The Outer Cage

The next step was to begin work on the outer cage. With the black paint on the inside cage, it was time to do something very different for the outside - shiny chrome!


The Apple logo had to go, which also meant the whole cage had to be sanded to look uniform. So a good few hours were spent getting the hard outer anodized coating off, taking it up to 250 grit with an orbital sander.


Next up was drilling the ventilation holes for the 120.1 rad and the main exhaust fan of the case. The 80mm fanhole on the back was just not going to be enough. I used a piece of holed mesh I had as a template for the 120mm fan holes. Lots of holes to be hand drilling!


The process was repeated again and the mounting holes were countersunk.


The rest of the sanding was finished off by hand using wet/dry paper up to 2500 grit again. I used Mother's billet polish for “no shine like mother's!” The case was finally looking respectable!