Mod of the Month - February 2008

G5 Sacrilege

by jhanlon303
Worklog

If you read this monthly feature or even this site regularly, you know that I have a soft spot for the Mac G5 case. So sleek, so sexy, so...perforated. Honestly, how many of us say "I wish they'd sell just the case...and maybe in different sizes." Yeah, so Lian Li offers a perforated VB300. But I'm sorry – it's just not the same.

It seems that jhanlon303, who is getting to be pretty prolific on these competitions, is in agreement. There's been so much G5 love lately that he felt he'd add three of the cases to his repertoire. Yes, I did say three – so why is there only one mod?

Rather than make all of the true Macophiles cry, I think we'll let the pictures do the explaining. Just think of it as a cure for cancer – if a few G5s are sacrificed along the way, is it so bad?


Ahhh, three beautiful G5 cases, formerly connected to three beautiful G5 systems. You know what's fun? Hacking them to bits to make one case that's barely larger than an mATX board!



A pair of tin-snips later, and we have...pieces – lots of them. But when you take those pieces and start putting them together, you end up with a nice little case with all the character of the original (three)! And no G5s were harmed in the filming of this...oh, who am I kidding. Yes they were, but it looks like a worthy sacrifice.



The internal frame is proving to be the most difficult part so far – fusing together a bunch of small pieces to create something structurally sound is not nearly as easy a task as it seems. Fortunately, jhanlon303 is a tad obsessive, and even planned to weld the pieces together if need be. The internals are stainless steel, so you can just imagine how many dremel discs this took.



Instead of welding, jhanlon303 was finally convinced by some of his would-be welding crew that there was a simpler approach. JB-Weld fixed the problems and created a surface that could be sanded down to maintain the aesthetic. With the basic frame out of the way, it's now time to dig into the internal layout – and there's not a lot of space there to work with!

As far as names go, it seems like jhanlon303 hit this one right on the head – lovers of the Mac G5 will consider sacrilege to be an understatement if they go and read the worklog. Then again, if a few cases get killed to build a better, neater case...well, who are we to judge? You have our attention, Dr. Moreau...

Before anything else gets hacked up, why don't you go vote for G5 sacrilege as February's Mod of the Month?