Skulduggery. skinflint case mod

Hi, I'm a newb here so thought I would start by posting a work log of my latest project called "Skullduggery"

Skulduggery:
Underhanded or unscrupulous behaviour; also : a devious device or trick.

As usual, my budget is to spend as little as possible so I will be using an old case and turning it (literally) into a more modern style case with the case/motherboard turned through 90 degrees and with some paint and graphics to reflect the name Skullduggery.

Afraid there wont be many shots of new shiny PC parts as I will be using the hardware from my present PC, i5-2500k @4.4GHz, Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3 mobo, 8GHz Corsair Vengeance LP RAM, MSI GTX 780 Twin Frozr OC, the mobo is a bit dated and basic but the system plays Skyrim with an ENB plus loads of other mods at 60fps which is all I need at the moment so I can't complain.

Welcome to Skullduggery.


One of the few new parts I'll be using is an Aerocool Touch fan speed controller




It looks well made and the metal side mounting brackets are quite thick and substantial, the controller also has USB3 ports so I won't have to mount a USB port bracket on the case.


I'm using a big old fugly Thermaltake case which was the first case I ever bought for my first PC build, think it was around 2001-2,






I've been using this case as a test bed for a while which is why it has a rather lost looking micro ATX motherboard in it


The fact that this case is quite high at 52cm means it can be rotated 90 degrees (the front of the case now becomes the base of the case) so it will have the proportions that I what, slightly longer than it is higher.

First thing was to remove the front door and plastic cover and strip out the drive bays and all the fittings so I had a clean space to work in, the basic layout will be similar to the Silverstone Fortress case with two 180mm fans at the base of the case


first job was to make a template for the fan platform, I was going to make a separate panel to fit in the bottom of the case to mount the PSU on but then realised it would be a neater solution to incorporate that into the fan platform, so it now becomes the fan and PSU platform.


Once I had the template worked out I transferred the measurements to a piece of 2mm sheet steel to size and marked out the fan cutouts, PSU cutout and the fold lines and set to work with the jig saw and the files and also drilled the fan mounting holes and the PSU mounting bolt holes.


With the cutouts done now I had to do some folding to make the platform,


I have a small sheet metal folder that clamps into a vice which does quite a good job



I had to make four folds on the platform to make the shape needed to give it some height and managed to get the folds right (almost messed one up and bent it in the wrong direction!)




The finished fan and PSU platform



It fits pretty good in the case,


the platform is 20mm high so I fitted a piece of 20mm square profile under the platform in the middle to add some support.


I'm using two silverstone 180mm fans with rubber mounts




a check shows that the fans and PSU all fit and line up correctly, the original case metal under the platform will be cut out so it's not restricting the fans but I'm leaving it there for now until I'm sure that none of it will be needed to attach anything to, I wont be using the PSU in these shots I have a Seasonic in my present PC which will be used.


Time to use my new toy, a metal cutting slide saw which will greatly reduce the amount of hack sawing I have do (my right shoulder is a bit knackered) and also it cuts nice straight lines and angles.

The case will have a new cover fitted to what is now the top of the case, I thought about using the original front cover and door on the top but it's way too ugly so I'm going to make a new cover.


I cut some 6x50mm ally flat


and some square 20x20mm ally profile, this metal is for the cover that will fit on top of the case and cover the I/O panel and all the leads, there will also be a fan fitted into the cover which will have some mesh fitted to allow plenty of air flow.


My machine shop, drill and stand with drill vice, £20 from a boot sale, always keep your work space clean and tidy


All the metal cut to size and shaped with the mounting holes drilled, I've cut the side rails so they are tapered towards the front to add a bit of shape to the cover,


tapped a 6mm thread into the profile centres, I'm using some square profile and some profile with a curved side to make the end parts of the cover


and bolted it all altogether.


Cut some more metal this time some 3mm ally flat and drilled the mounting holes, these pieces bolt to the profiles and hold them together to stop them twisting and help strengthen the cover.


