High Octane & Diesel

So this will be my first worklog here and hopefully not the last as I have way to many ideas for new mods. Funny thing is i barely have the insides for the cases i make but i make due with all the old stuff i have laying around. anyway on to the mod so heres how it all starts

One day i'm trying to clean up around the house and come across some gas cans i have been storeing for about 2 years. I got them from a friend while we were working HAZMAT clean up and he got them off a job and had no use and so he handed them of to me of course being a pack rat like myself i took them. So here they sat for 2 years through 2 moves i had lugged them around.
"Hey hunny i'm gonna get rid of these damn gas tanks unless you know anyone that wants them."
"Really i thought you were going to mod them."
this is the point at which i kick myself and kiss her for being such a great find. I hadn't even thought of it in the slightest.
So here are the annoying gas tanks that have become my next project.



so i pull out my 3D sketch prog and get some rough ideas.

here we have the front intake fan.

rouch compnent and window layout

then a little more components in there with some clear walls so i can see how it will lay out


With this roughed out shape everything "looks" like it will fit in there lets hope i'm right. i'm useing a miniatx to save a little room. Sorry for the next part i got a little caught up with the design and cutting so i forgot to take pictures but here abouts how it went.
1. i snap a cut off disk onto my dremel and start cutting out the bottom plate this will hopefully end up being the cover for a slide out mobo and component tray.
2. I find out there is a lot of rust in this old thing so out comes the sander to get it cleaned up since it's all a bunch of surface rust anyway it should clean up really nice.
3. Realize that i am wasteing my time trying to get my hands and the sander in there and get the dremal back out to cut the window since it would open up a nice big hole to get in there. size out the window and get to cutting after i run out of cut off disks after about an hour i am now left with a 3/4ths cut window. luckily i had thought of this problem before hand and cut a deep groove all the way around just in case i ran out and so i grabed it by what was already hanging and very very carefully started to wiggle it back and forth to bend it out as i did the joint got weaker and weaker and thn finally snaped. a bit of clean up on the edges and phase one is complete. here are a few pics.
With a little edge molding in place i test fit the mobo tray, PSU, and the CDR

everything seems to fit in there just as planed and at this point i rant off to my friend about how my brilliant pre planing has made this project so much easier and he rolls his eyes at me. but the truth is if you plan well you can get things done a lot faster. and avoid cutting out the wrong side of the gas can yes the mobo is mounted upside down but this was honestly in the plan. i wanted the airflow to come in and over the harddrive then across the board then back out over the cards rather than getting trapped under the cards in the bottom of the case. so overall it did work out to plan just a diffrent design as my friends are determined i just screwed up. i guess the world may never know who to believe. anyway I will be testing out the diffrence with the second part of this mod. on with the show. here is another shot from above of the compnents inside.

Over all the project is coming along nicely. I will post more when i get a little further along. tell me what you think let me know.

Very cool idea. Would be perfect for LANs. Looking good man, keep us updated.

Awesome idea !! I'll monitor this thread

( plus that makes quite a nice LAN computer )

can't wait to see this finished. btw, what CAD software are you using?

looks kinda like sketchup
is there going to be a door on the side or just the window

your right sketch up the plan is to have a window on the side and a door on the back for access to ports unless any one can tell me where i can get some pass through wires for the mouse keyboard and graphics.

Sweet job and a very cool idea. I would make two more (just cases, no internals) with the other cans and sell them.

How are you going to get the window in there?

LOL! This is great.

My reservoir would be a perfect match

http://images.kekeke.org/~mikeb/MikeB_Watercooling_Pics/DSCN0505.jpg

[linked 'cause it's a big pic]

How much do those weigh empty and how thick is the metal?

actually to sell them is the point i am trying to make them in such a way that i would be able to offer them as custom cases on my website. actually thats what i love to do is make computers into art. hopefully i will be updating this thing later today just have to find the camera again and get my pictures off loaded.

ness1469 said:

How much do those weigh empty and how thick is the metal?

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they wiegh around 5 pounds once the window is cut out. which makes them perfect for lugging around. the metal is about 1mm-1 1/2mm thick but it's hard steel so it's incredibly tough. over all yeah the idea was to make a LAN case.

what'd you have to do to clean up any gas residue or anything that was left in the cans?

Blackdog said:

what'd you have to do to clean up any gas residue or anything that was left in the cans?

