Mod of the Month - April 2008

Glacial

by Dia2777
Worklog

Dia2777's Glacial mod has been a little late getting onto our forums, but fortunately through the help of our Italian modder contingent (Rigor Mortem and G69T), the way has been found and we've been blessed with another great mod.

Glacial may sound cold, but this mod is hot – at least where Dia2777 brought the welder to it.

But all (very) lame jokes aside, this thing is filled with great build styles and a few things I'd not really seen before – so let's take a closer look!

All good mods start with a plan, and you can see Dia2777's plan right on top of all these aluminium tubes. Yep, that little piece of paper! Actually, there are some better plans in the worklog, but they all point to one thing – these tubes needed cut.

With everything cut to size and shape, it was on to the next task – fastening it. Bolts? Screws? Naaaaah. Dia2777 got brave and tried something he'd never done before – welding. Believe it or not (I barely could with the nice job), this was his first time ever.

Now that the main frame was done, it was time to work on something that he'd apparently done many times before - whipping out the Dremel to cut some holes. This incredibly intricate snowflake was done by hand – no CNC or laser cutter here folks!

The detailed Dremel work just keeps getting better with Dia2777's cutting of the mod's nameplate. Does anyone else think he might be a little practiced at this?

From fancy cuts to fancy nuts – rather than just putting screws into bare metal or bolting them through, Dia2777 decided to attach his side panels in a more attractive and somewhat unique fashion – threaded pop rivets. There are actually rivet machines that work with threaded rivets from sizes anywhere from M3 to M7, allowing you to screw machine screws directly into a metal tube without having to bolt through it. This awesomely clean finish allowed Dia2777 to attach his side panels and angle irons in a much more attractive fashion than usually used.

Of course, as well as being a master at the Dremel, it seems Dia2777 is also a master at the teaser shot. The worklog takes huge leaps and bounds with each of his posts, but none of them really give you a great idea of the project as a whole and how it's shaping up. Don't believe me? Take a look for yourself.

On your way there, make sure you show some love for the artful cut-work by taking time to vote for Glacial as this month's Mod of the Month!