could get creative and incorporate it into the project. I ended up taking it apart and added it's circuit boards to the top:


and to the side of the motherboard tray to hide the cabling:

Will hopefully have more updates at the weekend (involving the transformer I salvaged from the amp), hope you're all doing well!

Morning Crapfans!
Well that's another week that's flown by. We've now been given a date of 24th July to have the mods completed and a video submitted so I best get my skates on. Particularly with this motherboard armour which should have been finished already. What's that old saying? Keep it simple stupid! 😅
So with all the holes now in the the right place, I had to enlarge the 2 holes for the mounting screws as the threads for them sit a little over 1mm below the bottom side of the alu plate. I'll be mounting some washers to the underside of the armour for the screws to pull on and then they'll sit flusher to the top surface too.

 
So I enlarged the hole from 2mm to 3mm to 3.5 to 4, all with no problems, was nice and centred still, but needed them a little wider still. I thought about using the round file again like I did for the others, but it wouldn't fit in the hole yet. "That's odd" I thought, "I didn't think the other holes were that much bigger. The file must not have had as much taper as I thought." So I pull out the 5m drill bit and

 
😖 As I looked for a file or something suitable for cleaning that up I found my smaller round file, the one I'd used for the other holes, that would have fit in these to enlarge them. Joy. 🤬 I ended up countersinking the hole to clean it up, which meant doing it on the others as well for some continuity. Was pretty darn annoyed at such a stupid mistake, I hadn't wanted to countersink them but it doesn't look too bad. More importantly, I can continue with this piece and not start again. I think I'd rather cover the motherboard with duct tape than start again.

 
With those all sorted, now we needed to tackle the chipset cooling, as the fan will find it difficult to breath through the alu plate. So open sesame!

 
After marking the centre of the hole by lining up the original cover, I drilled a pilot hole then used a step bit to get it that big. but it wasn't big enough. I'd got some carbine milling bits for the Dremel, so used one of those to get close to where I needed to be. I was apprehensive about using it to go all the way as it could get a bit grabby and I didn't want to mess it up at this stage.

 
After filing most of the rest out I checked where I was in relation to the fan, see if I needed to remove some in a particular direction, which it did.

 
I'd drawn the circle on the back which wasn't great, especially as the pencil rubbed off fairly easily. Should have measured the centre point on the motherboard, then drawn a circle on the front with a compass, but at least I'd checked and could fix it from here. I drew a slightly larger circle that was centred to help gauge the edge which helped a lot. I kept checking it against the original and the motherboard to make sure it was going in the right direction and wasn't getting out of shape.

 
In the end I was pretty pleased how it came out and how round it was. I won't claim it's a perfect circle but it's really close. I decided to leave it at that point as I have a tendency to go too far with trying to get something absolutely perfect and end up making it worse.

 
Next up I needed to fashion a fan shroud to direct the air over the heatsink, for which I'd use some aluminium angle. I decided to try and get the shape fairly close to the original so used several small pieces.

 
These pieces were too tall and I needed to get them down to 8.5mm. I had this little compound table and figured I'd try and use it in conjunction with my Dremel stand.

 
It was not as easy as I'd hoped to get this set up. Just mounting it to the Dremel base took an age. I'd have it set right start tightening the bolts and a washer would slip and get stuck so I'd have to pull it off again, get it lined up, get the bolts back on, tighten, slip...... 🤬 I ended up having to lie on my back under it to get the bolts tightened and stop the washers slipping. Not made easier by my decision to use nylon lock nuts to stop them coming undone from the vibrations it would make. Then I wanted to mount it direct to the workbench, but the bolts I'd bought to ensure they fit flush underneath the Dremel base were too short to fit through the workbench top. I had to search the house for a piece of conti board to mount it on. Then I tried to get the bolts flush with the bottom of that, but I didn't have the right bit to drill out the nut recess and I ended up wrecking the first set of holes. Luckily the bolts would sit either side of the workbench piece so I just let them poke out and then attached it to the bench with some grip clamps.

