Late last year Fractal Design kicked off a pretty neat little competition. You had to take one of their already quite sexy cases, and make it even cooler. It was a neat comp; first you posted your idea, and the winners of that stage got a free case to play with. Then, a final winner was chosen, with the most overall awesome design in actuality.
And man, is this one awesome case.
The winner's handle is lancalot, and we spoke with him recently about his cunningly steathed PC design, and where he got his inspiration for a chromed, mirrored effect.
"What inspired me to do a chrome case was my iPhone 4, which had a chrome mirror film screen protector on on the back andfront," lancalot told us, "which looks so cool. I was coming up with all sort of different ideas at first, from a Warcraft case with dragons on it, or an X-men one, but then I thought about what my skill level was. As I have zero skill in fiber glassing of any kind (youtube tutorials make it look so easy!) so an outrageous case was a no-go. Also the case would have be practical, that I would use everyday and still like the look of it, say in a year's time. So sitting on my desk was my iPhone shining at me, so it hit me: why not make the case out of chrome? I've never seem one done before and it shouldn't be that hard to do and i would look so cool!"
Cool it certainly does look, but there was a lot of effort into how to get the final effect, and whether or not etching a logo would be possible. "My first concept was to have a large (etched) logo on the side panel, but i didn't have the proper equipment - a dremel - so instead i spray painted a small logo on the front and added to the bling in gold." Otherwise, the only tools used was a drill for the chromed perspex sheets, for mounting points, and sandpaper for some of the case surfaces being sprayed chrome. Either way, lancalot is very happy with the final case (not to mention winning!).
"I love the case; it looks great, just blends in anywhere you put it, and with the large screws it gives the case a more industrial, tough appearance. The only thing that I would change is the front plastic case panel; I need to find a better chrome paint, or maybe a sticker, because this paint fades when you touch it, so now it just looks like dull silver next to the mirrored perspex."
It's true - you can never be too shiny. For more details on the building process, check out lancalot's work log here. And, because we're completists, check out the gear that lancalot's built into his new pride and joy.
CPU: Intel i7 2600k running at 3.7Ghz, Vantage A.L.C watercooling for the CPU
Ram: G.Skill Ripjaws-X 8G Kit(4Gx2) DDR3 2133
Graphic card: Gigabyte 1536M GTX 580
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68Xp-UD4
I alos have a PCI gigabit network card, because one day the motherboard's network hardware stopped working! Didn't want to be without a computer if I brought the board back for warranty.
PSU: Coolmaster 850w silent pro
HDD: OCZ vertex3 120GB SSD; Seagate momentus XT 500GB; WD 320GB for backup
ODD: Pioneer Blu-ray drive