Before fitting the top cover I drilled out the old pop rivets as they were sticking up and would prevent the cover from sitting flat on the case top and replaced them with some 3mm countersunk headed bolts.


Drilled the end profiles and tapped 6mm threads into them and bolted the 3mm bracing plates to them and finally got to try the cover on the case.






Now you can see the overall shape of the case, simple, uncluttered, that's how I want it,
if your thinking it's a bit over engineered just for a top cover, your absolutely right but all will be revealed in my next post assuming all goes to plan.
That's all for now, Swarfman

Wow, looks great so far. You've got some metal skillz there sir.

I always liked those cases, they were pretty popular back then. I have a variant of that case, it's an apevia. I used it from 2004-2010 for my main rig, when I built new, I just retired that rig to my home office.

Can't wait to see what you do next.

Thanks very much DraginDime, I'll be posting an update very soon, I'm pretty useless at making worklogs as I keep forgetting to take pictures which usually means that my updates cover quite a lot rather than each individual holed that was drilled but I get there in the end

This looks promising. Sub'd!

The Skulduggery build has been going well so time for an update, as I mentioned previously the top cover I made might seem a bit over engineered but the reason for this is the cover is going to be hinged (for easy access to the I/O panel, leads and fans) and powered by a gas strut to open it, these gas struts might be small but they are quite powerful and if the cover was not strong enough the strut would push the cover out of shape and distort it so it would not sit squarely on the case.



There is formula for working out the strength of the strut you will need for any given application but I didn't use any of that having used these struts before on a few things like cupboard doors, I had a rough idea what I would need so I bought two struts a 50N and an 80N and the 80N unit works fine.

First job was to drill the mounting points for the hinges on the rear profiles and tap a 6mm thread in them,


I've used two 75mm steel hinges these hinges can support a six foot door so they should be strong enough for the cover



bolted the hinges on and put the cover on the case and lined it up squarely and clamped it in place so I could mark the mounting points for the hinges on rear panel of the case.

Drilled the mounting points in the case, rounded off the corners of the hinges to make them look a bit better and bolted the hinges to the case, amazingly, it all lines up and works.




Now the fun bit, fitting the strut









positioning and bolting on the bottom strut mounting was straight forward enough but now I had to work out where the top mounting point for the strut needed to go these struts are difficult to compress by hand and hold in that position whilst trying to work out the angle needed to open the cover so using clamps I tried the top strut mount at various angles until I got it right



after some trial and error, a lot of bad language and clamps slipping off and trying to take my head off I finally got the right position where the strut extends the full amount and opens the cover enough to gain access



and when the strut compresses down to the fully closed position it just goes over centre so the struts top mount is actually pointing down very slightly so the strut is pushing the cover down and holding it closed



The top and bottom strut mounts were not quite in line so I made a spacer to fit behind the struts top mounting point to straighten it up, the strut must be mounted in a straight line so it only pushes the cover up vertically and not to the left or right and off line



drilled the top mounting bolt holes and countersunk them





and bolted on the top mount to the cover side rail.













I was a bit lucky with the strength of the strut I chose as it works really nice and the cover lifts in a slow controlled quite graceful way.



The cover is 50mm high so there is enough room for the leads when plugged in and enough room for the graphics cable which will fit onto a 90 degree adapter, all the leads will run through a pci slot and exit through the base of the case.


Time to start fitting the Touch screen fan controller



I'm using the original drive cage and the brackets that come with the case, it's certainly not a quick tool-less mounting system as in many cases today but this case is about fifteen years old.

The mounting brackets are screwed onto the fan controller



and act as rails which align it in place, also drilled some new mounting holes in the drive cage



the spring clips on the brackets lock the controller in place.
With the fan controller fitted I could now work out the measurements for cutting the hole in the front panel of the case



the case marked out for cutting



Used the angle grinder with a cutting wheel fitted, one of my favourite tools


and finished it off accurately with files.





