The case. my Cheiftec Matrix tower.


Now this case is being modded for a future build. What will the build be? to early to know yet. maybe intel, possiably AMD. The case will be fit with
BIP II Radiator
Danger Den DDC-12V
Danger Den filport/res.
Swiftech Apogee universal mounting block
1/2" tubing
PSU 850watt or higher, depending on what kind of deals are out there.

Step 1
items marked in red get cut out
items marked in yellow will be filled with bondo and sanded for eventual paint job.



Let the cutting begin.:eek:

Will finish smoothing edges with sanding block. the silver grille sections will be used as a templete for the modders mesh grilles that will go in the door and lower bezel.

Power switch,reset and power led, hdd led are being replaced and relocated to the lower section of the bezel.

more cutting.
Lower bezel section


Step 2
Case dismantle
With my trusty cordless drill I started drilling out pop rivets. Both Hard drive cages in the lower front of case are being removed.And a 5.25 bay HD cage will be used to hold up to 3 HD's http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/ind...roducts_id=3533
The BIPII will be installed up front in there place.

One last look at the first case I bought.


With the tower stripped down it should be easier to do some drilling and fitting. Need to cut a second 120mm hole up front and get the rad & fans mounted.
Getting a list togather of what I need for the case. Things like.
Grommet Edging - Clear
Channel Molding - Large
PVC Rubber Grommets 0.50" I.D. Hole
PVC Rubber Grommets 0.75" I.D. Hole

PVC Rubber Grommets 0.8125" I.D. Hole
Aluminum Pop Rivets 1/8" X 1/4" - Black
modders MeshxPanel™ 500x500mm
Anodized Aluminum Covered Case Feet (4/pkg) - Brush Aluminum
Vandal Resistant Momentary Switch

Bare chasis will be sand blasted and powder coated
Exteior case color.To early to say. It will be a metal flake type paint with a clear coat applied.

lol it looks like your chewed through it then cut it. hahah

good stuff. keep it up.

IMO great case to mod. I've did one just like it. Lets just say I over did it and moved on to another Cheiftec.

I had some of the same ideas. It will be intresting to see the bondo work, I failed bondo 101.

More.. I want to see more pics :drool:

bondo is the easiest thing in the world my friend

one tip i give you>

never EVER think you can do it in 1 coat.
NEVER ever think spreading it smooth and thin is a good thing

ALWAYS put enough. all you do is sanding down. carefully so you DONT have to put on 10 layers.

LOL just started this project today. I'll post mor pics when I get some more done.

you should make it dark gray flint.

i just painted a scion tc with that color today.

its not flake style. but silver pearl.

and i forgot the color code lol. darn.

have you check the mod nation??, they mod a Ultra aluminus that have a similar front panel of your cheifteck

they did a nice job on the front mesh grid ... you should take a look

I saw the way they did the mesh of the cheiftec bezels. It helped with how I cut the old stuff out and how to fill around the edges.
I'm also going to be covering the upper section and 5.25 bays with the modders mesh

like this lian-Li case

The modders mesh will cover all the area where the psu & cables are and the 5.25 bays. It will be the same color as the case.

this is a crappy example of where the mesh will go.

Mesh mod will look really good on that case

More cutting.
the front pannel of the chasis is pretty hacked up and has lots of holes, so it's got to go.


I will cut a new piece for the front from a 500mm X 500 mm X 1mm aluminum pannel (Brushed aluminum finish) I'll cut my 120mm fan holes for radiator cooling and cut holes for the Vandal Resistant Power Switch. and power led & HD led.


More cutting.
Never been real happy with the 2 x 80 mm rear fans, so it's got to go


I'll replace it with a piece of the 1mm aluminum and it will have a single 92mm fan hole. ( my coolit freezone needs a 92mm hole:) ) Like to keep my options open.

