Part II: Bezel paint prep
Before everything can get painted with toyota carbon blue metallic, it has to get primered,
and something has to be done about the holes created by the setscrews holding the front
bezel plate together with the rear bezel plate. First things first, sanded with 400 grit so
the plastikote high-build flexible primer sticks... what can I say, the stuff rocks!
A bit hazy, but it's a good thing -- the primer needs to stick.
Bondo'd set screw holes - soon to disappear.
Closeup, as well as bondo on the seam between the front and back plate.
Hanging for easy access to paint
everything. Tip: don't paint outside after dark,
the bugs like the light, which is near your work, and get their dumb asses stuck in the
primer. they can be plucked out with a fine set of tweezers, and the mark they leave can be
sanded out easily in the primer. Still, avoid it if you can. PS: Tiki torches don't work
on them.
All dry, 2nd coat of high build.
Orange peel anyone? -- easily taken care of.
A bit of a drip, can be sanded out.
Smoooth...
...and just barely reflective after a 400 grit wetsand (I can't tell you how long this took,
jeeze!). Primer, wetsand, primer, wetsand, primer....
Part DCLXVI: Don't anger the bandsaw
Oops!
Done while cuting a new pump mount from 3/4" 6061 Aluminum. Crap! Fortunately, it didn't
whack me in the face, hands, or other parts of my body when it snapped.
Part III: Radeon 9800 Pro + AC Twinplex
Since I'm going over to small-bore stuff to cool my additional components, I ditched the
danger den VGA block in favor of an AquaComputer Twinplex. The mounting hardware is
non-standard, primarly due to the fact that AC's supplied (well, I bought it used -- Thanks
Dr. Fibbles!) was a bit small for my taste. The mount is standard operating procedure:
threaded rod with a bolt on one end and a thumbscrew on the other, and a few washers here
and there to prevent the PCB from shorting out.
Sexy, aint it?
Mounting close-up.