I'm only using two drives, a 3TB HDD and a 128GB SSD and I'm re-using one of the original HDD cages to mount them in which is in turn will be mounted inside the 5.25" drive cage, I'm not fitting an internal DVD drive/burner as I have an external USB drive.



To secure the HDD cage I made a mounting bracket to fit inside the cage, first drilled two holes in the cage and countersunk them



then fitted a piece of ally bar with holes drilled in it to line up with the holes inside the cage and secured it with some countersunk bolts,



once the mounting bracket was fitted inside I drilled a 5mm hole through the cage and the ally mounting bracket and tapped a 6mm thread in it



the HDD cage could now be mounted in the 5.25" drive cage and held in place by a single 6mm socket headed bolt.





Drilled some mounting holes for the drive cage in the top of the case and bolted the drive cage and fan controller in place.

the HDD cage fitted inside the 5.25" drive cage with the USB header cable running through it





finally got the 5.25" drive cage fitted in the case and the touch screen lined up







I want a minimal look to the front panel so I'm using a low profile power switch,





cut a hole for the switch and mounted it,





didn't want the LED holder sticking out of the front panel so made a bracket that the power LED fits into





the bracket is held in place by the power switch lock nut,





the head of the LED just fits into the small hole in the panel but doesn't stick out.






Started work on the case door, the original plexiglass in the door got broken years ago but that didn't matter as the door was going to have a solid metal panel fitted because it was going to be painted



first thing was to cut off the door latch mounting plate from the door frame as I wasn't going to use the latch then cleaned the old paint off down to the bare metal,







I would use the old plexi mounting holes to mount the new metal panel to but there was some holes in the door frame that I didn't need so I filled them in with solder and filed/sanded them down until smooth, once painted you wont know they were there.





I'm using the side panel from another old case, it has a vent pattern on one side which I wanted to keep



sanded off the paint and cut the edges off the panel so it was flat and shaped it a bit so it fitted inside the door frame



and drilled the mounting holes to line up with the holes in the door frame.



Because the door will be painted I had to make sure there was no gaps around the edges between the new panel and the door frame so I made some clamping strips from ally





these would use the panel mounting holes and bolt down on the panel edges and clamp the panel and door frame together


3mm countersunk headed screws hold it all together.



The complete door with new panel fitted









no nasty gaps to mess with the paint and graphics.


As there is no longer a door catch I simply used a small magnet to hold the door closed, being a magnet it just clamps to the steel case and is easily strong enough to hold the door in place.


Now to fit some fans


new fans a 140mm and a 120mm with white LED's these fans will go inside the top cover



cut the case out so the hole lined up and with the fan, drilled four holes for the rubber fan mounts, these mounts are so much quicker and easier than screws



fitted the fan to the rubber mounts and job done.




The 140mm fitted, bit of a tight fit but it's in there.

I was also going to fit a 120mm fan on the top just above the pci slots but I'm not sure it's really necessary so I'm going to leave it for now and see what the temps in the case are like when it's up and running, my present PC has two 180mm fans in the base of the case and a 140mm on the top just like this build and it works fine and moves plenty of air so adding a 120mm fan probably wont help much.




Time to cut out the horrible square mesh panels that the original 80mm fans fitted into, could you make them any uglier!




and cut some honeycomb mesh to fit in the space,





drilled four holes in the top panel and used pop rivets with small washers to fix the mesh in place.



cut some more mesh to fit into the pci slots,



just a quick bend and used the pci slot screws to fix the mesh in place,



the motherboard and gpu in the picture are just for reference, I'll be using a GTX780 gpu so I had to leave two pci slots clear for that bigger card and the last pci slot is left clear for all the leads to run through.

Didn't want a reset button on the front panel so I mounted it inside the the top cover on the top panel




all it needed was a hole drilled and bolt it in place.



