posted on 28-January-2005
My wife's stepdad got his tax check and handed over $1400 to me to build him "The best gaming computer you can get with this, minus a little for yourself". He plays only one game in the seven years I've known him.

Seeing him hunched over my Mother-In-Law's 800mhz, spyware riddled, win2000 compaq with a 15" monitor, blasting away his buddies on a virtual battlefield. Its painful, especially the way the hard drive just stutter-grinds with any disk activity. I think the TNT2 is being grossly tasked, even for such an old game.

Turns out, there's a new expansion out with much better graphics, and the ability to net play with 128 or 150 players simultaneously. The old mans eyes light up when he tries to explain it to me.

I'm not a big fan of the online games, but I can really understand how it might feel to someone so invested in the community, that he meets up with, and shoots, the same regular players evening after evening. He wants a new system with all-new everything, including a 21" monitor. Something that will smoke in the game, and provide bragging rights with his local buddy that he has serious system envy for. (all I know is he has had a P4 for at least 2 years, I guess that would put it in the 1.4ghz to 2.4ghz range).

Being the nice guy I am, I decide that not only am I going to build the best system I can (and not even worry about a fee), but I'm going to blow him away with a custom creation designed just for him.

So begins;

I have a case lying around, that I got a long time ago and haven't used in years. Its an ugly case, but is pretty light, and has plenty of room for a mid-tower.

Here's the Before Picture.

Stepping back and looking at this, I can only think that that green piece is hideous. I figure I could get rid of it, or I could make the best of its unique styling. I think I'm going to pop it off, bondo the floppy hole closed, and wrap some Camoflauge cloth (I'll probably cut up one of my old Army jackets) around it and put it back in place.

Of course, I'm getting a black monitor, black keyboard, black speakers, and a black & blue mouse; so I'm going to paint the case black as well. I mean, I've got to paint it anyway after cutting and sanding and stuff...

Some drawer handles at the top might make it look a little more military, and provide a decent way for him to drag his computer to the aformentioned buddy's house, so I'm going to add some of those.

And for the main centerpiece, I have to do a custom, lighted cutout of the Delta Force logo in the side panel.

Here's a little mockup I did in about 10 minutes to illustrate what I'm doing, and to give me a better idea of what the final project will look like:

I don't know if this is the "new" expansion he's talking about, but all the delta force games have the same logo, and this is the best picture I could find online, so I prepped it to help me make a template, and also help me visualize how the pieces will be cut.

Here it is after meticulously erasing all the background.

And here it is after getting rid of all extraneous information, and leaving appropriate material for the cut. I'm not going to be glueing "floating" pieces on my plexi if I can avoid it.

and here is an alternate design, that I decided against.

Since I made my choice, I resized it to the appropriate size for the side panel, and changed the colors to black on white. I then taped the logo to the panel, and started cutting out the smaller and more intricate stuff, where I would start cutting first. I used a straightedge and an xacto knife, so even if I smudge the pencil, I should still be able to work.

Here's a shot of the work-in-progress of cutting and pencil marking the sections to be removed.

Here's a closeup, so you can get a better idea of what I'm doing here: