The tools of the trade.....
This is where the power tools comes in. Remember, always wear your safety gear, e.g. safety glasses, gloves, etc. when handling/using these tools.

First up is the holesaws. These babies cuts fan holes faster and much more cleaner than any other conventional hand tools. They work best with a bench drill, but if you have the confidence and a little bit of strength, you can mount them on your corded drill and hack away! You can read my guide on using the holesaws here. These saws were provided by CaseETC.Com. It's available in the 80mm, 92mm and 120mm flavour. You'll also need an Arbor for attaching the saws to your drill. Here in Singapore, you can find fairly similar holesaws at any good hardware store. They'll cost you about S$40+ for the 80mm model and the price goes up from there. They come together with the arbor.

Aahh! The good 'ol Dremel! How can you carry out a mod project without a Dremel? :^) The Dremel is used in this project for the front cut-out mod of the rectangular hole in the case structure and also cutting out the 2mm aluminium plate needed to house the front fan hole. If you've never used a Dremel before (What???), you can check out my guide here. I only use one type of cutting wheel and that's the Re-inforced Cut Off Wheels. They're much stronger than the normal wheels that came with the Dremel Kit and last longer. If you're looking for it, it's Part No #426 over at Dremel's website. There's also the Carbide Tip Wheel and the Diamond Tip Wheel. I've never used them personally before so I'm not sure of the performance. Dremel does not recommend them to be used on metals and they are rather pricey too! You can find a Dremel for as low as S$185 here in Singapore. DON'T GET THE BATTERY-OPERATED ONE!!! or you'll find yourself waiting for the battery to charge up more often than modding! LOL! Re-inforced Cut-Off Wheels cost S$15 for a 5-piece pack at Home-Fix.

Lastly, the power drill. And not those battery operated ones! Get a corded one for god's sake!! It is used in conjunction with the holesaws and make sure the arbor will fit into the drill's chuck. I also use them to drill out the fan screw holes and any other mounting holes needed in this project. Have a good set of drill bits ready too. A good set of power drill will set you back around S$50-60.

There are other bits and pieces of hand tools but these are the major ones for this project. Let's get on to the moddin'!

Starting to scratch that itch.....

 

The mods started at the top panel of the case, marking out the center for the fan holes and screw holes with a dot punch. After the screw holes had been drilled, it's time to slap on the 80mm holesaw into place. Make sure you have drilled the pilot hole for the arbor guide first. It helps to keep the holesaw aligned and helps you get a nice round cut. One thing you'll have to take note is that the holesaw's not actually 80mm in size, but rather a 78mm one. I've used an exact 80mm holesaw before and because I'm using just a power drill, it's kinda hard to totally take control of the spinning, especially at the very beginning. It just rips along and if you're not able to control it, it'll probably start cutting and scratching the surrounding areas of the metal too, and maybe go off a little off-centred. That's when you'll get a hole larger than the intended 80mm. Even using the 78mm holesaw, I still get a hole diameter of about 82mm.

I find it easier to rev-up the drill, then let it go and let the holesaw teeth glides along the surface of the metal, and keep doing that until the holesaw has some kind of a smooth cut. With a power drill, it's hard to keep a balanced pressure on the holesaw, so I changed position every now and then to have a more consistent pressure and cut on the hole. It doesn't take long after that. The holesaw rips through the metal thoroughly in about a couple of minutes or so. Then it's off to the next hole.

 

Cutting the top was fairly easy coz the panel is riveted to the case structure. For the side panel, I had to leave it locked in place on the side of the case so that it wouldn't move due to the momentum of the holesaw. A 90mm holesaw was used for both of the fan holes. A short work of getting rid of the sharp edges and the blowholes are ready. Now we come to the front part of the case. As you can see in the picture above, I've removed the HDD cage and it's support, cut out a rectangular hole with a Dremel and slapped on an aluminium plate, with a 92mm blowhole in place. On top of that, a 120mm mesh fan filter is also fixed to help keep out the dust.