That's it for now, I'm not using feet on the case instead I have an idea to use rails that run the whole length of the case so I better go and design something

Looking great! Keep up the good work! (^^,)

Time for an update


The top cover needed some mesh fitted to it


so I cut some 12mm ally angle to make two struts that the mesh could be mounted to,






drilled and tapped 4mm mounting holes on the cover side rails and bolted on the struts,




the mesh sits on the struts which cover up the mesh edges when seen from above and give a neat finish,


the mesh is bolted at the front and back of the cover


with ally plates to cover up the mesh edges,


that's the cover finished for now.



I wanted to cover up the top cover mounting hinges


and used some 6 x 50mm ally flat, this would be an easy job if I had a mill but as I don't I started by drilling out the area where the hinges would go, starting with a 3mm drill


and then using a 6mm drill


and then using some cutting burrs


to remove the last of the metal and make a recess where the hinge could sit,




drilled the mounting holes, it's not the neatest bit of engineering I've ever done but it will do the job and looks better on the outside.


one down, one more to go


this is how they fit on the case covering up the hinges, the covers do sit squarely but my ancient camera distorts things quite a lot on close up shots



Before I started making the base rails that the case would sit on the case needed
cleaning up,


after turning the case clockwise through 90 degrees what was the front panel is now the base panel and the old ugly fans mesh needed cutting out, marked out the offending metal and used my favourite tool the cutting wheel to remove it.


Cleaned up the case edges



no individual case feet just two rails running from front to back.



Cut some 25 x 25mm ally angle and some ally profile with a curve on one side,




drilled and tapped the ends of the profile with a 6mm thread




drilled the mounting points on side rails where the profile would be bolted, marked out the side rails and drilled graduated sized holes in them starting with a 10mm in the middle and decreasing in size towards the ends,


the holes are more than decorative as the two 180mm fans will be in the case base and drawing air from beneath the case it allow a bit more airflow to the fans.



Assembled the side rails and front and rear struts,


then made two more bracing struts from 20 x20mm ally profile which bolt between the rails just to ensure it won't flex,



stuck on some rubber matting to stop the case sliding around and scratching desktops.





a test fit shows everything lines up alright




I gave the base rails a brushed satin finish using wet and dry paper and finished with 1200 grade, might polish them later not sure yet.


Time to start on the case paint


used paint stripper to get the old stuff off,




wet and dried the case and side panels down to bare metal,

I now remembered that as the leads would be running from the top of the case and down inside the case they would need an outlet and this was the time to cut it out before it was painted


so I marked out a hole in the rear case panel where the leads could exit




Cut and shaped some sheet steel and folded the edges to make a cover to go over the lead outlet hole,


made some mounting brackets


and glued the cover piece to the brackets and bolted it to the case.


Back to the bodywork,


more paint stripper on the side panels



then wet and dried them down to bare metal





and sprayed on a few coats of primer,





next the case and sprayed the inside with some aluminium paint which gives it a shiny as new finish.



missed a few shots here but sprayed primer on the case and then some coats of black gloss and finally sprayed the side panels with black gloss.

Skullduggery now needed some suitable designs, I'm next to useless when it comes to freehand art work but I can spray paint and used Ford Moondust Silver Metallic paint for the designs, I needed to make some stencils


first I combined some designs in photoshop to get this final design and using Sketchup I printed it to scale so it would fit the side panel, stuck the design to some card and cut it out,


now I had the stencil I stuck it to the panel using stencil glue which doesn't harden so the stencil can be repositioned if need be and more importantly it allows the stencil to be removed after spaying the paint, why stick the stencil down, well
this design had a lot of thin edges and detail pieces that would easily lift from the blast of the spray paint and allow paint to bleed under the stencil and ruin the clean edges making a real mess of the design so it had to be stuck down.


missed a few shots here but here's the design after spraying with the silver paint, ready for some clear lacquer.

The design on the other side panel was from a multi piece acetate stencil I bought, these are used a bit differently and you have to think in reverse to which order the layers are used,




first the empty stencil is used to get the overall shape and the outline,


then the inner stencil is used with black paint to get the details


finally, I made another stencil for the SKULLDUGGERY" text and sprayed that on the panel.


