Project Tivoli - A Modder's Journey Back to Basics

Project Tivoli - A Modder's Journey Back to Basics
Date : Sunday, 04 November 2001
By : Wolfman

The itch that has to be scratched!
It's been quite a while since I last undertake a major modding project. The last one being the AOpen HX08 Tower Case Mod Project way back in April 2000. Eversince then, it's just been a little mod here and a little mod there plus, time spent running the site and everything that has to do with it. Anyone that has been to the Cool Case Gallery will agree that at some point of time, you're probably saying; "Wow! I wish I had the time to do that!" or "Damn! I gotta start this new-found hobby of mine!" Now that it has reached and surpassed the 2000 submission milestone, I'm thinking that it's about damn time that I do something...and fast! :O) But I wasn't going to do something spectacular or out of this world, but rather something simple, but appealing and at the same time, trying out something that I have always wanted to do but didn't have enuff confidence to do it, afraid I might screw up somewhere between the lines. So I'm basically going back to the roots of modding, going back to basics or doing something "Old Skool" if you like. What is that you ask? Read on my friends....

I suddenly find myself with a whole lot of time about a month or so ago. I wouldn't even want to go into why I had this sudden burst of time in my hands, but needless to say, this is the TIME! My dremel has been itching, my holesaws' been restless and my soldering iron have been crying for some serious modding action. And myself, well, there has just been no better time than NOW! So it's off to do the necessary browsing around, looking at all the possibilities, narrowing your choices and finally, purchasing all the parts for the project in hand. What you will find in these pages are the processes/steps that I had gone thru while undertaking this project. It's intended to be something "informative" or "educational" if you like to call it and not to be taken seriously. Risks are always involved when you're dealing with power tools / electrical components so if you hurt yourself or someone else, or you screwed up your hardware, you're on your own baby! :^) If you're not sure, get someone who does to help you out. With that in mind, I present you....

Project Tivoli

The case......
I'm looking at a mid-tower for the project, but I wasn't going for the aluminium kind. I'm going for the normal steel cases and it's no secret that apart from the Antec Performa Series of cases, the Chenbro Genie and the LiteOn FS020 are my other dream mid-tower cases and so, that basically narrows down my choice of cases for the project. But neither Chenbros, nor LiteOns are available here in Singapore, so the only other choice I had was the Antec. Well, it isn't actually the Antec, but rather the ChiefTec mid tower case that I got. I've reviewed one before here, and Diceman did one too of the similar case, but black in colour. It's a very popular case and we peeps in Singapore only recently got the chance to own one, courtesy of Eclipse Enterprise.

For a mid tower, the case is pretty huge and heavy too! It has lots of space for you to work in and a well-balanced airflow system with 2 X 80mm fan slots in the front and 2 X 80mm fan slots at the rear. Of course, for any serious modder, that probably wouldn't be enuff. The only gripe I have is that there's no removable mobo tray but looking at the size and internal space, it wouldn't be much of a problem.

The planning begins.....
Back in the days of "early" modding, the only concern for a modder or "wannabe" modder was airflow and how to make that stock case cool better. How do we achieve that? Blowholes of course! Or suckholes, depending on how you look at it. I wanted to mount at least a 92mm fan in the front to replace the two 80mm fan mounts in the front but as many of you would know, the presence of the HDD cage in the front restricts that idea.

So I decided to remove the rivet that was holding the HDD support tray and cut out a large rectangular hole in the front of the case. You can clearly see the markings on the pictures above. I then got a 2mm thick aluminium plate, cut it to a size slightly larger than the rectangular hole and using some screws and rubber washers, mount it on top of the hole. Now I have a lot of space to work on that 92mm hole, maybe even a 120mm one! As for the removed HDD cage, I'm mounting it on the bottom of the case, right in front of the front fan location for cooling. :O)

Now it's time for some fan action on the top and side of the case! Two 80mm fan holes were marked out at the top. There's a lot of space at the top, so I went with the side-by-side orientation. It looks kinda cool too! :O) Two 92mm fan holes were also marked out at the side panel of the case. These not only helps to bring in cool air into the case, but at the same time helps to cool down your expansion slot cards, especially that hot AGP slot. By now, most of the major modding has been planned out and it's time to bring the Dremel to the metal....

