Project: Deuce

[Tech-Daddy]

Thank guys... pulled the masking this morning (should have pulled it last night... live and learn)

Have some wetsanding to do to knock the edge down a bit, and prep for the next "stripe". I'll likely put these outside to cure a bit.

On a seperate note... we all start somewhere...
And I wnat to learn how to do True Fire.

I have never done this folks, never. I have a DVD and a set of templates to help guide me... but my airbrush's paint valve kept staying open, so I was having lots of difficulty tapering my ends. Would release the paint and carry through my air and my motion, but the paint spring just kept pushing paint... then it would click shut... very frustrating.

After about the 4th or 5th mistake, I kinda ran with it... then I started nesting other template designs into it, so see how they would look when sprayed. So, this is like a proof of concept... pre-ALPHA! LOL!!

ANYWAY... not expecting to set the world on fire (*giggle*) but I figured you would like to see what an uber noob does with a finiky airbrush in his free time!

Started out with just a panel from a dead case. Did not sand it smooth, just laid a coat of black over it to give a good, dark back canvas.

Early stage:

Then I cleared it after a few more color swaps here. Now I know why pros have multiple airbrushes! Color shanges are very time consuming when you only have one airbrush!

Be gentile....

 

[Tech-Daddy]

I am a quite a bit upset at myself right now. I was test mounting my 120mm rad setup on the Swiftech "RadBox" that I bought to help with the external mounting. Well... one screw was too long. and it punctured my 120mm rad. the build continues.... and now my search is on to repair this rad.

My problem is that the hole is directly under the screw thread shroud. And the leak is a doozie. I just pushed water though the rad "beer bong" style...

a steady flow.

I'm quite pissed @ Swiftech right now, but I'm even more pissed at myself. I felt the tension on the screw, and told myself, "back it out. that one was odd"... but I did not...

drip... drip....

likely going to be either some metal epoxy or JB Weld... *IF* I can get it down there in between the fins.

frikken lovely....

 

[sbrehm72255]

That totally sucks........... . And radiators are a complete pain in the butt to repair correctly. The best solution would be to try and solder the thing, but in the place where the leak is, that's darn near impossible.

Remember to be extremely careful when mixing components between vendors, the screws that came with the radbox were/are designed to go with Swiftech radiators and their mounting backing is a bit different than HW Labs and others. That's why I always tripple check radiator mounting screws and cut them down as short as possibe so as to avoid this sort for problem.

 

[Tech-Daddy]

3 of the 4 screws worked flawlessly. I just missed the fact that it was a hair longer than the other 3. I just missed it.... but it was the ONLY screw in there that was that length.



It's my own fault, I know it. Just sucks. Let your guard down for a split second and piss away $50.

 

[NicePants42]

Let your guard down for a split second and piss away $50.

Look on the bright side - at least it wasn't a Thermochill radiator. Good luck fixing it.

 

[Tech-Daddy]

True that!


I pulled out the the trusty rivet gun, and put the base back on this beast! This will allow me to better work on the tubing and routing... I also got tired of seeing it hanging in the garage! Using some of the bitchen case feet from mnpctech, I think that says, "dont mess with me", even with NUTHIN in the chassis! Dontcha think?

I also had a brainstorm of an idea with the front bezel. Let's tear them down and have some fun... shall we?
Front of the undoctered unit:

Back of it, showing the tabs that must released to get the metal grill out:

Strip out the steel meshm and get to work!

base coat + blue and white flames:

Wonder what I've been doing this all with?

Metalcast blue:

Final result! I'd say that sets off the front nicely.

I need to get some lighting that will illuminate the front bezels, otherwise the flames are lost in the dark...

Also, during this moment, I found a way to do some flame work in a similar fashion, but that will give a really sweet effect! Going to need an extra set of hands though to make it happen. Wifey has already volunteered. *yay!*

Also, my fans and my replacement rad should be here tomorrow!

*double yay!*

 

[sbrehm72255]

That looks just too cool......... Well done..............

 

[Tech-Daddy]

I agree bro!

I started working on the back end of the mod, and was thinking that the fan situation that I have in mind was going to be a bit cluttered. I did not like that thought at all. I planned on having a white LED fan on the inside of the case acting as exhaust, that would then be screwed to an external radbox, that would then have another fan and the external 120mm radiator. The radbox and fan buy me a little space to display some tubing and such, but having 2 fans back in the rear... how would I power 2 of them without having a mess of cabling?

If you remember, *waaayyyy* back in the build on BOSS, there was a power supply mod that I did not incorporate, it used the twist on "CB Radio" type connectors now being seen on some power supplies. Well... I still had those connectors, so my plan was to run a 2 wire (12v and ground) independent to that section of the case. soldering the 12v and ground into the legs of the connector receptacle, I then soldered another set of short legs off of the solder point, and heat shrinked the joint. I then took those 12v and ground legs and soldered them onto the fan power and ground lines, and covered those joints with black heat shrink.

This effectively minimized the 8 inches of fan cord to less than an inch. If I Have to replace this fan... it will be a bear!

The external fan will have a cable treatment performed to it that will mate it to the male end of the joint/plug, being sure to keep 12v and ground properly designated, and will plug into the other side of what you see in the below picture.

Going to Home Depot tomorrow, then maybe a bike shop or an auto shop... looking for some small diameter steel tubing

 

[Tech-Daddy]

Here is a little Turkey day post of the work I have done over the past week or so....

My goal is to have the power cabling for the rear fans stealthed except for the area where the wires feed into the fans. now. Knowing that I was going to have a 120mm rad on the back, and I wanted to have an exhaust fan inside the case (components will still need airflow!), I opted to put a Swiftech rad box up between the exhaust area and the fan for the rad. This will help to break up the airflow coming out from the case, and the radbox gives the rad fan about an inch of intake space to grab it's cool air from. Powering 2 fans from an internal/external location was going to be a bit of a challenge, and I came up with the idea of just having both fans share the same 12v run. As such I put in a passthrough port, attached the + and - onto the supply side of the passthrough, and then built a cable to the external most fan on the rad using the female of the connector. Initially, I was using 1 inch aluminum spacers, but thought they looked a bit too tall, so I dropped them to 1/2 inch ones, and thought that they looked much batter. I have to grind out a litle on the Radbox in the space in front of the case holes for the hoses, else I have a bit of a creasing of the hose as they pass by the sharp edge of the radbox. Enough talking... Here are the results:

Backside of the connector with the split for the fan on this side, as well as the feed for the other side.

Alum standoffs @ 1 inch... a bit to tall for my liking, so I bought some shorter ones.

This shows the power line coming off the fan going past the external connector...

Shorter assembly height, and a shorter fan power cable, looks much better!

Closeup of the rear cable assembly.

How it looks from the top. You can see the barb location as well as the holes where the tubing will come through.

 

[Tech-Daddy]

Well... hello everyone!
Due to the holidays, "real life" took a serious stick to my free time. Work has been an absolute leech, and then you have the holidays between my last post and this post. It's been tough, and I am *very* sorry for not having the time or the energy over the last 1.5 months. That kind of a gap in a log is not very professional, and I apologize to anyone who has been thinking I fell off the earth....

All that said, I've got an update!
WOOT!


I was able to grab some time this last weekend and make more progress. I call this update:
"WTF are you building??!?"

So grab some popcorn and have some fun! Here we go!

2 screws, a threaded standoff and a double coax staple... huh?
...

stick with me folks, I'm kinda proud this!

The staple come with a nail in the plastic housing... that gets yanked

Then I put the plastic piece in a vice and using a manual hand drill I bore the hole out that the nail was passed through:

Then, to get one of the longer screws through the plastic, I very carefully hit the hole with a 1/4" bit in a power drill and dig out a recession of the screw head to sit in, and that also gives a bit more thread exposed on the bottom end:

Then I screw on the threaded standoff:

And we have a finished... something!

