Project: Cosmos SLR

[coolmiester]

OK, last one i promise

Couldn’t wait any longer for the Coolermaster Cosmos to turn up so decided to at least make a small start on the SLR badge which will end up being a feature on the front of the case so don’t expect anything major at this stage but more will follow as soon as

Started off printing the letters onto a sheet of white paper using the Reservoir Grunge font and stuck them onto a 3mm sheet of aluminium then using my trusty Fret Saw carefully cut each letter out one by one.

I cut pretty close to the line so there wasn’t a lot of work to do with various jewellers files to straighten up the edges followed by various grit wet and dry paper so they were almost perfect.

Then onto the buffing wheel for a final polish and that’s one job complete.

Front Section

Well just to show i'm not sitting twiddling my thumbs waiting for the case to turn up which incidentally will be here tomorrow, i've been fabricating the front.

Using MDF this time which is a first for me to give it some kind of depth so the Merc badge ends up sunk in like the real thing.

Basically just cut the rough shape out then using a 120mm hole saw, cut out the hole that will eventually have the badge mounted then using a little mouse sander (seen Bill at Mnpctech using one and just had to get my hands on one) to round the edges off and give the whole thing a more rounded look - still loads to do on that but as i don't know exactly where the 120mm hole will line up until the case arrives i thought better of sanding to much.

Once the MDF is fully sanded down it will be mounted to 3mm aluminium like in the picture below but with a 120mm hole in the alu also and some kind of grill cut out below like real car then filled, primed and the whole lot painted but that's as far as i dare go until the case turns up.

Give you a bit of an idea of how its taking shape......

Still not sanded the any more of the MDF but decided to strip the Cosmos naked and de-riveted and took out the hard drive caddy so I can mount the 140mm Aerocool chrome fan but did realise I should be able to fabricate a simple bracket to refit it.

Also before sending the chassis away for powder coat thought I’d get all the 120mm holes lined up in the door, the front bezel and the chassis which leaves Saturday for sanding the MDF down providing the weather stays fine as its not a job to be done in doors.

Actually the bezel and chassis were cut using a 120mm hole saw but the door was cut with a jig-saw as it needs to be only 118mm which will give the badge something to sit on so the wonky edge won’t be seen

 

[coolmiester]

What a long day this has been without there being much to show..................guess i under estimated how long it would take to get the MDF looking good.

Anyway managed to get it all sanded down and finished off with 1500 grit as well as the outside aluminium bits then stuck the MDF to the door with two part Araldite so there is just a tiny bit of filler work before it gets a good few coats of filler primer and see how it looks from there.

Also used the original black 2mm plexi and cut out a piece that will end up being stuck the door after everything is primed and painted but just did a quick mock up with fine aluminium mesh behind the badge just to see how things were looking.

My apologies for keep on harping on about the front panel and boring everyone to tears but it has taken a long time and it does look pretty cool even though i say so myself but i promise to move onto something else next update.

Anyway, i used filler primer hence the yellow colour but even after that the MDF was still showing some problem areas so resorted to using Isopon body filler and gave it a really thin layer of the stuff followed by more dry sanding upto 2000 grit which proved to work a treat as it started looking really smooth.

This morning i got my hands on a couple of rattle cans of Mercedes silver and gave it four coats with 15 minute intervals which went on without any problems at all.

It still needs clear coat then machine polished once its completely dry but i just had to mount the aluminium mesh which was previously painted black to the Merc badge and try another retro fit with the black plexi and SLR badge in place.

See what you think..........i took a few pictures on the bonnet of an SLK which isn't by any means an SLR but gives an over all idea!

 

[Brooksie]

More....

 

[coolmiester]

New update and for this one you have to use your imagination and look at the SLR centre console to get where i'm coming from.

Basically the top section on the Cosmos has a blank plate that has a similar shape (even though mine is all black for some reason) - anyway there is a 240 radiator going underneath so could do with a bit of extra ventilation plus i needed a place to mount a fan controller and a fill port so i set about making an aluminium bezel that would tick all the boxes.