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.

Here you see the case with all the major cutting done. The next major thing to do was painting. YES! I finally have the time to take it on! I'm never really any good at painting. The only painting experiences I had was way back when I painted my BMX and mountain bikes and it turned out like shit! Although that's a different story altogether... heheh! But looking at the numerous painted case pictures in the gallery and reading about other users successes in painting, I just got to try it. I finally psyched up myself and go ahead with the plan...but before that, just a little more mods...

Looking at the pictures, you must be wondering why I'm marking out and drilling out holes on the case door. Well, here's another mod that I've wanted to do for a long time, the NIC LEDs mods. You've seen how people mod their NIC LEDs and brings them to the front of their cases. It's a neat way to monitor your network traffic and also your broadband Internet connection. But I didn't want to just stick it on an empty drive bayor anything, so I decided to line the LEDs up with the POWER and HDD activity LED positions on the case's door. It gives that consistent look to the front of the case. There's the "Link" LED, "100 Base" LED and the "ACTIVITY" LED. I'll cover this mod in a separate guide soon.

Three 2.8mm holes were marked out and drilled. A little help from a round hand file makes sure the 3mm LEDs I'll be using fits in perfectly. Once that's done, it's time to paint! :O)

Fighting the fear.....
Now this isn't meant to be a guide on painting or anything. Like I've said, I've never really had much experiences on the topic. It's more of a day to day account of what I did during the painting stage and it's an accumulation of knowledge that I've gathered from the various people out there who have successfully painted their cases. Now if you're looking for a simple but easy to follow guide, here's one done by our own Forum member, TheSilentChamber. Another one is by a guy called WookieCrisp and you should check out his Painted Enlight! :O) I've used both of the guys tips and steps for this painting project of mine and basically mixed and match the two and came up with my version... :O) It's mostly due to the product/equipment availability....

Like most cases out there, the top of the Chieftec is riveted to the overall structure. And those who owns the case knows that even the bottom is riveted to the same structure. Removing the rivets aren't really a big problem though. The rivet heads are about 6mm in diameter and a 5mm drill would easily takes the head out. It's a simple process and something that'll take only a few minutes.

See? That was fast wasn't it? Heheh! Anyway, there's nuthing much to do with the stripped off case structure so that part of the case will just be sitting somewhere in my room waiting for the day the others to come back and be re-united! :O) Here's the parts that's gonna be painted....

Painting inventories....
I wanted to achieve something like an automative shine or gloss. To do that, you'll need automotive paint like the ones from Rustoleum, Krylon or other brands that I've read so much about on the Net. But the problem is, you're never gonna find any of those here in Singapore. I've found some Rustoleums but not of the automotive type. It's mostly more suitable for interior decoration like those rock-stone textures! Yucks! So I'm pretty much left with not much of a choice. Me and my buddy Calvin looked around at some of the paints that's available and trying to find an alternative. He had some painting experiences before and he suggested RJ Paints. Made in the UK and epoxy based, he said that it's a much better paint that any he had tried before and has a quick drying time.

I pretty much have a rough idea what colour I was gonna buy and it has to be some shade of blue. VH Blue! :O) So I grabbed a couple of primers, 5 cans of the blue and 3 cans of clear coats. I also got myself some sandpapers for sanding the case. Unfortunately, the finest I could get is the 3M Imperial Wet-Or-Dry 1500 grit. I was really looking forward to getting my hands on some 1800 and 2000 grits but 3M Singapore said they do not have any stock. I could order though, but I'll have to get a minimum quantity of 500!! What the heck is a guy gonna do with 500 sheets of sandpaper????? Sand my whole house???? LOL! Anyway, the 1500 grit looks fine enough to me... So I got a few sheets of grit 180, grit 500, grit 800, grit 1000, grit 1200 and grit 1500 for the project.