 
At least it worked! 😃

 
But it was slow. Really slow. It had at least given me a platform to be able to get at the edge that needed removing, which was nigh on impossible in a vice. So I cracked out the "rough cut" file and used that instead.

 
Now I needed to look at the side that would attach to the armour, make sure it didn't hang over the edge or cover any screw holes. So I transferred the pattern over to the underside where they'd live.

 
I'd also need to check some pieces against the original. As you can see here, the long straight piece would interfere with the fan and would need to be trimmed.


 
It took a little while to get them all done, filing angles onto the corners to get them to fit properly as well. I had to file a bit, check it's alignment, file a bit more, but eventually I had them all done and stuck down with double sided tape for a test fit.

 
It needed some more work doing to it. The fins of the chipset heatsink hit the angle and they were also still too tall. Must have measured that wrong thing as I needed to take at least 2mm off.

 
Back to the shed I went, filing away like a man possessed. Luckily the "rough cut" file can take material off pretty quick when given some welly. As the clamps on the compound table went to about the height I wanted I could use that to gauge where I was and just give a few final strokes with a second cut file to smooth and make sure they were level. I also changed the setup on the corner that sticks out. After filing the original piece out there was barely anything left to stick it down with, so I made a new piece to point outwards and took some of the other piece to give it some room.

 
And it fit! 😃 🤘

 
The compound table had taken a fair bit of abuse though. It's only a cheap chineseum ebay one with an aluminium bed, so fairly soft material compared to the nuts and bolts of the clamping mechanism.

 
I wanted to stick the pieces together as a single unit before fitting to the motherboard armour, so I got one of the old card templates and glued it to the original armour plate I made, then stuck the pieces to that with double sided tape.

 
Then give it a test fit just to make sure everything was in the right place. Good to go! 👌

 
Now it's time for our good old friend JB Weld 🤩

 
The original plan was just to put some on the joins to stick them together, maybe spread a little to reinforce, but things kind of got out of hand 🤪 At least I can be #### well sure it'll be stuck together 😂

 
I then turned my attention to the armour piece itself. I gave all the edges a good sanding, try and get rid of the filing marks. It was filthy after so I gave it a wash, which took the paper from the template off. The finish underneath was still decent so wont require too much work to put a nice finish on, so I covered it in masking tape to protect it. This top edge had been bothering me a bit. I'd cut it too tall but I didn't know if I wanted it brought down flat or at an angle to match the M.2 heatsink.

 
After asking around a bit, the general consensus was to angle it and I do think that would look better there. I just wasn't sure if it would look out of place being as all the other edges are flat. Didn't take too long to sort it out and it does look so right.

 
I'm waiting on a final piece to finish off the armour, which has just taken way longer than it should have. Probably didn't need to do all this for the chipset cooler, probably could have left it and it would have been fine, or made it simpler, but sometimes I just have to do things right or it will bug me to oblivion. In the mean time I can finally start working on something else, but that's all for now folks. See you next time for "what crappy overcomplicated next" :winking: Same Crap time, same Crap channel.

Hi all back with my weekly update and over the last week iv started to fit the waterloop.
I started with the gpu waterblock which I always get nervous doing.
When I figured out what way the pipes would run I started bending.when I got all the pipes in i filled with distilled water to test for leakes and clean the system out.
Now I've got to adjust the pipe and change the coolant to white. Its getting close now not much left to do so hopefully next week my build will be done.😁
 

Welcome back Crapfans!
Has it been 2 weeks already!? Time just has very little meaning or reference any more and it can really get away from you. Let call it a mid season break 😉
In the last episode, I got close to finishing a piece of motherboard armour before #### up drilling out a couple of holes, but there were some little tweaks I wanted so not the end of the world. I used the original drawing I'd done on card and cut out a new section to fit around the SATA ports, took a few snips to get it right and then I could transfer the measurements onto a copy from the scan I'd made.

 
So I went to print out a couple of copies of the scanned design but they didn't look quite right. Measuring it against my cut out I could see it was clearly too small. Odd. Tried printing again checking that the print options weren't resizing, now it was too big. What!? No matter what I tried, 4 or 5 different programs, on the JPEG or the PDF versions, countless settings, I could not get it to print the correct size. So frustrating, but I had the cut-out and I could trace round that. It'd likely add a degree of inaccuracy, but what you gonna do?

