Very nice.

rjohnson11
Very nice.

Thanks buddy!!

New Shop Equiptment: Band Saw

My birthday is on the 30th and I managed to get a gift a few days early which is great. I got a 10" Craftsman band saw. This saw will save me some time; especially with acrylics. It has the ability to accurately angle edges and perform perfectly straight cuts as well as more detailed work. I'll be using it with some thinner, soft metals like aluminum. Anything heavier than that can be cut using my air cutter.

I recommend getting a good set of blades if you buy this saw. The blades that come with it are not real great and a quality blade makes all the difference in the world. I got two different types of blades to use on different materials. One for softer metals and another for acrylic work. Depending on the thickness of materials you'll probably want a 12-16TPi blades. The more teeth the finer it cuts and the thinner the materials you can cut. I added some custom old school style pinstripes to make the saw an Envious Mods saw.




Update: Scratch Built Reservoir

The long awaited update on the reservoir I've been building. As many of you know I'm still settling into the temporary shop being used until my new shop is built from the ground up in spring. It's taken me a while to find some of the pieces I started before I moved. I finally managed to find the reservoir that I have been building from scratch. I had a couple things left to do to it before it was ready to be chemically welded using Tap Plastics acrylic cement. I've just finished drilling and tapping the holes for the fill port, inlet and outlet. This can be very nerve racking as I don't want to crack it when drilling.

Tap G1/4 & 11.8mm Drill Bit:


I've found that it works best if you drill the holes before spending all the time to cut and shape the materials. I used an 11.8mm drill bit to prep for the G1/4 tap. It is important that you use a bit that is exactly 11.8mm. Otherwise the threads won't be right and you won't get a water tight seal. Also when you tap your hole; make sure that the tap is perfectly straight so that the threads are correct. Typically I'll put the tap in my drill press and turn it by hand. This helps a lot. If I don't have my drill press handy I use a laser to tell me where the exact center mark is. When tapping I just make sure the laser stays in the center of the tap.

 
Happy Birthday Envious Mods. Thanks for showing us your nice builds.       

XrayMan
 
Happy Birthday Envious Mods. Thanks for showing us your nice builds.       

Hey, thanks buddy. That's very kind of you to say. I'm just happy I get to share my builds with wonderful people all around the world.

Painting EM Logo & OCZ NVM PCIE SSD Cover:

I decided to make a mask for the 2nd layer pieces that go on the OCZ NVM PCIE SSD. I'll paint the back of the acrylic a color that contrasts with the color on the front. I decided to go with white which will look good with the grey peeking through. When the mask is removed the color on the back shows through to the front making a really neat effect. It's tricks like these that I like the most and I learned how to do it by accident when I was painting acrylic. So far I've just painted the back pieces a light grey. Now that it's done curing I tape it off and started to paint the 2nd color. To tape it off I use painter's tape and an exacto knife. The knife is used to cut the tape at the edge which gives it a clean and sharp transfer between colors.






Parts Ordered:

I recently made an order for some more parts and materials for the IKONiK build. Some of it is starting to arrive. The first thing I ordered is several different types of vinyl. Most of it is exotic or specialty vinyl so it tends to be expensive. The 3 types that will arrive soon are a matte flat grey, silver mirrored chrome and black chrome. I have some really neat ideas for these. Next up on the list is a large electroluminescent panel. These are fairly expensive when you get into the larger sizes; especially when you get the ones that are trimable. This panel can be cut to fit almost any shape.

Another part I ordered was a RGB splitter. This will be used to make two RGB LED strips go behind the motherboard instead of one. This will give it a more uniform look as well as help to keep the wiring nice and clean. The last part I ordered is an aluminum, flush mount led mount and cover. These can be mounted flush in almost any panel. They also come with a diffuser that makes the LED strips give off an even glow. I've been wanting to try these out for builds but, typically they are hard to find. I got lucky and managed to find one to try out.

PSU Shrouds Side Pieces:

A couple weeks ago I did the rough cuts on the pieces that go on the PSUS shroud. These pieces are part of the styling and it is very tricky to get the effect is want. I've been debating on painting these gunmetal but, I have the black paint right now so I wanted to try something with the beveled edge I hand filed into the edges of these pieces. After I had everything painted up I started to sand and file off the paint on the edges. The hard part is making sure it's even throughout all the pieces.