The fun begins....
First of all, I used masking tape and taped up the areas that I don't want paint to get to. Then I sanded the parts down with the grit 180 paper. I wanted to remove the textures that you get with all those beige cases out there. I sanded the parts until most of the textures are gone and you're left with a nice and smooth surface. Some would prefer to sand the parts to the bare metal but I find that not necessary. I did however found some exposed metal on some of the parts that I sanded. Probably due to some aggressive sanding on my part! :^) I then further smooth it out with the grit 500 paper and washed the parts with water to get rid of the sanding dust, dirt and grease. Left it out to dry for a couple of hours and it's nice and clean, ready to receive the first coat of primer.

I had no other place to do my painting except outside of the house. It's not the best place but it's the only place I've got! I used a grey anti-rust primer. You can use a white-coloured primer too if your final colour is bright like yellow, but the blue colour I chose is kinda dark. Don't forget, give the spray can a good shake for a minute or so to ensure that the content is thoroughly mixed. You'll know it when the bearing inside starts to rattle freely. I started off with a very thin coat of primer on all the parts, keep the spray can about 25 to 30cm from the surface and keeping the can in a constant horizontal motion back and forth. Try not to get the can too close or bubbles and runs will appear on the surface. I find it easier to start off before the part and continue to spray past the part. That little tip thanks to TheSilentChamber's Painting Guide. And remember, a few thin coats are better than one thick coat.

I let the primer cure for 24 hours and after it has cured, I wet-sand the parts. This is basically to remove any roughness on the paint and have a smooth surface again for the next coat and at the same time, wash away the dust from the sanding. How do you wet-sand. Here's how! :O) I ran my shower faucet over the painted parts and used the grit 800 paper to lightly remove the irregularities on the painted surface. While sanding, it's important to remember not to apply too much pressure. You don't want to remove the paint here.

The second primer coat basically covered all the surface of the parts. Another 24 hours of curing, then wet-sanding, and it'll be ready for the first colour coat. Here's a summary of what I did at this stage;

First colour coat......
After the second wet-sand, the parts are ready for the first coat of colour. The same method of painting is applied, applying a few thin coats over the surface rather than one single thick coat. The primed surface reacted well to the paint and everything looks fine at this stage. I let the coloured paint cure twice as long as the primer before I proceed to wet-sand with the 1000 grit sandpaper. Applied the second coat, cured it for another 48 hours then wet-sand again. The third and final coat covered everything nice and even and after another 48 hours of curing (PHEW!), I wet-sand the parts down with the 1200 grit sandpaper. One thing to take note when sanding is the edges and corners of the parts. They tend to lose paint easily than the flat and large surface. If you accidentally sanded it down to the primer, you got to cover that part up with the colour again.

Here are the parts after the final coat of colour. Up to this stage, everything seems to be looking well. After the last wet-sand with the 1200 grit sandpaper, I left the parts cure for another 48 hours before the clear laquer coat. Here's an outline of what I did at this stage.

Now here's the tricky part of painting. The front bezel has all these nooks and crannies that's very hard for the paint to reach so I must be careful not to over-spray on these parts to prevent bubbles or runs of paint. I started out by sanding the bezel and the door with the 500 grit sandpaper to remove most of the textures of the moulded plastic and then smooth it out with the 800 grit sandpaper. Washed the parts with water and left to dry. Once dry, I put two coats of primer, with a 24 hour curing time each and wetsanding between the two coats with grit 1000 sandpaper. The paint seems to stick to the plastic parts a little better than the metal parts. Paid more attention to the corners and edges as the plastic tends to lose paint faster than the metal parts.