The cuttings over for now. I placed 3 seperate orders. it's a bitch you can never find everything you need in one place.
For now I need to do some cleanup on all the cut edges and the plastic bezel.
By next weekend I should be hard at it again. If I'm lucky by the end of the weekend the chasis will be ready for sandblasting and then off to the powder coat man.
I had thought about doing the powder coat myself. When I told my wife I would have to use her oven, well her reaction was about like this:eek2: :eek: followed with a breif statment which I will not repeat here.

what is with everyone and powder coating. jeez its such a rich mans thing. lol

just head over to your local auto body shop and ask them to paint it. wont cost as much as powder coat. and you get alot of color variety via PPG or Dupont

Powder coating around here is not that expensive. around $75 to do the whole case inteior & exteior BUT they cant powder coat the plastic bezel.

got 2 quotes on painting the whole case $250 to $350.

I'm waiting on a quote for just the exetior pannels painted. I talked to the powder coating guy and he said just the chasis would be cheaper. So i'll see what the quotes end up being and go from there. I also have the option of painting the pannels myself, if I can find a color I like in cans.

That should look good with those replaced.



lol .. Rich people.. :eek2:

Looking good catkicker...
MUST SEE MORE!!!!

BTW are you planning on stealthing the drive bays, or just painting the bezels?

With the case having the door on it I'll probably not stealth the drive bays
with the 5.25 hard drive cage installed I will have 2 5.25 bays open. I will have 1 3.5 bay I can install a fan controller in.

Nice job so far, Cat!

I'm jealous, though - I love to mod , have the tools, but I live in an apartment and don't have any place to work in!

Parts arrived today. Will be able to get some work done on the case this weekend

I now have all of my parts for the case mod. I did get the replacement pannels cut for the areas I cut out of the case. I gave up calling stores looking for self etching primer so I bought 2 cans of it online.
I'm useing Duplicolor paints so I ordered Duplicolor self etching primer.


The main reason I cut the rear pannel out where the 2 80mm fans were was to have one 92mm fan exhaust for my coolit freezone does use a 92mm fan so there you have it. Alot of people 2nd guees the designers of the coolit freezone, saying it should have come with a 120mm. Well bigger is not always better. I've taken a 148 opteron to 3GHz. plus and a 3500+ Clawhammer to over 2.7GHz. with the freezone.


If I end up going Intel core duo the coolit freezone will be installed in this case and the WC'ing system will be switched to cooling the GPU or GPU's

Looks good. I should have my freezone on Tuesday:). I'm looking forward to taking this C2D beyond 3 ghz lol

I get the case back from the sandblaster Thursday. The sandblaster guy does mostly auto and motorcycle parts. he uses sand that has been recycled several times so that the sand is almost like powder, it does a great job of preping the steel without pitting it.
Once I get it back I'll start the 1st phase of painting.
Self etching primer then sand and a 2nd coat of the self etching primer
Then I need to apply black primer coat.
color/base coat will be Gold metalic/metalflake
and then Candy Apple red clear coat. Not sure how many coats of the candy apple I will apply yet. All depends on how it looks after each coat of the candy apple red has been applied.

That sounds hot, Cat!

Yer gonna throw up some pics once you lay some paint down, right?

I'm sort of hyped about this cheiftec case mod. Will be very happy to finally get started on the paint.

question for you all
"Do you think I should paint the radiator and mcp350/D5 with petra top the same color as the case?"
And what color do you all think would be good for the modders mesh front pannel and the top 120mm grille
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/ima...S_Bricky_01.jpg

Black or straight gold no candy apple red?

I vote for black.

Why? Candy Apple Red and Gold would be just too, well, "pimpish"!

Progress

My makeshift paint booth:)

Sandblasted parts ready for self ectching primer


Self etching primer applied



now I applied a black sandable primer. This will make it easier for sanding it for a super nice flat finish to apply the paint to.



Thats it for now.

your doing an awesome job, and I like that you take your time and not rushing this

Good job on yer "booth"!

Taking the time to set that up will save you a lot of extra sanding on the case and general cleanup later on!

Done for the night.

metalflake base coat. Picture it with several coats of candy apple red clear coat


Custom pannels and grille sanded and ready for paint.


This is the front pannel for the case

are you going to weld them to the case or you will sue screws?

Rivets and adhesive.

I like the color!!!! Really unique color. Keep feeding me the pics

Ok White_Hair. Was going to wait till this evening but I will post some more pics.

Front pannel radiator & fans




Next task. Rear pannel for the 92mm exhaust fan

One word I can say: NICE !!