Now that I had this done I was able to roughly mock the pieces up so I could make adjustments. I only mounted some of the pieces because I need 3m tape to really mock them up and I ran out of the good stuff. After making a few adjustments the pieces look great. Once I get the gunmetal paint I will give it a try and mock all of the pieces up at that time.






EVGA's New Power Link:

After seeing EVGA's new Power Link I knew I had to have it for the IKONiK build. It was a perfect fit. After talking with EVGA, they agreed to send one. Being a designer and fabricator I really look at the effort that goes into solving problems like GPU cables going everywhere. EVGA did a great job of coming up with a solution for that problem. The Power Link wraps around the side of your GPU which gives it a very clean look. Your stock PSU cables plug into the Power Link and it seems to work with almost any 8 or 6-pin configurations.

Even the spacing between the two pin sets is adjustable. Since I inverted my motherboard the EVGA Logo is upside down. I made a thin acrylic piece that will go over the logo to correctly orientate the logo. I decided to make a "PowerLink" logo which lets people know what it is. Every time I post any pics I get several emails saying, "what's that thing called?" It looks really sharp once installed.






Motherboard Mods: EVGA Z170 Classified K

I have spent soo much time trying to figure out how I am going to customize the motherboard to fit the build. Originally I was going to use modern patterns to tie all of the pieces together. I tried about 10 different designs and spent days narrowing down potential candidates. I even had a voting poll to help determine the best route to take.

Yesterday I decided to wipe the board clean and design it from the ground up again. I came up with styling that fits the theme and looks great. I wanted to keep it simple while conveying the themes design cues.The early tests of this look killer (pictured below) and I plan on making a few minor adjustments as well as using a different type of vinyl I ordered.

Great progress so far

Sanding Out Scratches In Aluminum:

Early on in the build process I built the PSU shroud and cut an aluminum plate that goes next to the shroud. I had some hand me down pieces of aluminum that looked like it had been run over. I seen the potential of what it could be with some work. The case is now starting to come together and I felt it was time to do just that. I started off with 180 grit sandpaper because the scratches were very deep. I also knew I wanted to give it a brushed look to match other finished on the build. It came out great and once I get closers to finishing the build I'll start using finer sandpaper to give it an even better look.





Pro Modder Tip: Brushed Aluminum Finishes

Brushed aluminum has started to become pretty popular and it looks great. You can brush your own pieces of metal but, for this tip I focus primarily on aluminum. The real trick behind giving something a brushed look is the precision and technique behind the use of sandpaper. You have to give the piece long even strokes without wandering in any other direction. I usually use a sanding block and a guide that runs the direction of the brushed look I want. A guide can be made up of anything that's straight and can be used to make sure you lines are straight. I use a piece of square metal stock or anything else I have laying around at the time.

You'll also want to make sure you start your sanding stroke before the aluminum piece starts and continue that stroke past the other end of the aluminum. This makes a big difference. I've found that not doing this; gives the edges weird marking that make the entire piece look amateur. Start with around 180 grit if you already have scratches in the aluminum. If it's a new piece you can start with 220 grit or finer. The more fine grit the sandpaper is the finer the brushed look will be. Usually after using a 220 grit I'll work my way up to 1000 grit but it's not required as 500 grit is usually fine enough. The first few times I tried this technique is started by practicing on some old scraps of aluminum before doing the actual piece I was working on.

Here's the before and after sanding out the scratches and giving it a brushed finish:

Top Layer: Front Triple Fan Surround

I've spent a good deal of time on the pieces for the front surround. It takes a lot of work to get the lexan to exactly match the fans intake shape. Especially due to the super thick lexan I decided to use. Now that I have the shape of the lexan exact I can move on to making the template for the metal top piece. This piece will cover the majority of the lexan. I left a couple spots open and all of the edges around the fans will be viewable. Once I edge lit the lexan it will look epic. I waited until the lexan piece was finished before working on the metal piece because it allows me to make sure the metal will be an exact match. Below you can see the template for the metal piece laying on top of the acrylic piece.






OCZ 480gb Vector 180 SSD:

I managed to get my background back in shape so that I could take some pics of the 480gb Vector 180 SSD sent for the build. The RD400 NVM PCIE SSD will be used primarily for OS and other installation files while the Vector 180 will serve as a main storage. This is my 5th SSD from OCZ and I love them. They are affordable and give more expensive SSDS a run for their money. Definitely the best bang for your buck when it comes to reliable storage. Below I've added a few pics to show what comes with the SSD.