But wait...wait... "Tech-Daddy, there were 2 screws in the picture? Where does the other one go?"
Glad you asked! I take those and screw them through the frame of the back panel of the computer chassis:

Then I screw in the other end of the threaded standoff to the exposed threads of the screw I just put in place:

Kinda neat... but looks lonely:

That's better... but what are they for? Well... remember that fan junction that I built that ties the internal and external fans together? Well... I still need to get 12v and ground to that location... and anyone who knows me knows that the cables will not simply "fly" across the case. So, I take the cables, and where they will be seen, I make them appealing. I'm actually running a single cable inside each tube:

I like how that looks! I run the lines up to the structural cross bar that spans the entire side of the case, and I run my 12v and ground lines inside that piece of steel. Once it gets to the front of the case, they drop out and begin their trek down the 5.25 bay area. So I clad those lines in tubing again and built 2 more standoffs and attached them to 2 holes in bays that I will not be using:

There you go! Tastefully done power, front to back, and you will only see what I want you to see of it!

 

[Tech-Daddy]

As for the 3 hard drive bays that are inserted in the bottom of the case in that cage adaptor thingy, it has a spot for a 120mm fan on the front of it, and I am going to use it. But, unlike the fans elsewhere in the case, I dont want to put a lit LED fan there, as the back light will screw up the front mesh panel flame effect, so I instead went for a nice and quiet black fan. I knew that the cabling was never going to be seen, so I did not sleeve it... but I did blast it several times with vinyl dye then attach it to an electric screw driver and twist it, then touch it up with the vinyl dye. I like that look a lot better...

I also put on foam, noise isolating, neoprene insulators to each screw contact point:

Mounted it up:

The res's may be relocated. This was just an idea I was bantering around.

I've also started experimenting with different types of lighting, these are what some vendors call pirahanna lights:

Neat thing about these lights is that they run off of 12v DC, and can be cut into blocks of 3. No resistors needed. Put a bit of double stick tape on these and put them where you want! these are stiff PCB material so they are not really flexible... but I'm going to be trying some other possible items later on...

And... OMG! I need to clean up my make shift router table... what on earth could I be working on that would create a mess like this?!!?

Well... you are going to have to wait! I have more tools on order to hopefully bail me out of the jam that I have created. More on the results of this mess later!

So, there you have it... more later on as I get to it!
-=TD

 

[NicePants42]

Nice work with the power cabling! Slick move with the crossbar. Are you going to leave the sleeving black?

 

[Tech-Daddy]

Contemplating that... I think I will... but I might have another trick up my sleeve on those cables... just thought of it!

Will need to try a proof of concept to see if it is viable...

 

[Merlin]

I have been trying to work with another painter here in the Dallas area that could perform a specific type of painting. I will place one more call to them tomorrow, and I hope we can work something out... but I grow weary of the non returned phone calls. As such, the frame has just been a sticking point. I'm afraid to paint until I knew how the frame was going to turn out.

SO.... in response to the joker taking so long to work with me.... I took the time to ready my airbrushing system!
This was my old workhorse, heheheh!





I put the splitting manifold in place for a 2nd air line that I plan on running to a reel that will be suspended from the middle of the garage ceiling. I will attach another hose on the manifold, route the tube neatly, then terminate it to a 50 foot hose on the reel. I'll run my air tools off of there (when I get them... and can locate the damned hose reel buried somewhere in my frikken garage!!! )

That all adds up to a 21 gal compressor with 2 moisture traps terminating to a 3 way manifold .

That looks like a great airbrush setup


Merlin

 

[Tech-Daddy]

Merlin... I need to shoot some new pics of the extended airbrush setup I just picked up!

I have *finally* come to the decision that I made that mess of blue acrylic... and I will have nothing to show for it.

So, I sat down for a few hours and taught myself some stuff in photoshop, and Corel Draw...

And came up with a file that I can use to cut what I was trying like hell to create manually (without much success mind you!)

