Antec Sonata Mod Worklog

Today I finally got back to work on the mod, after much procrastinating.

So far today I have finished cutting the needed acrylic pieces (for covering ANTEC stampouts), re-primed and painted the front steel plate that the radiator will mount onto (still have to do possibly couple more coats and clear coat then rivet it into place on the case...), and I started using Bondo on the front of the case. I will have pictures up tonight of my progress, but I'm just taking a short break right now :)
 
first layer of bondo... i had to peel off a little bit towards the end as you may be able to tell, because it started setting on me... this stuff sets pretty quick, that or i'm just slow

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bondo layer # 2, i didn't learn my lesson and the left side started setting while i put it on...

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so with the aid of some sandpaper and my handy dremel with a grinding stone attachment, i smoothed it out pretty well.... not totally done smoothing it out, but getting close...

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i also decided the door of my case had a horrible paintjob thanks to myself... so i sanded it down, cleaned with soap and water, and primed it today. No, i'm not repainting the outside, just the inside.

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Oh yeah I forgot to mention that before doing the bondo on the front of the case, I had to trim away the excess plumbers goop with the aid of my Dremel and a grinding stone
 
and here's some more pics :)

With the front plate (radiator will mount onto it) re-painted, I went ahead and riveted it in place and installed some fan grommets and the fan + a black atomic fan grill

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And then I decided to try on the front of the case just to make sure everything still fits like it is supposed to... Well, it fit perfectly! Obviously the front of the case isn't finished as it is not very pretty right now, but you can get an idea of the overall effect...

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So what do ya'll think of the front so far? Does the black grill look good/bad? Any suggestions or anything are welcome. :)
 
more feedback would be good before its too late to consider what any of you suggest :p
 
It's bondo... it'll be painted black, its just to cover up cracks in between his duct and the bezel.
 
sirboxalot said:
It's bondo... it'll be painted black, its just to cover up cracks in between his duct and the bezel.
Click to expand...

actually, it isn't to cover up cracks, though bondo would be useful in that situation as well...

i didn't like how the lip of the duct looked, and being that i had to cut the flange off my duct and conform it to the front of the case, then attach the duct to the flange from the backside of the front panel, i needed something done about the looks...

bondo is being used to make the front look better. i didn't like how the lip looked before, and the part where the duct meets the flange is not very pretty either, so the bondo is being used to cover up the internal structure basically of the fan duct to create a new, prettier one :)

(by the way, if that is what you meant by 'cracks,' my bad :p )
 
yeah, I'm pretty sure he was referring to the drop-off of the lip which isn't perfectly flat against the front of the case. The bondo was used to fill that "drop-off" or "crack."
 
but yeah, i was going to have to use bondo on the inside of the duct anyways, where the duct meets the lip, and i think in reality i had to extend to the area beyond the lip for it to look right on the inside anyways... i duno, but i think it should come out nice, with lots, and lots, and lots of sanding... :p
 
great job kurtis, looking forward to the final product!!
makes me wanna go out and cut apart my case lol
 
twistedps said:
great job kurtis, looking forward to the final product!!
makes me wanna go out and cut apart my case lol
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well if it makes you feel more comfortable cutting your case up... i have no clue what i am doing. this is my first mod ever, so every single thing i have done pretty much is my 1st time doing it. and it's coming out pretty well i think, so hey if i can do it so can you! :)
 
to be honest, that grill kinda looks like the star of david, but i don't know, maybe just my eyes...
 
misfitsfiend said:
to be honest, that grill kinda looks like the star of david, but i don't know, maybe just my eyes...
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yeah i thought the same thing thats why i asked... couple people on other forums have said the same thing lol. i will probably swap out the grill for a different one, or not use one at all, or something... im not sure... open to suggestions though. i just want to make sure that the blue from the fan is still very visible
 
Kurtis said:
yeah i thought the same thing thats why i asked... couple people on other forums have said the same thing lol. i will probably swap out the grill for a different one, or not use one at all, or something... im not sure... open to suggestions though. i just want to make sure that the blue from the fan is still very visible
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I never mentioned it because I assumed you were Jewish...doesn't look bad at all though. You can see the blue light from the fan very visibly.
 
yeah but im not even very religious, let alone jewish, so it's sorta stupid looking to me :p

i duno, ill do some experimenting and see what i like.
 
