Fire case by Wolverine

Top Engraving and cutout

This Lian Li case is rather special - it's designed to be modular, and as a result, there's a hatch at the top of the case that can be replaced with either a fan plate or a plate for mounting a 2x120mm radiator for watercooling.

Rather than use one of these dedicated plates, I decided to do some engraving and cutting in the original one instead.


The design is a ambigram - a design that can be read from two directions. If you look at the Fire text you'll notice that it says 'Fire' even if you rotate the image 180 degrees - crick your neck and have a look for yourself! I engraved the whole thing before cutting. At first, I planned to cut both the text and the flames, but in the end I settled for just the text.


Now the pieces were coming together, and next it was the front of the case that needed some styling. I used some sheets of coloured plexi and made a flame design that was cut using the router table. This only took about an hour to make so I actually don't have any pictures of the working stages - but above you can see the final result.


The DVD I chose for this build was a Plextor slot writer. This is a nice drive, but ithe front didn't really fit the case - so I took one of the original Lian Li drive bay covers and cut a slot in it and a hole for the eject button. This gave it a nice sleek, stealth look. I also fitted a 7" TFT monitor in the front as an extra eyecatcher.


The last stage of the mod was to paint the inside matte black and fit in all the hardware. I also had the keyboard and mouse airbrushed by my pal Dick Nystedt. This gave them a matching flame design which looks absolutely stunning. I then got around to installing all the hardware.