Cut out the overall shape from 3mm aluminium and then cut 4 vent holes that will have mesh added and painted black later, followed by the 4 holes to mount the fan controller and to make it a bit more pleasing on the eye i cut out the bottom section and using some of the left over plexi from the front door, mounted a polished fill port which fills up the gap nicely

That done, the whole plate was polished and will be mounted up top at a later date and if you use you imagination it kind of resembles the SLR centre console.

Oh yeah and I eventually found a machine shop that seems to be on the same page as myself when it comes to fabricating one off bits like the 4 CNC’d rails that I picked up today and will hopefully end up going towards making the 2 side vents for the case and time will tell what else we can come up with

Time to start playing with the side vents/windows.

Basically just drew the vent onto cardboard freehand – cut it out and transferred it onto the side panel then cut both sides out with a jigsaw.

I ran a mouse sander over the panels to get rid of the brushed anodised finish as the panels will be painted at some point the same colour as the front door.

I cheated a bit and had the 4 aluminium bars that would end up being the backbone of each vent (2 each side) CNC’d at a local machine shop as it would have been a nightmare trying to get the angles correct especially as it 10mm thick alu and much harder to work on with small hand tools.

Anyway I could only get the CNC cut so much as they were done before actually cutting the vents in the side panel and I wasn’t sure how big the vents would end up being so there was always going to be a bit of work to do on the alu bars but ended up getting them to fit perfect.

Once they were all fitting nice, I drilled holes in both the panel and bars then tapped the bars to accept 6/32” button head hex bolts and basically did test fit on the whole panel.

All looking pretty good though the bars still need the ends rounding off and polishing but that’s for another day along with cutting the plexi for the actual vent bits

Got a bit carried away with the pictures me thinks………

Got the paint back today which looks fabulous so I carried on with the side vent/windows in an upbeat mood but while I was waiting for the paint to turn up I had a little go at polishing one of the bars and I’m glad to say they aren’t going to take to much work to get them nice and shiny………….still need to round the ends off but paint arrived and couldn’t wait any longer to get the vents in.

Had to tap both bars then cut the plexi to fit and fixed the slats into place with button head hex bolts and measuring twice cutting ones worked well this time as they couldn’t have fit any better.

Its still hard to get an idea what they look like by photo but I must admit I’m more than happy………….just got to make sure to get the other one just as good

Just got a bit of mirror tint on earlier today which makes the vent look a bit easier to make out

 

[coolmiester]

I would have preferred to put much more of a curve on the bars just like the real thing like this (thanks to Reckless187 for the photo) but the aluminium was way to hard to and i seem to be running out of time so ended up sort of rounding the corners which is a good second best.

Anyway, got them rounded off and polished up and they look pretty cool.......

Just realised it’s the 16th today so I’ve not got as much time as I’d thought so may miss the Coolermaster Mod competition this year but I’ll keep at it

Some exhausts......

Last job of the day I angle cut some aluminium pipe into 4 sections (2 for each side) to replicate the SLR exhausts and then polished them.

The little cut out bits from the side panel will be getting some gloss black and clear coat which the pipes will be mounted to and the inside of the pipe will be getting painted matt black

Back to the centre console.

Got the aluminium mesh painted and all fitted up with the Vantec fan controller and Danger Den Fill Port so that’s as good as finished now.

Then onto finishing the exhausts – painted the cut out sections from the side panels in gloss black then clear coat then masked the exhausts up and painted the inside matt black to give the effect of carbon on a real exhaust which turned out great so mounted them to the freshly painted cut outs and bobs you uncle.

Hadn’t noticed till I was re-sizing the pictures but you can really see the shine/reflection in the silver paint work and that’s before its machine polished so another satisfying day all round………….and the clock keeps ticking

Time creeps ever closer to CM the closing date so i got to get my skates on if i'm going to get finished in time.

Quite a bit to add but nothing real exciting so i'll try and make some sense of the progress.