Once the primer has dryed up, it's time for the colour to go on. Going more slowly on the paint to avoid getting runs and bubbles and paying attention to the hard-to-reach places on the bezel and door. After all that, I can still see light spots on the bezel where the paint could not reach, especially the cooling vents and after thinking and looking at all the possible ways I can reach it, I decided to give the vents a little paint from the inside. It's much easier to cover the internal parts of the vents this way. 3 coats with curing and wetsanding with 1200 grit sandpaper between them and they're ready!

As for the door, I just gave the inner side a few light coats. It's gonna be closed most of the time anyway! Now if you remembered, I drilled a few LED holes for my NIC LEDS on the door. before I put on the clear lacquer coats, I labeled the holes using some Decadry letterings. You can easily find these for about S$2 each. Make sure you get one with small letterings, prefebably around 2.5mm in height to go along well with the LEDs. It looks kinda cool if you ask me! :^)

Now it's time to polish up the paint and see what happens!

In the picture below, you can clearly see the swirl marks made by the final sandpaper. Here I used the rubbing compound to remove the marks. Put a few drops of the compound onto a clean dry cloth and starting from one corner of the part, rub it on with a circular motion until you've covered the whole area of the part. Then I take another clean cloth and starts to polish/buff things up. At this stage, I can already see the little bit of gloss/shine on the part.

Next it's the glaze. Same method of applying as the rubbing compound. Only this time you'll need to rub a little harder and faster to get that nice glossy shine out of the part. it's damn tiring I can tell you that, but like I said, this is machine glaze and it'll probably work better with a buffing machine. But all in all, I'm very satisfied with the results that I got considering this is my first attempt at painting my case. :O) the picture below how the parts looked like after buffing... nice eh? :O)

it's off then to the plastic front bezel and door. Like before, the plastic material tends to take the compound and glaze a little better than the metal parts. It's either that or my L337 painting skillz!! LOL! Yeah, right! Look at that gloss on the bezel! Woohoo! A little VH Badge pimping too! The lacqeur covered up the Decadry letterings pretty well too!

The modding of the major parts of the case is completed and it's time to put the case back together. I borrowed a riveting tool and some blind rivets from my buddy Rizal (thanks bro!), and put the case back together again.

I also fixed up the all the fans to their respective locations. For the 4 exhaust locations (2 top plus 2 rear), I'm using 4 X 80mm Panaflos. These fans are some of the quietest fans around but still pumping out a respectable amount of airflow. It's kinda hard to find these fans locally. I dressed up the fan holes with rubber linings to give it that professional look and also a little bit of vibration dampening. Both the fans and rubber linings are provided by CaseETC.Com. I also added a couple of handles to the top of the case panel. I found this at a local hardware store. They're not the normal aluminium round handles but rather stylish ones. Made of stainless steel with that brushed look and angled at the end.

Here's some pictures of the attached 80mm fans on the top panel of the case. Check out that handle! :oP The other picture shows you the dual 92mm Sunon fans I used as side intakes.

A little more painting....
You really thought I'll forget about the case feet and 5.25" devices? Hell No! So I did some minor painting on them too! Nothing much really, just a flat black to go along with the blue coloured case. I think the flat black goes well with any combination of colours. I even painted my NewQ Gold DSP! Now, most CD-ROM or 5.25" drives have some kind of locking tabs on them so you'll need to release them before you can remove the drive face off. I didn't have to think about drive trays or anything like that coz I'm using a slot type CD-ROM and DVD-ROM from Pioneer. My only concern was the NewQ Gold. I has the clear plastic section that should not be painted. A little masking tape should do the trick. I did the same thing to my IDE Zip100 and the floppy drive.

I didn't bother putting on primers first for this, but I did sand down the faceplates, feet and door handle a little to get a smooth surface for the paint to stick to. A few quick coats was all that's needed. There's also a faceplate with holes drilled into them for my 7V/Off/12V Baybus. I did let the paint cure for about 12 hours or so to make sure everything's dry and harden.