Kurtis said:
yeah but im not even very religious, let alone jewish
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what's that 'let alone jewish' mean you got somethin against jews?

I'm just messin with ya.
Take your time I kno this mod is gonna be worth the wait.
 
carlson said:
what's that 'let alone jewish' mean you got somethin against jews?

I'm just messin with ya.
Take your time I kno this mod is gonna be worth the wait.
Click to expand...

lol smart ass. :p thx again for the feedback
 
misfitsfiend said:
to be honest, that grill kinda looks like the star of david, but i don't know, maybe just my eyes...
Click to expand...

it does. but is there 2 different fan grills? the first couple of pic looks like its a heat with a circle because there rounded and not pointy. may just be the angle
 
its the same grill, but the fan duct covers the outer part of it. it is an atomic fan grill (supposed to look sorta like an atom) but the outer parts are covered. go back and look at the pics and you can see what i mean.
 
i would go with the whole no fan grill idea, i like the idea of an open space in the front of your case.
 
The open hole idea is cool, just hope you dont have any young kids/pets that can get fingers/paws inside it :)
 
i've got a couple small dogs, but if they stick anything in the fan duct they probably wouldn't do it a second time :p
 
that's godly. i was looking at sonatas but decided against it due to the lack of, in my opinon decent cooling.

but you're doing an awesome job.
 
bored-sarcasm said:
that's godly. i was looking at sonatas but decided against it due to the lack of, in my opinon decent cooling.

but you're doing an awesome job.
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well it will have some nice cooling when i'm done with it :)
 
quick update: I started working on mounting the radiator yesterday and it proved to be more difficult than i had initially figured...

I got two CoolWorks black Mini Cool Shrouds, and installing these shrouds on my Innovatek radiator required a little extra work. Firstly, I had to go out and purchase two packs of 2.5" long machine screws with Dia. #10-24 (I'll show pics of them later, I was able to find them at Wal-Mart while picking up some more spray paint). Next, I had to drill the holes in my 120mm fans slightly larger using my Dewalt drill at low speeds with a 3/16" drill bit. The reason I had to do this is that otherwise I would have to screws through the fan (on both sides) and then the radiator fan mount to remove the radiator or fans... That would obviously be extremely difficult to do. By drilling the holes in the fans slightly larger, it allows the machine screws to pass through pretty easily and then you just have to screw into the radiator housing. It's amazing how huge this thing is with the shrouds and fans attached...

anyways, i'll post more later with pics and stuff :)
 
well i hit a little bit of a speedbump the other night... after i got the radiator mounted i went ahead and started installing the cpu water block and vga water block etc... I was getting tired by this time wasn't being very cautious... So while i was uninstalling the vantec aeroflow i had on my processor, I pushed down a little too hard apparently because I heard the motherboard make a slight noise as it flexed. It did not crack, but once I had everything set back up with watercooling installed, one of the ethernet ports stopped working (it has 2), and a couple of the USB ports stopped working, and then my PS2 (mouse) port stopped functioning. I'm not sure if everything else on the board is fine, but since a couple things are damaged, I will be replacing it.

This is not by any means the worst thing in the world, the board I will use in the DFI KT400A's place is Chaintech's SKT600 (i think thats what i will use at least...). Here's a pic of it: http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw/images/Products/Motherboard/SKT600_L.jpg

As you can see, the board is all black and it doesn't have the glowing orange and green connectors on it like the DFI board, so it will actually match my mod better...