 
Now I knew I had the holes for this pieces mounting screws correct, so I used them as reference points and took measurement from there to both of the M.2 cover's screw holes. Using a compass I could use those measurements to plot against each other and get the locations. Simples!

 
I'd got myself some proper mounting glue so the paper sat flusher to the metal.

 
But then stupidly used cutting lubrication to drill a hole for the jigsaw which of course dissolved the glue in that corner 🙄

 
Didn't take long to have it cut out though and no further mistakes thankfully.

 
I worked my way round the piece filing down the edges, it was going really well at first, nice and straight and flat, but it got harder and harder to get it right and I realised my files were getting clogged. I tried freeing them up with a cat brush (as it has similar thin pins to a file bush) but it didn't work that well and they just got too clogged to carry on.

 
So I went to Screwfix and picked up a set of Magnusson files. I have a set of their pliers and a wire stripper and they're decent so thought they'd do. Plus they came with a file brush. The file brush broke on the second stroke 😠  So I went to take them back but they're not accepting returns at the minute with all the pandemic shenanigans. I ordered myself a nice set of Bacho files and while I waited I thought a little more use of the Magnusson ones won't hurt, I'd almost finished when the file brush broke so I'll get the basic outline done, leave a smidge to finish with my new one's once they arrive. The edge next to the SATA ports would need to slope with their profile.


 
It didn't quite fit and would need some little tweeks in quite a few places. I decided to wait till my new files came, in theory they should be better and allow for finer adjustment than the others and I didn't want to take the mick if I was returning them.

 
While waiting for the new files I didn't rest idle. I stripped all the sleeving off the fans...

 
... did some prototyping with card for parts of the mod coming later...

 
... had some stencils made by the guys at 4D Model Shop, top quality work and quick turnaround....

 
... then I had to do a photoshoot for the album cover of a cat boy band I manage, Mew Kitts on the Block.

 
Then the Files Arrived! 😃

 
After installing the handles on most of them I thought "Hey, I should do a video on how to mount file handles", so I filmed one, wasn't great, shot another and I mumbled a lot. Shot another one, was a great take, went to watch it back aaaaand I'd hit the selfie camera button so had filmed the wrong direction. 😖 And that was the last file. 😤 Still, They were all in with only 1 minor mishap from when the hole wasn't big enough for the tang. Luckily for you that was on film
😂🤣
 

 
I started with the edges that sat against the sloped sides of the M.2 heatsinks and added an angle to them for better fitting, top right and bottom left.

 
I trimmed a bit more off the SATA port edge so it could sit in properly and drilled the 2 mounting holes to check it all fit properly. So far so good.

 
Now, despite having done umpteen measurements to get the hole position the the M.2 screws, I was worried about history repeating itself and started doubting myself. To check I had those measurements right I used the cutout I'd done by card and punched holes through into all the threaded mounts. The I lined up the 2 mounting holes and marked where the holes for the M.2 screws were.

 
Now a bit more confident I drilled the holes out, just 2mm to start with and you know what? If I'd drilled them where I'd originally marked they would have been perfect 😅😭

 
It's not easy to see in the picture but they were just out, but that's why I started with a 2mm hole, I needed to get it to 5.5mm so I had room to adjust and correct, first with this nifty carbide milling bit.

 
Then when it was big enough I switched to using a file, while is a bit more controllable. By twisting the file into it, then rotating back and forth it would gradually increase the hole.

 
I'd file a little out, dust it off and then check it on the board to see how it was going. If I needed to move the hole over in a particular direction I'd file that side with a needle file, before returning to the larger file to round the hole out.

 
Until eventually.....

 
Success! 😃🤘 A real snug fit too which is just perfect. I could leave those screws in and have a quick reference to work on any minor adjustments that were needed. With a little trim of the top edge along the PCIE slot, a few other minor tweaks and a bit of finishing all round it was almost done.

