I say remove the "LL"s and make it a marsha mod. Pretty sweet case though.

I'll try and get some pics up this weekend GPN. I'm going to be busy with my third surprise review sample from Razer. A Lycosa unexpectedly landed on my doorstep yesterday. Not that I'm complaining.

I wasn't entirely happy with the wheels I first picked out for this mod. I thought model wheels, but although RC monster truck wheels were cooler they probably wouldn't hold the weight and plastic was not appealing. Cart wheels are way too big.

I kept looking until I ran across these:



Now these are pimp wheels! Fat slick rubber on aluminum alloy rims. They're on a slick long board made by Surf-rodz. I talked to the owner Wayne Gallipoli and told him what I wanted to do with them. He liked the idea and is hooking me up with a set of wheels at wholesale. I'm in HotWheels heaven. I scoff at your wimpy little Lian Li wheels! And fart in their general direction.

I've had several back orders on some pretty basic parts and I'm still waiting on several pieces. But I should be able to move this to the worklog section by next weekend.

I also ordered a couple of billet grills from Bill. One for blow hole and one for the side panel. And I ran with ranger's bulgin idea and ordered the bulgin mod piece from Bill as well.

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Check out this site:

ALTERED Electric Skateboards by EXKATE - ALTERED WIRELESS ELECTRIC SKATEBOARDS & EXKATE TORSION TRUCKS

Here's another:

Electric Skateboard

Yep, that's what I need. A case that goes from 0-20 in 4 seconds.


Took a few pics of what came in this week. The build quality on this case is amazing, I especially like how the whole thing comes apart without drilling out rivets.

Cutting a blow hole in 5 mm thick aluminum should be interesting. It also kinda blows my idea for modding a Sunbeam controller into a bezel cover, it's just too thick for the pots to stick out far enough and the mounting would interfere with the right most LED. The tolerances are also very tight and the Sunbeam controllers tolerances are not.

Overall though the case is outstanding.

BTW ...the logos are laser etched rather than painted on. So that means going to plan B. Plan A being removing them with a heat gun.

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I would recommend talking to Bill about the bezel. I'll bet he has a router that could get you holes and circular areas around the holes down to a couple mm.

Well, I managed to get a few things done today and it gave me an excuse to go buy a new jigsaw. My old one is at least 30 years old, that's like 140 in Iateronmly tool years.

I do have a plan for the Sunbeam fan controller that doesn't involve machining costs, we'll see if I can pull it off with a hand drill or not.

I started work on the window, which I will save as a surprise for later.

The wheels for the skateboard trucks landed here yesterday and I got them all put together and ready to mount. They're just a wee bit bigger than a normal skateboard wheel. Wayne also threw in a assortment of risers and mounting hardware. I'll hit 'em with a little Armour All on final assembly. But I'm liking how beefy these things are.

I got the case handles mounted and the blow hole cut and polished. But I'm still debating whether to use the modders mesh supplied with Bill's grills or the AC Ryan stuff shown in the photo. The Ryan mesh looks better to me, but Bill's mesh is much less restrictive. Those are leftover skateboard screws on the grill, the thickness of this case makes typical screws useless.

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Tapered bits are ridiculously expensive ...

...and worth every penny. It's definitely one of my favorite tools.

Because of the thickness of the panels, I had to turn the piece over and drill from the backside as well to even up the holes for the Bulgin switches. A little clean up and it's ready to bolt on and wire.

edit: Check off wheel mounting.

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Those wheels are sick! Love it

Can't wait to see more.....

I still think you need a motor on it. Looking great.

Quote: Originally Posted by BigAkita I still think you need a motor on it. Looking great.

How about hydraulics... let them wheels hide in the case, push of a button, and voila!

I'm still waiting on a couple of key elements to ship, so I took this weekend to do the time consuming tasks. Paint and polish.

Bill's billet grills and switch plate were sanded with 400, 800, 2000 grit then I screwed them to a board and hit them with a dab of Mother's aluminum polish and my random orbit buffer. The picture really doesn't do them justice. I really like this look, less cheesy and more substantial than chrome, almost like an old school nickel plate. I'm not done with them yet though, I've decided against the modders mesh and have other plans.

