Gadgetory

excellent welcome everyone to my tempered glass side panel mod video and I'm gonna start right off with a spoiler alert it was a success that's right with the invaluable support of a couple of my friends from the PC modding scene specifically Lea Harrington from PC junkie mods comm and bill Owen from MN PC tech comm I have taken this custom cut piece of tempered glass and integrated it into the side panel of my fractal design define our five case allowing a direct view into the Arctic Panthers glorious lead sexified interior components and water cooling loop but all was not sunshine and daisies with this little project Oh No and if you watched last week's vlog video you know that my first shot at this mod didn't quite turn out as I would have liked but enough exposition let's head back in time a couple weeks so we can watch the younger more naive policy struggles to accomplish this task unaware of the looming failure that awaits but anyway back to the stuff I gotta aside from the Permatex adhesive sealants define our five side panel of course I've got my heat gun out because I am going to need to get rid of all of that thermal padding and the other side of this before I can cut it for my cutter tool I have what is effectively a dremel here although it is not a dremel so sorry to any of you dremel lovers out there this is a black & decker r/t x3 speed rotary tool it is a pretty powerful one not terribly expensive and it's plug in which is important for this type of work because you need something as powerful Chris I got lots of the cutting disks because I'm probably going to be going through those protective eye gear please wear a protective eye gear we're going to be doing this sort of thing it's kind of necessary and there's going to be sparks flying and all that good stuff I'll come back to the side panel but I do have a set of files here because that's important and I got these on Amazon again I'll put the link to these in the description not terribly expensive these are actually made for wood but I was reading comments and people were like they actually work fine for metal too you know I don't need anything I'm not opening a mod shop or anything so I didn't need anything too crazy the whites coolant from primo chill is there that's just for dressing it's purely to make things look interesting around here I've got my t-square because I'm going to need to be measuring some pretty specific lines on here and lastly of course is the tempered glass I guess kind of the main event itself for this particular day or mod or whatever this is from dulles glass and mirror and they sent a nice little certificate along with it having never really bought tempered glass before I found all this glass a mirror and they have a website and they let you like set everything up online as far as the size you want and all that good stuff so this is a gray glass piece of tempered glass cut specifically to a size which I forget it's like 15 inches by 16 inches or something like that pretty basic otherwise like they can do they can do special edges on it and that sort of thing and they can even drill holes in that and and that kind of thing I didn't contact them directly I only use their website to get the glass but it came very well packed and it's a very nice piece the great glass is not terribly expensive although this was a little over $80 for this piece for a couple bucks less you can get the standard clear glass but that can have a kind of green tint if you want the like super clear glass is actually more than that so I think super clear for this piece would have been like 110 120 bucks but I actually really like the gray glass as far as the level of opacity that it has because I think it's gonna be a little bit tinted but still give a good look inside buts alright enough of my blabbing on and on the stuff let's get on with the show so about here is where I learned an important case modding lesson that is that you'll probably never managed to do what you want to do on your first attempt and that you'll most likely discover that you're missing some key tool or piece of hardware and have to put things off for another day or another week a lot like setting up a custom water cooling loop actually so that's what I did but before we move on to the next day of hard labor lynda.com that's right Linda comm is my new sponsor but more importantly they're also an online learning platform with over 3,000 on-demand video courses to help you strengthen your business technology and creative skills if learning new and useful things appeals to you then you can get a 10 day free trial by visiting lynda.com/tekzilla I started with video editing and as a mostly self-taught editor I've already learned useful tricks that I would not have figured out on my own like how to set default transition links for example or how to better it take advantage of workspace layouts in Adobe Premiere as always though if you would like to try any of these courses or if you just like to say thank you to Linda comm for supporting Paul's Hardware you can click the sponsor link in this video's description or you can visit linda.com slash paul back to the side panel mod though after wallowing in self-pity for a while and drinking myself into a stupor which was actually more the result of a lengthy GTA 5 session Kyle and regrets about the failed case mod but I reached out to bill Owen of MN PC tech comm I recommended Bill's YouTube channel for modders before and I have learned quite a few tips from his videos that I've used for this project thankfully bill was extremely supportive and he even sent me over a kit of stuff to aid in my continued work on the side panel this made up my mind about what to do next rather than looking into getting another side panel from fractal or finding someone with a CNC machine and big thanks to all of you guys who offered by the way I had quite a few on Twitter as well as on the YouTube comments I decided to have another go at the work-in-progress despite these scuffs and uneven lines to see what I could salvage step one was to remeasure those lines widening the window to account for the spots where my jigsaw went off-track I use the 233 plus green tape that bill sent over to mark it off and started with the aluminum oxide reinforced 1.5 inch cutting wheels the larger wheels allow for straighter cuts and these lasts way longer than the standard cutting discs that come with the rotary tool I also noted that none of them broke apart or flew across the room while I was trying to cut with them a big plus I also decided to wear my face mask this time around which kept me from inhaling too much of that result into metal dust a good idea for anyone who's about to do this sort of thing after a long time cutting with the rotary tool I started to switch off to filing particularly for the rounded corners the rounded file does a great job but there's really no way to sugarcoat the fact that this was just a lot of violate ultimately though I got all four straight lines straightened out and all four rounded corners rounded more or less next I needed to deal with these scuffs in the paint and for that I ordered this black self etching primer based on Bill's recommendation now this is serious stuff it's used for automotive bodywork so I moved outside for adequate ventilation and I'm of course using a filtered face mask that's meant for paint fumes they just straight up says may cause cancer on here this is this is serious stuff suspected of damaging fertility or the unborn child I got a little bit on my finger but that doesn't mean that my finger has cancer now okay so I did forget to wear the gloves on the first try and the breeze was kind of messing with me but I fixed this for the second and third coats and the self etching primer actually does a really good job of getting into those scuffs and covering up my blemishes it even matches the black paint on the rest of the case a very important thing so I gave it a couple hours to dry and then I moved on to lining the cutouts edge with the rubber you channel which gives it a much more professional finish and also covers up those jagged edges with that done I started lining up the tempered glass panel again it was actually just about perfect I used some scissors to cut the tape of the gods-- strip in half giving me just enough surface area outside the U channel to go up to the edge of the tempered glass this stuff adheres quickly but I gave it a lot of firm pressure around the edges to make sure it made good contact and just like that it was all finished so what do you guys think I am very happy that I was able to rehabilitate the side panel after the first attempt and overall I really really like the look of the gray glass the side of the window the view from the interior granted there's no LEDs in there right now I will address fractals newest case here though which is the define s it has a big old side panel window and it looks just like the define r5 on the outside and it was really made for water-cooled builds like this quite a few people suggested that I just switch everything over to that I think it's a great case but I was just too far along with this build to consider swapping I really wanted tempered glass for the side panel and I also actually like the drive cage in here because I have a good amount of storage to wedge in and I kind of want to be able to show it All Things Considered I am pretty happy with the define r5 so is this the last video on arctic panther build well no as I'm sure many people who didn't watch the whole video will point out in the comments the cables on the PSU looked terrible still so I still have a sleeping project to do very soon that's thanks to the support of mainframe customs comm also do a final video with some finishing touches and I really haven't ruled out updating some of the runs in this loop too when it comes to the PD TG hardline tubing it's an ongoing project is what I'm trying to say but I am really happy to have the side panel mod finished so I can move on to the rest that's all for this video though hit the like button subscribe share it with your friends whilst also buying a shirt from my store in order to support me in my channel and as always thanks for watching