Igor Kromin |   Consultant. Coder. Blogger. Tinkerer. Gamer.

This post follows on from Part 3 where I added some stabilisers to the box, in this post I cover the aesthetic aspects of the box, namely making it look like something you want to look at every day.

This was the final result for the box, all aluminium corners covered in carbon fibre vinyl, both inside and out, all of the bolts with blue printed washers and the door corners clearly marked out with blue 90 degree corner pieces.
CIMG4490.JPG




My intent was to make the box look nice and carbon fibre always makes boring metal bits stand out. I had a bit of dark grey carbon fibre vinyl left over from my SGI mod, so I decided to use it here.

Each of the corners was removed, wrapped in vinyl and bolted back on. They all looked like this on the outside:
CIMG4454.JPG


The inside was wrapped with a lighter colour vinyl, mostly because I ran out of the dark stuff. The lighter one still looks pretty good I think.
CIMG4485.JPG


It was a long and tedious process removing each corner piece, wrapping it, and screwing it back in.
CIMG4455.JPG

CIMG4459.JPG


When I was about a third of the way through wrapping the corner pieces, I decided to make blue washers for all the bolts because the bolts were causing the vinyl to twist as the bolt was screwed in. This meant removing all the corners again one by one.

This is how you print lots of washers:
CIMG4486.JPG


I think it was worth adding the washers, they add a nice contrast.
CIMG4487.JPG

CIMG4493.JPG


The door I had was the original piece of acrylic I cut out by hand from one of the side pieces, so it had uneven cuts along the corners, I wanted to cover this up, so I printed these:
CIMG4469.JPG


...and fitted them to the door using double sided tape:
CIMG4477.JPG


The box also got some corner pieces:
CIMG4478.JPG


Together, it looks pretty good...
CIMG4479.JPG


Another thing that was bothering me was that the cable for the exhaust fan was just dangling, so I printed a guide for it and attached it to the box with double sided tape also.
CIMG4467.JPG

CIMG4468.JPG


Finally all together, the box looks quite nice!
CIMG4497.JPG


-i

A quick disclaimer...

Although I put in a great effort into researching all the topics I cover, mistakes can happen. Use of any information from my blog posts should be at own risk and I do not hold any liability towards any information misuse or damages caused by following any of my posts.

All content and opinions expressed on this Blog are my own and do not represent the opinions of my employer (Oracle). Use of any information contained in this blog post/article is subject to this disclaimer.
Hi! You can search my blog here ⤵
NOTE: (2022) This Blog is no longer maintained and I will not be answering any emails or comments.

I am now focusing on Atari Gamer.