Now I just needed to drill the other holes out to allow the mounting screws to sit flush. The mounting points sit about 1.1mm below the bottom edge of the alu, so I'll be attaching a couple of washers to the underside for the screw to fit into and the whole thing would actually rest on them then. Almost done! :happy: Oh and spraying clear plastidip on the underside to prevent shorts. Then put a brushed finish to the top and apply a clear coat. And some other bits. So no, not nearly finished. 🙄 lol
Since it had been a while I thought now was as good a time as any to drop in and give you an update. Hopefully I'll have it ACTUALLY finished next time. So stay tuned crap fans. Same Crap time, same Crap channel.

Hi all back with my weekly update and over the last week iv started to fit the waterloop.
I started with the gpu waterblock which I always get nervous doing.
When I figured out what way the pipes would run I started bending.when I got all the pipes in i filled with distilled water to test for leakes and clean the system out.
Now I've got to adjust the pipe and change the coolant to white. Its getting close now not much left to do so hopefully next week my build will be done.😁
 

Finally starting to get some where now iv got all the parts to complete the build.
After 4 hours of trying to sort out my cables this is how it looks.
Iv also made a mounting plate for my top radiator to help make it fit better and also tried to make look like is floating 

Finally starting to get some where now iv got all the parts to complete the build.
After 4 hours of trying to sort out my cables this is how it looks.
Iv also made a mounting plate for my top radiator to help make it fit better and also tried to make look like is floating 

Finally starting to get some where now iv got all the parts to complete the build.
After 4 hours of trying to sort out my cables this is how it looks.
Iv also made a mounting plate for my top radiator to help make it fit better and also tried to make look like is floating 

Another update for this week, received a new delivery of parts, which is everything I need now, thanks Scan Computers and Thermaltake UK  :

Almost done on the painting side of things:

Also took a chunk off the motherboard tray and gave it a coat of paint:

And cut two plexiglas panels for the top and bottom to be modded (the top needs some more paint...):

 

I cut the middle out of the back panel welded a frame then added some more sprockets and brake discs and painted it all white then added the screen 

Gooood Moooorning Modding faaaaaaans!
So with the motherboard heatsinks nicely brightened I couldn't just stick that black plastic shroud back over them. Luckily I have some 2mm aluminium laying about that I've had forever and this will make an ideal replacement. I started by tracing round the the original cover, but because it has mounting struts and other stuff underneath, this was better done turned upside down to get it flush(er) against the paper, which is why the drawing is backwards. Then I took measurements for the rest of the board so that I could expand it out a bit and cover up more of the motherboard.

 
This is the area I want to cover, colour coding showing the original and then different additional bit that I might want to add.

 
I did the drawing on card so that it would stay relatively flat once cut out and got it lined up with the mounting point and punched them through. Once on the board it didn't look right having a lot of square corners given the boards original angular designs, so I marked out bits I'd want tweaking with rough angles from the heatsinks.

 
Back off the board I used the cover to get the proper angles and see about different levels of cropping.

 
Couple of snips later and I think we have a winner!

 
Now this was a fairly rough drawing so I then traced round this template in pencil and took to the drawing board to get all the lines true.

 
Again I used the original to get the angled lines in, it was an awkward angle and I don't have anything like a sliding bevel. I could still find ones that were out like the one I circled in orange.

 
With a couple of lines done this way I then turned the paper so the the angle was horizontal, checked them against each other to make sure they were correct and then filled in the rest. With the design completed I did a couple of photocopies and also scanned it for safe keeping.

 
From right to left we have the original plan, the final design, the photocopy to be used as a template and the aluminium, with the original cover centre and glue to stick the template on.

 
Only that's completely the wrong glue 😖 Looks more like spider spooge. 🤣

 
Still, it stuck that template down pretty good, if a little on the lumpy side. I also had to rub dirt around the edges where there was no paper to remove the tackiness of the glue and stop the jigsaw from sticking.

 
That very morning I had been reading up on a cool little scratch build someone was doing as their first mod and advising themon how to cut outside the line and file in, so what do I do on the very first cut? Cut BANG ON the line 🤬🙄 It was the edge on the far right next to the SATA ports so wasn't a complete catastrophe, but was very careful and took my time with the rest and came out fine, although the small vertical edge under the angular protrusion top right was hard to get at.

