I finished tracing my template friday, here is what i looked like when I finished.

That night we stopped by my mother-in-law's place, and my wife's stepdad was there with his buddy, who brought over his P4 system to play some of the new Delta Force game. So I watched over his shoulder for awhile, and it really does look like a lot more fun than the older one he has played for years. It looks like someone took the far cry engine, and removed about half the foilage, and turned down the detail a bit, but while the graphics are a lot better now, they take backseat to the gameplay. There are choppers and tanks and boats and motorbikes, a plethora of weapons and some really neat online gamplay elements.

I forgot to mention earlier, but I'm building this case in secret, for a suprise a-la Extreme Makeover: Computer edition. I know its just going to blow his socks off. But since he doesn't know I'm doing this, I've got to do it as fast as possible, so it doesn't seem like I'm taking forever putting his parts together, which are due to arrive late this week.

Yesterday, I cleaned out my storage closet and tried to get eveything needed to do this mod. I found my old army bag and pulled out a hot weather jacket (thinner material), and some various spray-paints, and of course, my dremel, safety gloves and goggles. I set up a work table on the back porch of my apartment and clamped my workpiece to a milk crate.

This is good for a few reasons. I can cut my piece up without worrying about cutting through to table surface, and it will provide support to the back of the piece, so I won't bend or warp the piece. It worked out quite well. Its around 30 degrees here and was snowing half the time I was outside, but I have overhead cover keeping me dry.

About 2 hours and 15 or so cutoff wheels I had a rough cut-out. The last 15 minutes or so it was so dark that I could only see when cutting because of the flying sparks, and my back porch light was burned out, but it turned out okay. As long as I'm still inside the lines, I can smooth it out later.

Hindsight being 20-20, I realize now that I should have just cut out the middle pieces, the blade and the handle, and left the triangular pieces (7, 9 & 10) in place for extra support while I manually file and sand down the more intricate stuff.

Oh, well. I just have to be more careful now.