Anyways, I haven't stopped working on the mod. So far today I have worked more on the front of the case (bondo work) and I have already sanded down the door of the case again and then did the 2nd coat of black. By the end of this weekend I *hope* to finish the bondo work on the front of the case, and with painting the door of the case. My computer is down for the moment obviously, so I'm not sure if I will post pics sooner rather than later. If there is an overwhelming response then I guess probably i will post them sooner :p
 
another quick update before i go to bed... sine my last update i have done some more bondo work on the front of the case, and I have wetsanded and done a 3rd coat of black on the door of the case. The paintjob is way better this time around, and you can see your reflection in it. Once I wetsand it again and then do some clear coats + sanding between clear coats, it should look really nice. If it comes out as nicely as I am hoping, I will repaint the rest of the case :)

I'm taking pics as I progress, but I won't post them until later. I'll keep ya'll updated... :)
 
Kurtis said:
well i hit a little bit of a speedbump the other night... after i got the radiator mounted i went ahead and started installing the cpu water block and vga water block etc... I was getting tired by this time wasn't being very cautious... So while i was uninstalling the vantec aeroflow i had on my processor, I pushed down a little too hard apparently because I heard the motherboard make a slight noise as it flexed. It did not crack, but once I had everything set back up with watercooling installed, one of the ethernet ports stopped working (it has 2), and a couple of the USB ports stopped working, and then my PS2 (mouse) port stopped functioning. I'm not sure if everything else on the board is fine, but since a couple things are damaged, I will be replacing it.

This is not by any means the worst thing in the world, the board I will use in the DFI KT400A's place is Chaintech's SKT600 (i think thats what i will use at least...). Here's a pic of it: http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw/images/Products/Motherboard/SKT600_L.jpg

As you can see, the board is all black and it doesn't have the glowing orange and green connectors on it like the DFI board, so it will actually match my mod better...

Anyways, I haven't stopped working on the mod. So far today I have worked more on the front of the case (bondo work) and I have already sanded down the door of the case again and then did the 2nd coat of black. By the end of this weekend I *hope* to finish the bondo work on the front of the case, and with painting the door of the case. My computer is down for the moment obviously, so I'm not sure if I will post pics sooner rather than later. If there is an overwhelming response then I guess probably i will post them sooner :p
Click to expand...

*overwhelming response* ;)
 
okay, well today i wetsanded the door of the case, and little did i know that 320 grit sandpaper wasn't fine enough for a final sanding of the last coat lol... So I had to go ahead and put another coat on it, and then tomorrow I will probably go get some 2000 grit paper or something to sand with before working on the clear coats.

I also put some more bondo on the front of the case, and now it is pretty much done. I just need to sand some more and then get some bondo spot filler, then sand a little more again, then it will be time for priming and painting it.

after i played with the bondo, i emptied everything out of my computer and then took the case outside, drilled out the rivets, and now i need to sand down, soap/water rinse, and then prime the rest of the case.

It is a possibility that this time around I will repaint the outside of the case, as I have nicked it a little here and there over time. But I won't do the outside of the case unless the door of the case comes out amazing, because obviously i don't want to downgrade to a crappier paintjob on the exterior :)

anyways, here are some pics:


you can see in these pics the bondo i put on the fan duct. took me a few hours to sand that down nice and smooth in there...

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Here you can see where I went and added more bondo to the left side so i can feather out the edge nicely. You can also see that I smoothed out the inner fan duct nicely and even rounded the edge where the duct meets what used to be the flange.

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And here you can see the door of the case, with four coats of glossy Krylon. I just need to do some clear coats and stuff on it now.

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These pictures should help you compare to the old paintjob... you cant tell how bad the door is in the pic, but it was worst than the paintjob in the bottom pic...
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i'd say the paintjob is just a teeny bit better wouldn't you? by the way, any guesses what i had for breakfast today? :D
 
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