 
The Filing went ok, I'd bought a set of steel jaws for the workbench to clamp it in which helped keep it nice and steady. This tight angle was tough though as I didn't have a triangular file that matched or was under that radius. i had to edge in with the half round file, flipping it over every few strokes.

 
A bit of folded sand paper helped get it a bit tighter, but it put up a good fight,

 
Took a good lot of doing, had to go at it in a few goes to save me from injury. But was all this mess worth it?

 
It fits! 🤘

 
There were a couple of areas that needed work that I highlighted in green, either to straighten them up, change the angle or stop it overhanging headers I'll need access to.

 
Bang on. 👌

 
To get it to sit flush in the recesses of the M.2 heatsinks I needed to drill holes for the screws holding the heatsinks down. To mark where they were I put masking tape on the back, coloured the screw heads with whiteboard marker and pushed the piece onto them, being careful that it lined up with where it needed to sit. Seemed to work well.

 
I used a punch to mark the centre and make sure the drill bit didn't wander.

 
I thought the screw heads were 4mm so I drill a hole with a 4.2mm bit to give a little wiggle room, but I must have measure the wrong screws (the ones that will mount this to the motherboard i think) as they were a little too small. I needed 5.37mm holes minimum.

 
My step bit had a 7/32" step which is 5.56mm and would do the job nicely. Unfortunately, due to either a wandering bit or inaccuracies in how I got the positioning the top hole was just out. 😞

 
To be honest I wasn't THAT upset. There were a few edges that were a bit naff and there were a couple of tweaks I wanted to make, so I widened those holes a fair bit so I could get it into place, check the fitment elsewhere and make sure the markings for the mounting holes were accurate, which they were.

 
And just for fun I took off the paper and gave it a really quick and dirty "brushing" with a washing up scotch pad, but was mostly just from trying to get all that nasty glue off. Still looks pretty tasty 😍

 
It's a shame it's going to end up in the recycling, but for a first whack it's not gone too badly. I had prepared myself that it might take a couple of goes to get it right and with the design tweaks for Mk II already in my head, I wouldn't have been happy till I'd redone it anyway. So stay tuned crap fans! Plenty more of Makin's metal manipulation to come. Same Crap time, same Crap channel.

thanks andy 👍

Ahoy hoy mod fans!
While I was waiting for the rest of the parts to turn up before I could do anything further on the case, I set my sights on some of the internals that could do with some tweaking.



 
I needed to brighten the motherboard up as the main chamber of the case will have a bare metal finish and it would look like a black hole in amongst all the bright shiny metal. I've also never been much of a fan of modern motherboard heatsinks. I loved the fin-stacked heat-piped up solutions of yore and I'd even kept the one's off the Striker II NSE/Extreme boards for the ages after I'd binned the boards, but lost them in a move. 😔 What I did have was some Thermalright MOFSET heatsinks and a beefy Supermicro 1U copper cpu heatsink that I could use instead of or in combination with the existing ones

 
Time to get this board stripped down.

 
The CPU heatsink's mounting holes lined up perfectly with the mounting holes for the cover, almost like it was made to live there.

 
Not sure it's supposed to come out like that 😳

 
Was very lucky not to strip any pins out of the CPU. Can just imagine how well that conversation would have gone down with Thermaltake 😅 After that heart exploding moment I gave the CPU, block and board a bit of a cleansing.

 
This was the kind of setup I was looking at doing. I plan on milling a flat channel into the boards original heatsinks and using thermal glue to attach the Thermalright MOFSET heatsinks to them, rather than on there own. MOFSET sizes have grown a bit since these were made! There may be a bit of a fitting issue for the one on the left side MOFSET bank as it clashes a little with the IO shield. I'd rather keep that intact if possible.

 
Those original heatsinks would still be too dark as is though, so we'll have to do something about that gun metal grey anodising. First off taking the fan off the chipset cooler, stripping the thermal pads (after measuring the sizes for their replacement) and giving them a good clean with TIM cleaner to remove the grease from the thermal pads, before they go for a little dip.....

