Got a New Case!

Thanks, yup I understand it.

Jeannie did you ever get the front cover texture the way you want it?

If not maybe Scotch Bright will work for you.

Here are the pictures I promised of the Siamese (conjoined?) cable from Hell.

This shot shows the leg of the cable (see white arrow) leading to the 3.5" swap bay I added. I haven't tied it down yet because there will other cables in the area.



This shot shows where the cable goes to.



This is a shot of the leg of the cable (it runs between the two arrows) going to the cable coming from the built-in swap bay. (I have no idea how that horizontal black line got in the picture. )



Here is where the Siamese cable plugs into the PSU. The upper arrow points to the leg going to the 3.5" swap bay and the lower arrow points to the leg going to the built-in swap bay's cable.

It's coming together. The cables look even better when installed.
Great job.

Time well spent Jeannie. Much better than countin' flowers on the wall, playing Solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one, or smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.

Thanks, Jack and Gary. Gary, you are giving your age away.

I forgot to mention, I can still get my hand at the back thumbscrew for the third HDD cage although 'tis a wee bit snug.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Yeah, right! I'll do that.

All seriousness aside, I needed to do something about the super shiny front of the storage drawer. I had thought of sanding the front to emulate the brushed aluminum finish. I tried testing that on the bottom of the little tray that goes in the drawer. The texture worked out great but the color was a bit too brown for even my old colorblind eyes. I tried using a wee bit of furniture polish to try to bring the black (or extremely dark brown; it looks black to me) back out. That didn't work so cleaned the furniture polish off, resanded it, and tried coloring it with a large black felt pen. The color came out just right but it looked a bit blotchy. Ok, scratch sanding (pardon the pun) and back to ye olde drawing board.

I took one of the 5.25" bay blank covers and tried soaking it overnight in a small tray of 91% isopropyl alcohol to see if I could remove the brushed aluminum inlay. It took some alternate gentle prying with my fingers and more soaking to get it off but off it did come. I soaked the aluminum itself for another hour or so to soften the adhesive some more, then scraped the adhesive off with my old driver's license (it was handy; I have no idea why they gave that back to me since it's no longer legal).

After thoroughly cleaning up the aluminum, I put some double sided cellophane tape on the backside of the aluminum, then stuck the aluminum to the front of the drawer. It fit perfectly on the top and bottom (that was a pleasant surprise) but it was a tad short on the ends (I was expecting that considering how the bay cover was made). It's a bit proud of the swap bay above it as well as being a smidge too short but it should look OK once I put the front panel back on (I removed it so I could get at things a bit better while doing the cable management and fabrication).

Here is what a bay blank cover looks like.

Attachment 320829

Since the brushed aluminum front is inlaid, the top, bottom, and side should be a tad short.

Here is the drawer with the aluminum piece attached. Note that the aluminum is a bit short on the ends but doesn't look much different than the bay cover did (I used the bay cover to prop the drawer up so it could be seen better).

Attachment 320830

This shot, with flash, gives a better idea of how the texture of the brushed aluminum looks even though the color is washed out by the flash.

Attachment 320841

After I posted last night, I put in clips to corral the 8-pin CPU power cable and the SATA power cable for the top swap bay and tied down the 24-pin cable using twist ties (I prefer those to zip ties), then called it a night (even though, technically, it was morning). I didn't get enough sleep last night this morning so I'm going to eat a light, early lunch and take a short nap.

Hey Lady...seeing continuing the hard work! Much onto wiring, isn't it ?

I too made some homework today.

I had since a while the Scythe "Kama Cabinet Pro Aluminium Silver" and wasn't too happy of the brushed & shiny front, decided to modd it a little for a more agressive looking.

Sanded the front of the drawer & painted it with a semi-gloss spray black paint with three coats and added some black mat hexagon screws.

NoN said:

...Hey Lady...seeing continuing the hard work! Much onto wiring, isn't it ?

I too made some homework today.

I had since a while the Scythe "Kama Cabinet Pro Aluminium Silver" and wasn't too happy of the brushed & shiny front, decided to modd it a little for a more agressive looking.

Sanded the front of the drawer & painted it with a semi-gloss spray black paint with three coats and added some black mat hexagon screws.

Nice job on the drawer front. Much classier than what I did.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

NoN said:

...Hey Lady...seeing continuing the hard work! Much onto wiring, isn't it ?

I too made some homework today.

I had since a while the Scythe "Kama Cabinet Pro Aluminium Silver" and wasn't too happy of the brushed & shiny front, decided to modd it a little for a more agressive looking.

Sanded the front of the drawer & painted it with a semi-gloss spray black paint with three coats and added some black mat hexagon screws.

Nice job on the drawer front. Much classier than what I did.

Nah... yours is plain brushed and looks also classier. You just could polish better with very very thin sandpaper and maybe try a varnish coating to protect it (from finger prints).

NoN said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

NoN said:

...Hey Lady...seeing continuing the hard work! Much onto wiring, isn't it ?

I too made some homework today.

I had since a while the Scythe "Kama Cabinet Pro Aluminium Silver" and wasn't too happy of the brushed & shiny front, decided to modd it a little for a more agressive looking.

Sanded the front of the drawer & painted it with a semi-gloss spray black paint with three coats and added some black mat hexagon screws.

Nice job on the drawer front. Much classier than what I did.

Nah... yours is plain brushed and looks also classier. You just could polish better with very very thin sandpaper and maybe try a varnish coating to protect it (from finger prints).

Thanks but no can do. The aluminum 5.25" bay cover insert is anodized aluminum so the color is way too thin for sanding. Since it matches the rest of the case front cover, clear coating it would kill that match. If I find I have problems with fingerprints on the drawer front, I have a small black stick-on plastic "foot" knocking about somewhere I can put on the front for my finger to push against.