I'm going to show you guys here what I'm up to... and *hopefully* in a week or two, I'll have the acrylic cut, shaped and looking like I hope it will. My main concern is going to be strength, and will the thin spots hold up.... I dunno. I've never done this before! Matter of fact, I don't think anyone has done this before... so, there may be a reason this has "not been done before"...

So... keeping in mind that this is going to be cut through 1/4" transparent blue acrylic...

The rad will be supported by 4 legs, one for each corner. My plan is to have the rad further back on the top of the case, and the front legs actually at an angle progressing from the leading edge of the top, up and back to the rad.

Most all of the flames will be heated and bent.

The long side between the front and back legs will be bent down to the side and bottom edge of the long side of the 240 rad these will adorn. Those flames will actually wrap under the rad and lick around the fans on the underside, providing a set of supports for the rad to rest in. The ends will be heated to fold down and encapsulate the rad.

There will be no screws holding this together, the rad will be completely wrapped in acrylic flames and held in by the heating and bending of the flames to make them hold the rad in place.... that is my plan at least!

The legs will wrap through the hole I cut in the top, and then bend into a bracket that I am in the process of designing. I am hoping to keep this whole attachment mechanism screwless and clean.

There are plans to light this thing with LED's, but due to the density of the material, I've been having a bit of an issue getting good results illuminating the material... but if I can get the edges polished properly, then the light will hopefully flow from the edges....

but this is what I have been working on, and I think I am really, close to having 1 or 2 to prototype with and see if it will work!

Wish me luck! I've also got my sons pinewood derby happening tomorrow, and I need to wrap up on the weights in that car tomorrow... WHEEEEE!!! Lots of garage time over the past few weeks! And I've almost got something to show for it!

Hold on just a bit longer guys!

 

[Merlin]

Awwwwww I liked that metal blue that you painted.
Man, you spent a lot of time getting it right and it looks great.

Merlin

 

[Merlin]

And came up with a file that I can use to cut what I was trying like hell to create manually (without much success mind you!)


quote
; So... keeping in mind that this is going to be cut through 1/4" transparent blue acrylic...


Looks like a hot wire cutter would do the trick.
I have one to cut my stencils in lexan and acrylic.
lemme see if I can find the link.

http://www.internethobbies.com/woodscensubh1.html

not a bad price for 23 bucks.

got mine at hobbytown USA
http://www.hobbytown.com/

If you go slow you can cut some really fine cuts.
And to get the ends to glow with a light, heat flame the edges.

looks like a great template there of flames

Merlin

 

[Tech-Daddy]

First time in a long time that a weekend has rolled around that was not :
1) Too cold to paint
2) Too humid to paint
3) Too busy with family
4) Too busy with work

Well... those things were not in the works on Sunday! Yay!

Got some time to go clean my neglected airbrush and try to fix it... and got it working much better! I still have a minor hanging issue with it... but it will get better and I continue to work on it.

So, after cleaning, I sprayed black over the 1st set of flames that I experimented with, and tried v2.

Came up with this:

Not bad, for my second time *ever* working on laying out flames freehand. I learned a lot. And will apply it to the next panel I experiment with. Hopefully I'll get back out there in the garage this week, and spray some more while the knowledge is fresh in my head.

I know it aint pro... it was more a concept for color and application. Was not intended to be smooth, as the layer I painted over on the bottom was not smooth, and I got some stuff on my french curcves that attached itself to the surface of the panel... no biggie.

But these pics have 2 layers of clear to allow me to see what paint would show after the CC process....

 

[Merlin]

I know what you mean about the weather, seems either too cold or ect. ect.
Nice green flames, even looks 3D in aspect.
I want to do a few more true fire then to blue flames then green flames.
I even have an idea for a small graphic for the car.

Merlin

 

[Rob Williams]

Looking great TD! Are those flames going to remain the same color on the final product? I like the fact that you are experimenting with the color and not going down the same road so many have with generic coloring.