Project: Erica

Zatos said:
Had this same exact case. Used it for my first build. No offense, but it was a piece of garbage, but I didn't know better, and things were different back then.
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I consider this case to be more for sentimental value because of losing his girlfriend in the car accident, etc.

For those people complaining about his cuts not being smooth/round - well the case is steel. It's not as easy as aluminum. I remember the first time I took a hole saw and a cutting wheel to a steel case. It was a horrible mess of heat, sparks, and steel powder.
 
I've found many things can buff out plastic scratches.

Toothpaste works at a pinch but I've got great results with T-Cut and elbow grease.

Got major brownie points when I saw my gf's mums mobile phone that as it had been in her handbag for a couple of years was so scratched on the display you could hardly see it.

10 minutes later after searching in the boot of my car, had it back to almost new.
 
Damn, I owned this case back in the day too. Great job! Some of the cuts might not be smooth but it's probably better than anything I could pull off with steel like that.
 
Really looks good. I'm glad you decided to keep the old case.

Whats the new specs?
 
Steel is no harder to get a straight cut than aluminum or plastic. And I think the OP is pretty familiar with metal working; there is a miller tig in the back ground of some of those pics. :)

OP, how's the paint holding up?
 
As far as cooling design and space the case sucks compared to modern designs but it has all my memories attached and more sentimental value to me more than anything, was my first custom rig of all things too.

Its a Phenom II 965be 3.4ghz, 4gb ram, Asus gts 450 @ 1012mhz, 2.56tb storage. made it into my VT-d rig

Yea material really doesn't matter much for a good cut. But the case was a very hard steel and hard to cut though, went through three packs of reinforced grinding wheels to cut the side window and blow hole out, didn't break a single one though :D

Paint is holding up really well, alot better than I thought it would, taking it down to metal helped a bunch for sure.
 
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Very nice case mod. I tired something like this along time ago with out sanding it down first and lets just say it didn't come out nearly as nice as yours. congrats on a job well done.
 
Ultima99 said:
Nice job and touching story, just dont tell any current/future gf/wife about the story behind this case. They'll think you're still stuck on her and hold it against you forever. Not that I've ever had experience with this. :rolleyes:
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Seconded. lol
 
qb4ever said:
Yea material really doesn't matter much for a good cut. But the case was a very hard steel and hard to cut though, went through three packs of reinforced grinding wheels to cut the side window and blow hole out, didn't break a single one though :D
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And this is why I always have the angle grinder handy w/ a set of 4" cutting discs, grinding discs, and sanding discs. Works wonders.
 
Wow. I'm really sad that so many people criticized your handiwork here. I think the work you did was awesome, but the reason even more so. Well done man. I'm sure she is looking down and smiling.
 
The most case modding I've done is to spray the facia of my cream Plextor DVD burner matt black to match my case.

I thought my use of a tiny blob of toothpaste to cover the activity LED lens was genius.
 
Update:

The case/system rides again as my main rig :eek: After having to get rid of my i7/560ti desktop rig for money reasons I busted Aurora out of storage and started tweaking it for gaming. it turned out better than I expected, has about 85% of the general performance my old i7 system had while running slightly cooler, just need to slap a good video card in it and I'm gold for a while.

What changes 7 years to the day (Nov 5th) can bring :eek::

2004: and 2011:


Its hard to believe that the tablet you see in the reflection (Samsung Galaxy tab 7") I used to take the picture has twice as much performance as my lappy and desktop in 2004! Technology is amazing :eek:


And 8 months later the paint is still holding up well, has a few minor scratches and dings from moving and storage but it is still looking good!
 
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nice job sir, and great story behind the mod ( although a terribly sad one). nice choice on the Acer laptop, my favs.

sorry for your loss but keep up the cool mods
 
I'm still using the case that I bought for my PIII. I just gave it an overhaul (too many changes to list) about a year ago & now I don't see myself upgrading again for a long while.
 
I still own the case for my old PIII as well. It's a great Inwin unit and looks very modern, even better than modern in fact in some respects. Just needs a coat of paint to fix all the gross beigery
 
The case looks great!

There really is nothing like taking an old case with sentimental value and modding it.
I had my old Antec performance case moded, ofcourse not as sentimental as yours.

You did a nice job on the side panel and I used double sided take instead of the screws to hold it in place.
The cut looks fine speciallu since you used the u-tubing to go around the edges.
I LIKE IT!!!
 
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