The Situation:
After doing the LED & USB mods, and not quite ready for cutting the
metal, I had an idea for my next slice & dice operation. I wanted to do a plexiglass mod, and didn't like that I could
not see my drive lights behind the door on the front of the case. Thus I had this brilliant idea about putting a
window into the door!
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Just look at that boring door, definitely needs some style work. | So obviously, the first thing to do here is to remove the door from the front panel, which is easy enough... | |
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Now to get rid of some plastic to make way for the window, a snip here, a slice there, and voila! It was nice that the door was only connected every inch or two, with gaps between them. | And here's an innocent looking piece of plexiglass that used to be part of a bird cage. It begged to be my crash test dummy for this experiment. |  |
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Ouch, without that part of the door, this nasty corner was created, and that might cause a fatal injury someday. | And with that comes a moment of artistic filing and buffing, which results in this nicely smoothed out curve. Same thing on the other side, too. |  |
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So I did some good & bad cutting on the test piece, which let me at least test the overall fitment. Pretty good for my first attack on some acrylic. It fits nicely! | Then I started cutting on the real stuff, the long straight sides being relatively easy to snap. Then on to some filing & buffing for a nice smooth curve that fit along the top of the door cutout. |  |
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Now moving down to the bottom it's a bit more tricky because it's concave. Here it is, after much grinding, filing, re-grinding, re-filing, and some buffing. | Despite the fact that I was starting to melt the stuff due to the heat from grinding & filing, I was able to put a really nice finish on the edges. |  |
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This shows the smoothness after sculpting & buffing the sheet of acrylic. | And here it is proped up in the door to get an idea of how it's going to look. |  |
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Here's the mess from just a small amount of grinding. Not visible in this smaller version are the pieces of hot grinding wheel that stuck to the debris shield (aka a computer case). | The other half of the mess I was making, and my professional "acrylic hacker tools" too. |  |
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Not being able to find a definitive answer about how to attach this to the door properly, I tried what I had on hand...some superglue. This appeared to have worked, but later it all kind of fell apart in transit to a LAN party. | But, before that happened, I did get some nice pictures of the finished product, like this one... |  |
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Another, closer shot of the window. |
And when the lights are out, the LEDs make a cool glow. |  |
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Final Thoughts:
Later on, after the LAN party tragedy, I discovered JB Weld #16, an acrylic solvent that causes cancer in the state of California. Sounds like fun, and it worked like a charm! The acrylic and plastic are now actually one piece, bonded at the molecular level :) |
Go back to Dr. Cheap's House of Hacks!
