Is there somewhere you can buy aluminum cases that aren't anodized? I prefer aluminum, but removing that crap off of aluminum is a pain.

Lian Li makes some great brushed aluminum cases.

Lian Li PC-V2000 PLUS II Aluminum Full Tower Case Products Model: PC-V2000-PLUSII [PC-V2000-PLUSII] : Performance-PCs.com, ... sleeve it and they will come

Attached Thumbnails

   

Quote: Originally Posted by b4t3m4n Is there somewhere you can buy aluminum cases that aren't anodized? I prefer aluminum, but removing that crap off of aluminum is a pain.

Yep, it's a royal pain. I've never seen any good aluminum case that isn't anodized though. Lian Li, Coolermaster, Zalman, all the high-end cases use hard anodizing. You might find a inexpensive case that uses a cheaper, easier to remove method of anodizing.

And there are a few cases that use paint which would be somewhat easier to remove. But you wouldn't be able to use any caustic strippers on it.

Quote: Originally Posted by AntiM Yep, it's a royal pain. I've never seen any good aluminum case that isn't anodized though. Lian Li, Coolermaster, Zalman, all the high-end cases use hard anodizing. You might find a inexpensive case that uses a cheaper, easier to remove method of anodizing. And there are a few cases that use paint which would be somewhat easier to remove. But you wouldn't be able to use any caustic strippers on it.

Yeah they wont sell a case that doesn't have some sort of coating. Manufactures don't want to have to deal with customers complaining about corrosion a couple of months after purchase or if the case was shipped over seas and arrived with corrosion already.

On a side note, where is the best place to get cheap stuff like cable sleeving and lighting. I have seen a lot of sites, but they all seem a little... I dunno, 1992ish in design.

You can start with the banner on the front page. FrozenCPU has one of the best inventories out there. Just off the top of my head, Xoxide, Performance-PC's, mnpctech.com, Dragonmodz, Silicon Valley Compucycle, Directron, CrazyPC and everyone's favorite Newegg.

For brick and mortar stores, it's hard to beat Fry's Electronics, though they seem to be carrying more pre-mods and less modding supplies than they used to.

Had something of a break through I guess, I dunno. I have been busily sanding off the black anodized finish of my LanLi PC-60. I think that is what it was, I got the thing about 5 years ago. Anyway, I had a small section of the case laying around that I had cut out for a small window that will look down into my PSU I thought I would go ahead and just paint over it and see if the paint really wouldn't stick.

I am using Dupli-color's self etching primer. To prepare the section all I did was lightly sand it with 400 grit wet sandpaper. There wasn't any exposed aluminum, still solid black. So I sprayed it and let it dry a few minutes and went and had a look and the primer seemed to be sticking quite well. I think I waited 30 minutes, wet sanded the primer with 400 grit again and to my surprise I now have a silky smooth primered piece of aluminum. That was only one coat of primer btw, I didn't even bother putting on three.

I guess my question being, is my case actually hard anodized? Did they make the cases different 5 years ago? Do people over exagerate how hard it is to paint over the stuff?

It's easy to paint, it's hard to get it to stick without chipping off over time. It's the sharp edges and corners that you have to worry about. Professionals sand blast with something like pecan shells to prep aluminum and then prime as soon as possible afterwards so the surface doesn't oxidize.

It's not like you're painting a car that's going to be constantly flexing, expanding and contracting. Decent sanding prep and the use of adhesion promoter or self etching primer formulated for aluminum can yield good results on a case. I figured you wanted to strip the anodizing in order to polish the case to a mirror shine like I did to the bay covers in this thread. Now that's some work.