 
... in some of this horrid stuff. Also know as Sodium Hydroxide.

 
I'd picked up these old sweet containers to bathe the parts in and then rinse. Sadly I didn't get to eat the contents first, but given my ever increasing waistline that's probably for the best.

I'd given them a good clean several times over and then a thorough rinse as I didn't want any contaminants in there that may react with the Sodium Hydroxide.
You'll have to forgive me for the lack of pictures of the process, I was dolled up to the 9's in PPE (including a waterproof coat with a bin bag over it, was quite a sight) and didn't fancy getting my phone out whilst in the middle of it all. I placed the 3 tubs in the bath, seemed like a good place to do it as there's good ventilation in the bathroom and if things go south it can turn the taps on and ditch it down the drain quick. With the drain on my left, I used the left most container to have the solution in. I filled the other 2 with water as a 2 stage rinsing set up. I put 1 litre of water into the other and added 50g of sodium hydroxide crystals in gradually, in about 5 or 6 stages, mixing thoroughly with a toothbrush I had to scrub the pieces as the anodising came off. I used cold water to control/slow the reaction a bit so I could leave the pieces in long enough to get all the anodising off, without it just eating the aluminium away
I put the large MOFSET cooler in first as I figured it could probably do with going in when it was fresh. It took a little while to get going and do anything, but sure enough bubbles started to come. I turned it over a few times, giving a little whirl in the fluid and you could see the colour fall off it. I then started giving it a helping hand with the toothbrush, especially in the little gaps. When the anodising had all come off I pulled it out and gave it a gentle shake, dropped it into the next tub with the clean water in, gave it a good whirl in there and and gentle clean with a second tooth brush, then into the third container for more fresh water, before finally putting it on some kitchen towels I'd set to the side to dry off. I then repeated the process with the rest of the pieces.
The end result was better than I ever could have imagined 😍

 
The Aluminium on the newly stripped heatsinks is so bright, almost white. Look how it contrasts here to a piece of Aluminium sheet that I've had for a few years.

 
And they look so good on the motherboard too! Super chuffed with the result. At least 3 chufty badges!

 
Sadly the copper cpu block isn't going to fit, although given it's gargantuan size it shouldn't be all that surprising. I could have had a go at cutting off a corner here and there to get it to fit, but I don't think I've got the tools for the job and I'd probably end up ruining it. In all honesty with the amount of silver that's going to be around, the copper would probably look out of place anyway. Best to keep that for another day.

 
I had a little test fit with the MOFSET heatsinks, either just sat on or with the help of an old thermal pad. Still not convinced that one on the left if going to fit without interfering with the IO shield.

 
Thought I could maybe switch that one to the lower M.2 slot cooler. 🤔



 
In all honesty I'm not entirely convinced. Now I've got the stock heatsinks stripped, they look pretty dam cool. I have to be 100% sure as if I commit to it and it doesn't look good with the heatsinks on, I'll have wrecked the originals, so there's no going back. That can go on the back burner for now. There's a lot to be done still and I can always come beck to it later. It does look pretty dam sweet as is though.
 

We got some new parts! 👏

Huge thanks to the guys at Scan (and DPD) for getting these over to us.🙌
Lots of fittings and adapters, a couple of litres of coolant, some 1m tubes for longer runs and backup for the inevitable mistakes, a nice thick rad and 9 of Thermaltake's new Riing Quad fans which I'm looking forward to getting snazzy with the NeonMaker software. I am NOT looking forward to the cable/sleeving job of 9 RGB fans 😭
Now putting heatsinks to one side, I'm still not done with the motherboard and whilst I have done some more stuff, it's not finished and I don't want to put it out half baked. I had hoped to finish it today but after 3 days of working on it on and off, this morning my body said no. 🤕 This seemed like a good place as any for a little update though, I hope you all enjoyed the show. For now I'll leave you with one last shot of those heatsinks in all their glittery glory. Hopefully I'll have another update for you later this week, so stay tuned crap fans! Same Crap Time, same Crap channel.

Checkout my update video 
Colin_vid_2.wmv