The last design was on the front panel using another multi piece acetate stencil (you might have a noticed a design theme here)



same procedure again using the silver paint for the outline and black for the details, then all the paint work was left for a couple of days to harden.



Final job was to lacquer the paint work, when using cans you can get some more pressure from them by standing them in hot water for a while so the propellant expands but if the can makes any strange noises and starts to bulge...RUN...

The parts were lacquered and left to harden for a few days then lightly wet and dried with 1500 grade then cut back using T-Cut and finally polished with a wax polish.




You can get quite a good finish using cans if you take the time and with all paint work it's down to the preparation.

That's most of the hard work done just have to put it all together now

Back soon.

Looks interesting. Will be checking in.

Finally, with the all the paint and graphics finished and laquered it's time to assemble the parts



Bolted the fan platform into the case with some 3mm bolts





then fitted the base rails to the case, with these fitted the case was now a lot more rigid and a bit easier to work on.



Mounted the fans using rubber pins which should help reduce any vibration noise



I had some 180mm Silverstone filters that I wanted to use but I had to round off the edges and trim them down a bit to make them fit and also added some magnets to hold the filters in place



I'd left a gap under the fan platform so the filters could be slid into place



once in place the filters lined up nicely with the fans, the only problem with filters is remembering to clean them as the mesh is fine and they can clog up quite quickly.



Using a Seasonic PSU





it's a tight fit and it needs a power lead with a 90 degree plug but it's in there, also stuck on two blue LED lights which will shine through the holes in the rails.



fitted the drives into the cage, one 3TB HDD and a 128GB SSD



and fitted the drive cage into the drive bay



bolted the drive bay into place



and lined up the fan controller screen



then remembered I was going to fit a bezel around the drive bay hole in the case but I'd forgot to make it so I cut one out of some 2mm ally



shaped it and gave it a quick polish



and screwed it to the case



time to fit the mobo and graphics card, it all went in with no problems and lines up, not spending too much time or money on braiding and cable management as it's a closed case, just made sure the cables didn't obstruct the air flow too much.



mounted the 120mm fan with white LED's to the top of the case using some more rubber pins



fitted some rubber trim around the cable vent hole to stop the cables being cut on the edge of the case



and bolted the cable vent hole cover to the case



fitted the power switch and power LED, the original idea I tried of just having a hole in the case with an LED shining through it from behind didn't work so well when I tested it so I
used a 2mm blue LED in a chrome holder and just for the fun of it I fitted a red LED into the eye of the skull graphic, the red LED is the HDD LED so it will flash.



fitted the side panels and it was time to fire up Skullduggery.




Skullduggery booted up, then turned off, then rebooted, then turned off, etc, etc



after some head scratching I realised that the reset button I had used was the wrong type, it was a push to break button when it should be a push to make button, so the reset circuit was continually engaged in a reset loop, I didn't have the right button so I used a
micro toggle switch instead, this switch is off in the central position and acts as a momentary switch when pushed up or down and springs back to off when released, this switch fixed the problem and Skullduggery now booted and stayed on.

















As Skullduggery has the fans in the base and is quite low to the ground I made a simple table for it to stand on, an Air Table ;>)





used some steel tube and some wood offcuts to make the legs, bored out the wood and stuck the tubes into it with some Nonails glue,



cut out the table top from an old MDF shelf and jigsawed a hole it, now some ally mesh could be fitted over the hole and the fans could draw air through it without taking in too much dust and dirt.



a coat of matt black paint and finally covered the table top with some textured pvc grip liner, the table works well, maybe I should patent it?





That's Skullduggery finished, quite a fun build recycling an old case and in total only cost about £100 in parts and materials.
I've started designing my next build which will be a full scratch build and my first attempt at water cooling, time to jump in the deep end and get wet!

I like it!

Impressive work for staying under $150!