Project: Up from the Rubble

[AceGoober]

Howdy Folks!

As a few of you who have access to General May[H]em know, I've been having a bit of unfortunate luck lately. Spilled beer into my computer case frying the Galaxy GTX 680 4GB which I only had for 6 days (R.I.P.). Then, my Samsung 305T 30" LCD bit the dust a couple of weeks ago. I haven't gamed for about a month and it is driving me freaking bonkers....

Enough of the sob story, here's where it all changes....

I'm embarking on a roughly 8 month long custom project, one which I've wanted to do for a quite awhile but wasn't able to due to finances. The project is going to be on a very limited budget; mainly, what I can spare each month after the necessities are taken care of. You know...roof over head, bills paid, food... all that good jazz. You all know what I mean. I'll be using parts from the old system (Asus P8Z68 Deluxe/GEN3, intel i7-2600k, 16GB Corsair C7, Crucial 512GB M4, etc) and adding parts as I go.

A little history: the Thermaltake Mozart TX case debuted in 2006. Despite the cost the Mozart TX turned-out to be a very popular case at the time. When I first looked at the case online it was love at first sight. Plenty of room and screaming for someone to modify the heck out of it which many people have done since it became available. Plenty of forum members here and many, many places elsewhere chatted about the case. It was what my dream case would have been built like; with a couple of mods.

With the help of another member (Thanks dieseldog49 for the trade!) the first step is complete which is obtaining the case I wanted: the Thermaltake Mozart TX. w00t!

I received the case from dieseldog49 today at about 4pm. Left work at about 5:30pm. Roughly a 1/2 hour after getting home the case looked like this:

...stripped (almost) bare and ready to be violated.

Next five steps:

1. Remove all rivets - I really dislike those things...
2. Remove the plexiglass from the doors - replacing with a color to be determined later
3. Remove the locking mechanisms from the doors (to be used later)
4. Prep all surfaces to be painted - aluminum colored you shall be no more
5. Have an auto-body shop paint the pieces - still deciding the color

I'll update the to-do list when I write down the details residing in my brain matter.

 

[LordofWar]

Nice looking forward to seeing more.

I remember when that case first came out I thought it was so cool.

 

[AceGoober]

Not much of an update but something is better than anything.

Drilled-out all but four rivets and am going to start the process of cleaning the metal. Prior to cleaning I'm going to cut-out several - not all - of the meshes over the fan mounts on both front and back. My idea is to get a thin black mesh to cover the fans. The only issue keeping me from going forward with the plan is the fan mount holes aren't flat with the surface of the metal yet instead intrude into the case. But, there is a possible solution which I've been mulling over and will render if this piece of crap computer I'm posting from will run the programs I use.

I've had second thoughts about going to a auto body shop to get the case painted. I've painted a few cars with great care and attention to detail in my day and I see no reason why I wouldn't be able to paint the case as good as an auto body shop could do. Thing is, I haven't kept up on auto paint technology over the years. Time to do a bit of studying.

 

[Quicksilver_]

My condolences on the Samsung 305T. I'm making a claim to Dell for my u3011 after one of my niece's threw a ball into it I shouldn't have left it on the floor, true, but still

 

[AceGoober]

Locking the thread for now. Messed-up my back at 2 am this morning so it'll be awhile before I can get back to getting the mod completed.