The switch baybus unit was provided by the folks at UmaxPC. These baybus are great for reducing your fans rotational speed and thus noise if you're only doing some surfing and email during the night. It also has dual-coloured LEDs to tell you if the fan is in high or low mode. Take a look at Diceman's review of this unit here. UmaxPC also provided a MicroBus, which we reviewed previously here and some tailed fan connectors. But I've already had a homemade Fanbus, so I'll couple the baybus with it. You can learn how to make your own fanbus here.

Here's how the drive bays looked like after I've assembled the drives and the other devices. Pretty pimpy eh? :^) There's also a picture of my homemade fanbus, sitting pretty above the front 92mm intake fan.

The NIC LEDs....
Remember the NIC LEDs mounting position on the door of the case? The LEDs fits nicely into the drilled hole, there's no need to secure them with hot glue or anything else. I simply cut the leads to the required length and bend them towards the top of the case. Power from the NIC will be supplied by using the same way as the Power and HDD LEDs, using little 2-pin connectors. You can buy these or just ripped them off from an old case if you have one. This method is much easier than soldering and it gives you the option of easily changing your LEDs if they're faulty.

The cable length for this mod is probably the longest in the case as it has to come from the NIC, goes along the bottom of the case to the front, then goes up and through a hole in the 5.25" bays, out to the front of the case and along the top contour of the door. I wanted the case wiring to be as neat as possible and to prevent the door from not closing. So far, it has worked very well. The pic below shows you the back of the case door with the NIC LEDs cables.

Hhmm...long cables for the NIC? Does it work? HELL YEAH IT WORKED ALRIGHT!!! Mighty pimpy too if I do say so myself! The LEDs turned out great and very bright too, especially the Super-Bright White ones! You can also see the NewQ Gold DSP and the switch baybus in action in the other pic. The configuration of the front LEDs are as follows;

Finally....
After about more than a year without any serious mod project, I'm pretty happy the way this project has turned out! Especially the paintjob. Sure, it's not anywhere near the showroom shine that I was going for, but it's still pretty cool nevertherless. One thing I did note after all this is the colour of the paint. It kinda strays away from the colour shown on the spray can. The spray can says blue but the finished case looks more purplish.. something like deep purple.. hhmm.. Deep Purple! I like that! My good buddy Chester told me that this is probably due to the primer I used. If I had used a lighter coloured primer, like white, it'll probably be more closer to the colour on the spray can.

A little neatness goes a long way....
I've been reading Maximum PC for about 5 months now and it really is a good mag. There's one issue where the cable mastery of VoodooPC was featured. The cabling work and neatness of the case interior was really cool and I decided to try it. I was going to use rounded cables everywhere but thought this could be a good challenge. I have an Abit KG7 Raid in there and anyone who does knows where the floppy connector is.... :O) Anyway, I just flipped the floppy cable to the underside of the motherboard and move it up towards the top IDE channels, folded it 90° and out of the side of the motherboard. Kinda hiding it.... for the cables connected to the Raid Controller, a little "cable origami" as VoodooPC calls it, and it's lying flat on the bottom of the case.

As for the other smaller cables, Power, HDD, Reset, etc, I wrapped them together with woven mesh, just like the one you see with Enermax PSUs and Swiftech's HSF units. Same goes for all the fan cables, NIC LEDs cables and baybus/fanbus cables. Well, it didn't really have the neatness or finesse as those VoodooPC rigs, but I consider it a step closer. Or better than nothing! LOL!

