TERW_DAN Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 As long time Thunderbirdfans we cannot understand there was never a Thunderbirdscasemod built, as far not as we know off. Until know. For this year's Cooler Master competition we've decided to recreate the iconic Tracy Island from the Thunderbirds. This island, located somewhere in the South Pacific is the ideal ground for a casemod, it is full of secrets we can use to house our hardware. The idea is to reacreate the island with the swimmingpool that houses Thunderbird 1, the hangar and launchpad for Thunderbird 2 where a 3.5" HDD will be housed and the round house that covers the launchsilo for Thunderbird 3 will be used as a fanduct for cooling the internal hardware. A quick sketch of how th island should look like. I don't have all the hardware collected yet, but so far I will use the following. A Gigabyte EP45-DS4P Motherboard, with E6750CPU and 2 GB DDR2. A Gigabyte 8500GT Videocard and a Cooler Master Hyper 612s CPUcooler. furthermore a generic DVDplayer or writer, a PSU (I don't have that one handy yet, so I have to look what I have left for this machine). Storage will consist of 3.5" SATAdrives. The swimmingpool will move just like in the series. The DVDplayer will be used for this. It will move the pool as soon as the drive is opened or closed to reveal the CDtray. The palmtrees next to Thunderbird 2s launchpad will be able to swing out of the way, and the tarmac can lifted to reveal the HDDdrive which will be fitted with an eSATA connector to make it possible to remove the drive if necessary. When viewed from the top, it should look something like this. Blue = Motherboard Orange = DVDplayer Green = HDD Black = PSU Yellow = Casefan Red = WiFi antenne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
claudia Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 I'm really looking forward working on this project This week we'll post more pictures of the progress Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theophilus_Field Posted October 20, 2013 Share Posted October 20, 2013 This week we'll post more pictures of the progress soooooo looking forward to seeing more of this! I'm only 20 but I started to watch Mr Anderson's amazing programmes when I was little (and still do). Nice one for choosing this as a project! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TERW_DAN Posted November 8, 2013 Author Share Posted November 8, 2013 Since I'm still looking for an ATXcase to use for this mod (or better yet, decide if I want a case to use and not just built something), I experimented somewhat with making palmtrees. And so far, it has succeeded quite nicely. Believe it or not, this piece of electrical wire (an old powercable) is going to act as the tree. To make it look a bit more realistic, I wrapped sisalrope around it. Painted it brown, put some leaves on it, et voila, there we have a palmtree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
claudia Posted November 22, 2013 Share Posted November 22, 2013 sneak preview: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TERW_DAN Posted December 3, 2013 Author Share Posted December 3, 2013 To shape the island, I took my old trusty dremel and cut of all the unnecessary bits of the baseplate. Mounted the spacers for the motherboard To give you an idea of the size, the top view of the casemod And a mockup of the setup The baseplate was warpped in clingfoil A cardboard box was used to define the rough size of the system We used a few paint bottles to keep the fanduct open And then we applied building foam And then some more And then even more And with a share knife, it is very easy to cut it into shape Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TERW_DAN Posted December 15, 2013 Author Share Posted December 15, 2013 Since the last post we have been working on giving the island more the shape it should, and it slowly starts to look like the Tracy Island. We've removed the cardboard from the inside of the case, and then cut out the swimmingpool. Which was soon inspected carefully by the cat The next step was making a start on the detailling. The top of palmtrees, made with a bunch of plastic plants. Fixing the trunk of the palmtree by carving a piece of wood that was painted brown. The plamtrees already put on the island, to see how they fit. And again, a proper inspection done by one of the cats Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TERW_DAN Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 The last update was a while ago. Since then, we have made a bunch of minor changes and things not yet visible on photo's (but they will all fit together in the end as you will see later in this log).In the last few weeks, we have painted the mod after adding enough foam to make it the correct shape.The fist step was painting it brown, as a base finish. It took quite some time to let this paint try on the foam, and as you can see, it doesn't really look very nice jet.After adding some more colors paint it begins to look a lot nicer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TERW_DAN Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 Fixed the swimmingpool, the middle part was too thick, now it fits better. The swinging palmtrees will be fixed in 2 pieces of PVCpipe that can rotate. This way they can swing away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TERW_DAN Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 Most of the time has gone into painting and tweaking the casemod. First of all the pool It had to look nice and shiny blue Fixed into place. Made a holder so it wouldn't drop down when it was extended And a last shot before the final of the swimmingpool Then we started on the buildings. the plate for the roundhouse of Thunderbird 3 This was going to be the dome above the hangarbuilding. Later we removed the bottom part to make that seperately. It looks different in the series then in the movies, so it was a bit hard to see as we used both sources for the views from different angles. Cleo really fell in love with my dremel scrollstation, and even worse, she can handle it a lot better than I can... Building of the roundhouse, with Thunderbird 3 for scale This is the landingstrip for Thunderbird 2 added some sand to make it look more real And installed it on the front. And here is the dome The bottomplate painted The hardware installed on the baseplate. The strips are magnetic strips, so the case can be held in place with neodymiummagnets placed on the bottom. The Cooler Master Hyper 612s fits just under the swimmingpool. It is almost impossible to make a decent picture since there is a case on top of it. Cables run trough the back of the island. The swimming pool installed with tiles, a border, palmtrees and a lot of foliage. Sorry for the blurry shot, I forgot manual focus was on on this picture. Then most of the time went into detailing. I don't have pictures of every small piece of green stuff placed on the case, that would be incredible boring The hangarbuilding and the hangar door installed. The door will be able to open with a small servo, unfortunately the one I have now isn't working, so this will need to be fixed, but it doesn't matter for the looks The diving board above the pool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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