First off got the back of the door painted in matt black and added some blow hole trim just to keep things looking tidy when the door is open

Then had to cut out the top of the Cosmos chassis and fabricate a grill/bracket type thing out of the waste aluminium from the window cut (waste not want not) to hold an X-Flow 250 radiator up top which was riveted into place then the whole chassis went off to powder coat in flame red similar to the SLR interior.

Chassis looks awesome so then it was onto chopping up the hard drive caddy so the 140mm fan could fit - so basically i've lost one which isn't much of a sacrifice really.

Just chopped out a bit of the centre section and added a couple of threaded rods with aluminium tubes slid over........which were polished so everything still looks cool.

And that's about it..........till next time

 

[coolmiester]

Nothing much of interest happening so just a quick update on mounting the chrome Black Ice GT and fans.

Nice to be able to see the fans through the vent on the back which i'll probably light up red maybe but the chrome and black against the red gives a great contrast.

Had to dig deep today and after an 8 hour shift managed to get the other side panel finished which was a lot easier second time around as there wasn’t any trial and error, it was simply a case of copying the previous one in reverse so got that done then went onto polishing the two top grab handles and painted the bottom two matt black.

Anyway did a bit of a mock up to see how things were looking……..minus the front door as I left it at work and didn’t really want to go and collect it as I was covered in polish grime.

So at long last its starting to come together….

Just a quick teaser picture with the front door on before the Coolermaster closing date in a couple of

Suggestions appreciated and taken on board but I’ve still got to get a complete system in there so not sure I’ll have time for much more tbh

 

[ionicle]

that looks DAMN nice!

 

[coolmiester]

Hadn't realised how far behind I was on this build till I started first thing yesterday morning and by around tea time I was ready to throw the towel in as I really didn't think it would be finished in time but after checking the CM site it looks like the dead line is November 1st 11:59pm......must have got my days mixed up or something

Anyway due to working against the clock I didn't really get a chance to keep much of a log but here’s the end result of today's work

Got all the water in and got the hard drive caddy's painted which turned out giving a great contrast against the red so well pleased with the overall progress, oh and I did manage to sort the front input panel out after it was mentioned a couple of times so cut a new one from aluminium and polished it, also painted the mic/headphone inputs so thanks for pointing out the error of my ways.

Anyway thanks to everyone for the input and encouragement and who followed yet another journey plus a big thanks to those who voted for the Bit MOTM and basically just a BIG THANKS to everyone.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves and be warned there are plenty of them.......

Its a fact:thumb:

WOW twice in one month - Respect, Custom PC must love me :thumb:

(Just in case nobody else seen)

 

[coolmiester]

There is also a YouTube Video for this one too Project: Cosmos SLR @ YouTube

Also Coolermaster have this one on show at CeBIT in Germany next week (3rd till 9th of March) and i'll be out there for the weekend.

And again, thanks for looking

 

[DavidT]

Wow.... Wow... ... Wow.

 

[Luigi]

Very very nice, seen this on CPC, very nice work, conrats

 

[nepas]

sweet.

that gives me an idea(runs outside to take the badges off works sprinter van)

 

[darkorb]

This is even more amazing man!

Too bad that aint no SLR in ur driveway, but very nice anyways

 

[Socks]

omfg!!

 

[Mr. Smith]

I saw this a few months ago on XS, blew me away.

CM has the skills!

 

[coolmiester]

Well the SLR definitely made it to CeBIT because someone just posted a picture on XS though i haven't got a clue who he is.

How cool is that

 

[Luigi]

did you sell them on?

 

[coolmiester]

did you sell them on?

No Coolermaster asked if they could borrow it to show on their stand during CeBIT

 

[Luigi]

Nice, do they give you cases in return? that must be a good relationship to have

 

[coolmiester]

Yip, i'm part of the Coolermaster "think tank" who are responsible for making the new Cosmos S and their new Stacker watercooling friendly and in return we get to play with all the latest goodies.

A picture taken at one of the think tanks but careful not to show any of the new stuff