A little paint left..and itching for more...
There's still a little primer, colour and clear paint left and I was really itching to go for more...I looked around and saw my dirty 'ol Microsoft Internet Pro keyboard and it's just sitting there, screaming to me, "PAINT ME! PAINT ME!! LOL! And so I did! I haven't used the keyboard for about a year now and it was pretty dirty with dust and stuff. A little magic solvent cleaner and it's clean again. I ripped the individual buttons out and soaked them in a solution of water and the cleaning solution and left it for a few hours to clean itself. I didn't want to paint the buttons coz then I'll be painting over the letterings....and I'm not good at typing anyway...I have to look at the keys! :O) After removing the top panel of the keyboard, I gave it a light sand and then primed it a little. Once it was dry, I sanded it again and just quickly put a few quick coats of the colour and left it to totally dry for about 24 hours. A little advice here if you're planning to paint yer keyboard..... tape up the holes where the buttons/keys sits in!! I didn't do that and ended up removing a lot of paint from the holes coz the keys would simply stays in the depressed position when I pressed on it!!! :^) I didn't stop there though....while waiting for the paint to dry, I noticed the LEDs on the keyboard PCB, begging to be replaced with those cool Ultra Bright Blue ones!! I just de-soldered the yucky yellowish green ones and slap on the blue LEDs. In cae you're wondering, it's 3mm LEDs. Check out our guide on changing the keyboard LEDs here... Cuts long story short.... paint dries, a few clear coats, another 24hour curing and give it a light rub with the rubbing compound and also a light glaze. Put the top panel back on and inserted all the keys. It sure look damn nice, matching keyboard to go... :O)

Finished product...
Ladies and gentlemen...Project Tivoli! You can see the OEM MS Mouse too in the picture but I haven't paint it yet at the moment. And in all, the project was a success and it goes beyond my expectations. Especially after more than a year of no serious modding! :O) I spent a total of about 3 and a half weeks to get everything done. The painting took up most of that time. To some, that might looked like a long time but that every little time and effort was needed to make sure I can achieve the best paintjob I could and to tell you the truth, it was worth it! Every damn minute of it!

and final thoughts....
With this project, I finally tackled my so-called fear of painting and did it with some degree of success too. The colour turned out better than displayed on the spray can, probably due to the primer and I'm now waiting for the paint to totally harden before I give it another coat of glaze or maybe even wax! Heheh! We'll see what happens then.... As for the mods, I've mentioned earlier that I'll be going "old skool" and doing something basic, thus the blowholes and handles. No windows so I don't have a need for them neons or cold cathode tubes. Another mod that I've tried for the first time in this project was the NIC LEDs mods which turned out pretty pimpy as well. I had a great time doing these mods and you can be sure..... I'm already looking at doing more!

Thanks....
Well, this is where I give credit where it's due, to the individuals and companies who have helped me, either directly or indirectly, to make this project possible.... Thanks a lot guys!

TheSilentChamber - our forum dweller for his simple and easy-to-follow guide on painting. You can check out the guide here.
WookieCrisp - the guy with the excellent paintjob on his Enlight 7237 and tip on the Glaze! :O) Check out his site here.

My painting method was a combination of both the above individual's tips/guides, with a little improvisation of course! :OP

Eclipse Enterprise - the guys who brought them ChiefTec cases in for the local peeps! :O)
CaseETC.Com - for the holesaws, the Panaflos and the fanhole rubber linings
UmaxPC - for the Dual-Coloured LEDs Switch Baybus
FrozenCPU.Com - for the thumbscrews and PCI/AGP Card Quick Screws
CoolerGuys - for the Swiftech MC370-OA HSF used in the system
OCBadges - for them schweet and pimpy VH Case Badges!

Here's your chance to win those cool Dual-Coloured LED Switch Baybus from UmaxPC! All you have to do is tell me how I got the name "TIVOLI" for this mod project. Just for your knowledge, I don't even know what it means! It sounds Italian or something and it's pretty cool! Well, if you know the answer, send it to this email address; contest@virtual-hideout.net. Only one entry per person and you've got until Tuesday, 6th November 2001! So you better hurry! :O)

That's all for now folks. Thanks for reading and happy moddin'! Remember, put on your safety gear!