Computer Case Mod for "Gondor"

 

I assembled my first custom-made desktop computer several years ago when I was still living in Utah. My youngest son, Alan, had actually put it together a year or two before that, but he was upgrading and I wanted something better than the MacBook BYU had issued me as a work computer.

Somehow years ago I started naming the disks in my computers after dwarves from Tolkien's books.  I think the impetus was my first storage drive, which was a much larger capacity drive than I'd ever had before and shich I named Bombur after the fat dwarve from The Hobbit.  This lead naturally to referring to the actual machine in which the disk is installed after a place name from the books.  This PC was named Gondor.  And the system C: drive is Dori, so on the network it' "Dori in Gondor."  Weak humor, but I take what I can get away with.

The Gondor build is in a very nice small form factor case, a Corsair Obsidian 250D Mini-ITX.  I love the size and the desing of this case a lot.  I've replaced the motherboard and processor at least twice since I started using it.  Once, in 2020 at the begining of the pandemic when the motherboard went bad and I built a whole new machine before going back and fixing this one.  Then again a month or so ago when I stripped most of innards to install in the new NAS.

Since things went pretty well with the case modification for the NAS, I thought I would try doing something unique with this one two.  I opted for a Utah Rock Art theme as that is one of my non-professional interests.  The idea was to make the case look like a block of reddish Utah sandstone and then paint some pictographs over this. I'm partial to Barrier Canyon Style rock art due to its ghostly and haunting appearance and its great age, so the art on the case is mostly based on that style.  I chose references for four sites, one for each panel (right, left, top, front) of the case.  These sites are: Buckhorn Draw, Sego Canyon, Horseshoe Canyon, and Short Canyon.

"Gondor" prior to the 2020 rebuild

To proceed I first removed the stickers from the front panel and then wiped everything down on all the panels with rubbing alcohol to remove oil and grease from the finish.  I then spray painted the three metal panels with self-etching primer, and the plastic front panels with plastic primer.  After a couple of coats and letting things fully dry I sprayed over this with a Rust-Oleum paint/texture that mimics sandstone.  This took one or two coats only as it is very thick.  And it takes at least 24 hours to dry fully.  After drying I mixed up a watered-down combination of crimson and rust acrylic paint and painted lightly over the "sandstone" to give is something approximating a desert patina.

All four panels after the sandstone coat

And with the "patina"

Prior to spraying the case, I tried some experiments using cardboard and waferboard to make sure I had a feel for how to do this before doing anything too permanent with the case itself.

First try on a small piece of cardboard using Barrier Canyon as the reference

2nd try, done for my daughter, Joan, also on cardboard

3rd try also for Joan, as I didn't like the first one I did for her.  Based on a specific figure at Horseshoe Canyon's Grand Gallery

4th try for Lynn, also based on a specific figure at Horseshoe Canyon's Grand Gallery

5th try, on a larger piece of waferboard.  This is much larger than any of the case panels.

With the trials done, I felt more confident doing something permanent to the computer itself.

The top panel is based on Buckhorn Draw.

The left panel is based on Sego Canyon

The right panel is based on Horseshoe Canyon

The front panel is based on Short Canyon

This was a fun build and I mostly like the way it turned out.  I'm thinking about what I can do to mod my main desktop computer now!