Dark Crystal

Then a big conception problem came up: I had thought about it at the beginning but I did not think that it would pose much of a problem.

With the computer activity and the heating of the components, the wood of the structure moved, thus creating cracks in the paint with the junctions between the acrylic and the wood.



In my head I was already resigned to re-sanding and to repaint the case to repair the damage but after reflection, I said to myself that this problem would surely return, thus I decided to hide these cracks which were localised on two places with the top of the case with self-adhesive carbon film.

But I wasn’t really satisfied with the result the carbon gave. The contrast with the case did not fit well to my mind thus I thought about a better solution so that the whole case will be quite homogeneous.



Then I had the idea to use the same mesh I used to mask the PSU and the DVD drive. The advantage is that this mesh would pass the light of the visible acrylic parts through it. I fitted out 3 parts with this mesh: one for the top of the case, one for the front case and one for the bottom of it. The hole was cut with a Dremel, then painted and varnished with chechmate varnish to obtain an identical chechmate black like the rest of case.


Here is the result in the dark: I love the light effect coming through all the holes…



Two black paint coats later :