When Lokie was here a few months back he asked me where Project: Alienwhere was. Regrettably it's been residing in my storage shed. With five 80mm fans and a 130 cfm 120mm fan for the radiator made it a good performer, but it was never very quiet even with the fans turned down. And with all the water cooling and lights it was a royal pain for someone that has to change out components on a regular basis.

I was foraging for parts the other day when I saw it sitting there, dusty and half forgotten and I looked at the panel I had spent a good six weeks cutting out by hand with a drill, dremel and jewelers files. Inspiration struck and before I could second guess my decision I grabbed the side panel, taped it up, traced the GT-1000's window on it and cut out the Frazetta inspired jungle girl from the side panel with a jigsaw.

I laid down a satin black where the metallic gun metal gray used to be. Next I'll repaint some of the details surrounding the figure. After clear coating, I think I'll sand it down to a satin finish and leave it there rather than buffing it out to a high gloss.

So much for my plan of this not being a long involved mod.

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Here's my plan for the grills. I'll most likely be painting the kickboxes grill. No one had black in stock when I ordered which would have been fine. The silver just doesn't look great next the the polished billet. But since I'm probably painting I'm thinking maybe a deep red. Kind of like a power tie with a black suit ...if I ever wore a suit. Which I don't.

Between the openness of the grill and the spacers, grill noise should be next to zero.

And it looks cool too.

More updates this weekend at the latest including my diabolical plan on cooling the beast.

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Dude ......................... NICE BUTT!!!!!!!!!!! ** NO!!! not yours **

I like the stand-off ideal you got there with the grillz

Quote: Originally Posted by HigHTecHReDNecK Dude ......................... NICE BUTT!!!!!!!!!!! ** NO!!! not yours ** I like the stand-off ideal you got there with the grillz

Thanks, I've been working out.






Oh ....nevermind.

And I decided on basic black for the spider, partly because it just looks good and partly because I've got lot's of black paint and no red in the house.

The panel is almost ready for clear coat, I'll try and get some pics up tonight.

Quote: Originally Posted by AntiM Well, I managed to get a few things done today and it gave me an excuse to go buy a new jigsaw. My old one is at least 30 years old, that's like 140 in Iateronmly tool years. .

..... My jig-saw only survived 48 hours. Actually that was a cheap replacement I bought for my 20 year old jig-saw.

When I first saw the girl I thought it was Druuna. Great project!

Okay, here's the panel insert almost ready for clear coat.

The technique I used is a bit odd but it allowed me to get the look of oil painting. I started with just black and white using an airbrush, this allowed me to get all the highlights and shadows in the right place much like a BW photo. Then I went in by hand with brushes.

I used a method oil painters refer to as "glazing". It's how DaVinci got such depth and subtlety in his paintings. Normally you would use oil to thin paint which allows you to slowly built up translucent layers of color. Since I'm using fast drying oil based model and automotive paint, this wasn't an option. So I used candy paints which are semi-transparent to start with and mixed them with clear coat.

It's a slow process, but it allowed me to get the brush strokes you would see close up on a oil painting and allows the colors to blend in ways auto paint just doesn't want to blend.

The Chinese symbols are 24K gold foil. It looks a little odd now because of the satin black I used, but that will deepen and blend when I clear coat the whole thing.

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And a little carbon fiber action for the side panels. It looks nice now, but I plan on testing a piece to see how it takes clear coat.

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Ahah!!! Triple post!!!! Now, regarding things of beauty I had no hand in creating.

They are in short supply, but I managed to find a Thermalright IFX-14. The little one is the backside cooler, nice idea if you've got the room.

And the power will be supplied by a PC Power and Cooling 750W Silencer in basic black. 83% efficiency, 825 W peak, .99 Active PFC and a 60 amp single rail. Probably not the quietest of the low noise PSU's, but with specs like that, who cares?

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Quote: Originally Posted by AntiM And the power will be supplied by a PC Power and Cooling 750W Silencer in basic black. 83% efficiency, 825 W peak, .99 Active PFC and a 60 amp single rail. Probably not the quietest of the low noise PSU's, but with specs like that, who cares?

You will be really suprised on just how quiet that PSU really is. I bet you will check to make sure the fan is running.