Thumbs up for you. I wish I have some extra space that I can use as a little workshop in my house.

Change in plans. the paint that I was told was candy apple clear\ transparent
coat is not candy apple clear\ transparent. This blows my paint plans out of the water. Luckily I have not sprayed all the pannels the gold color, there still primer and need to be sanded. Basically it just the chasis that is gold.
I will probably look at the selections of red paint and pick one and just paint the case red and apply clear coat.
Sort of bummed but it should be a nice looking case.

Nice progress and good job. I'm still trying Will the gold show through clear coat? That might be a dumb question.

Your new front fanplate is coving up the bezel mounts. Guess thats where the Rivets and adhesive come into play.

I'm like White_Hair and enjoy the great pics.

edit: I see you got a word in before me.

Well the candy apple clear coat is no longer. Going to apply a dark metallic red paint.
Once the front plate is fit to the front i'll mark it and cut out slots so the front bezel will hopefully still mount properly. If not I have planB

You'll make it work/fit. Might just need a little mod on the inside of the front bezel. But I like that you got plan B.

Dark metallic Red, now I can picture that.

Ok So I took alook at the selection of paints. Heres Cherry Red



So what do you all think?

i personaly like the red better then the gold

nice paint job there cat. Subscribed

I think that red looks good so far, Cat!

Updates
Well I found a powersupply for the case.


Did some work on the case tonite. Unfortunately with the humidity over 70%, the painting booth is closed tonite.



Hopefully by the weekend I will have the chasis done with the watercooling, exhaust fan installed. I think the new powersupply will fit fine. I may have to install DVD burners in the lower slots.

That's some serious power (future proof) Like the new color choice.

Why don't you weld that fan supports to the case?And you can use some bondo to blend it in?It will look like it was native 92mm fan compatible.

When the paint work is finished the rear pannel will not be that noticeable and the front pannel will be hidden by the case bezel. I want to be able to change those pannels out at anytime with ease.

Your right on about one pannel I'm redoing. The top pannel had a 120mm blowhole & filport hole. with the powersupply I have for the case the filport & blowhole are not going to work in there present locations.
So I had a pannel cut a bit smaller then the top pannel of the case. Used the 2 side adhesive tape to attach it.

I'll use bondo to blend the pannel in, hopefully the top of the case should have a nice looking angular look to it.

The bezel and bezel door ready for bondo.


The power button and LED lights are all being relocated. The lock will be the only thing on the door.

The major thing will be bending and shaping the modders mesh for the bezel pannels. I have 2 options
1, use filler and blend the modders mesh into the bezel. It would look like this basically


or just secure the pannels in the bezel and paint them black or gold. It would look like the orginal bezel except it would be modders meash instead of the plastic grilles


Going to start on bondo work tomarrow and if the weather is better I'll shot some paint in between bondo sessions.

Sorry I didn't realize.Looks cool so far.

Finished up the paint on the chasis pannels and radiator.



Now it's bondo time. Will post some pics. later of my first attempts at useing bondo LOL

Any progress?Also can someone recommend me a good spray paint for PVC?

Work has been hectic the last week. I just finished up the clear coat on the chasis tonite. Tomarrow I will be back into it. Will post pics tomarrow.

Today
Been busy with bouncing from bondo work to paint then to modders mesh work and then back to bondo etc. etc.

So I worked on the chasis somemore. installed the radiator and rear fan again to make sure they line up. had to add rivets to the rear pannel (not done with that)





I sprayed the plastic bezel door to see how the paint did on the plastic.


Now I had a issue as to how to mount my HD's. I removed both removable HD bays so radiator could be installed inside the case. After alot of thought I decided to pull out my box of LianLi parts and use one of the HD racks. After some cutting it shoud fit nicely in the 5.25 bay. I will be able to install 3 HD's and still have 2 5.25 slots avaliable


And the ongoing modders mesh mod UGH!




Alphacool Cape Bullseye Rev. 1 Anodized - Silver install. I want to use this res. in the case but where to put it:confused: With the help of my assistant computer modder. This is basically where I'm going to install it.


Well I'm back to the bondo, modders mesh, HD cage modding, paint free for all.