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Welll since i was in the hazmat field when i started this i grabed these white pads that we used to clean up oil they are awesome because they soak up oil products but not water so i basically ran water inside them and the soaked out the gas that was left gas then sanded it down to get rid of the surface rust

I took a high power pressure washer to the inside of mine. Plus some pretty noxious cleaning agents. Still smelled a very tiny bit like gasoline. I've been told there is a big difference between just the smell and there actually being any residual gas.

v3rt1g0 said:

I took a high power pressure washer to the inside of mine. Plus some pretty noxious cleaning agents. Still smelled a tiny bit like gasoline. I've been told there is a big difference between just the smell and there actually being any residual gas.

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well yes and no the smell will linger yeah but if it doesn't fade off after a while then you still have some residue hiding in some crack which really isn't a problem unless your working with useing it as a res for your WC then you may end up with it adding a slight bit of gas to your water. Which if you don't know is not a good combo for WC since Gas is a oxidizer which may not strait up rust anything but can deffenently add to the potential for corrosion and other nasty stuff you don't want happening in you water cooling system. Over all i would HIGHLY suggest if you are useing it for water cooling rinse that thing out really really well, try and get everything out of it because even trace amounts of any oxidizer will shorten the life span of you wc compnents. If it still gives off any smell of gas then i would suggest leaveing in a well ventalated area open as you can get it so that if there is any gas left it will evaporate out. anyway i'm ranting now i'm ganna get back to work on this can .

So now it’s time to make this thing “Sparkle” literally but first lets handle the window. I cut a piece to fit out of some spare plexi and went searching for the right image to etch in. Then it suddenly hit me, “contents are flamable do not expose to heat or flame.” It’s a gas can what else would it have on the side but the DOT Symbol for flamable. so i got to etching with my dremal and here are the results.



Next Step took some thought and some amazing ideas were offered up by several friends but only one took the prize. Mirror Finish. Not an easy task when talking about a gas can that was made out of very textured metal but I LOVED the idea and had to do it so... hence the birth of the High Octane mod. Hence why there are two names here i have a total of 4 of these gas cans so i desided i would make two diffrent project out of them. heres a few pics of the paint stripping process.




I used this OFF paint stripper from krylon i believe and this stuff is truely amazing it bubbled off the heat treated enamal of this gas can. granted it didn't work exactly how it was supposed to since you should be able to simply wipe the paint off but it got it down far enough that i could take if off with a wire brush on my drill.

BlackCat said:

well yes and no the smell will linger yeah but if it doesn't fade off after a while then you still have some residue hiding in some crack which really isn't a problem unless your working with useing it as a res for your WC then you may end up with it adding a slight bit of gas to your water. Which if you don't know is not a good combo for WC since Gas is a oxidizer which may not strait up rust anything but can deffenently add to the potential for corrosion and other nasty stuff you don't want happening in you water cooling system. Over all i would HIGHLY suggest if you are useing it for water cooling rinse that thing out really really well, try and get everything out of it because even trace amounts of any oxidizer will shorten the life span of you wc compnents. If it still gives off any smell of gas then i would suggest leaveing in a well ventalated area open as you can get it so that if there is any gas left it will evaporate out. anyway i'm ranting now i'm ganna get back to work on this can .

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Yeah I pressure washed it, and left it out in open air for a good two weeks at least.
There's still a very very faint gas smell to it after using it for several months.
It's probably coming from the rubber seal around the mouth of the can I'm guessing.

v3rt1g0 said:

Yeah I pressure washed it, and left it out in open air for a good two weeks at least.
There's still a very very faint gas smell to it after using it for several months.
It's probably coming from the rubber seal around the mouth of the can I'm guessing.

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yeah that is the most likely source as rubber tends to hold gas a lot more than the metal would obviously i would suggest replacing it if you can

i need some suggestions... I would like to keep the out side of the gas can fairly intaked so i was originally just going to cut a door in the back and hindge it so all of your cbales would attach and then you could close the door. The main reason for that being i wanted to keep at least most of the compnents and such on a removable tray. That way you could tip the thing over and slide out your entire system for any kind of upgrades or swaps. the door Idea is still the most likely but if anyone hase some suggestions for how to get the internal mobo soket to the outside i'm willing to listen. the only requirment is to not damage the phasade of the gas can to terribly.

Any suggestions???

It would be REALLY amazing if you could find an old pump handle like from a gas station u kno? then have that somehow attached to the back, with the wires coming from the "spout" of it...

wee 1st post

hey every one i just wanted to say i will be posting more on this later today as i finally got the sanding pretty much done just have to get the pics up loaded it looks sweet. still looking for ideas on how to interface with the motherboard without actually cutting the back up to much all ideas are welcome.

Can't wait to see the new pics

cant wait for the pics one idea i had what about finding a mount off a jeep and or truck and using that to house the mobo and all , also the nozzle idea was not a bad one

Ill think somemore about the non destroying the back thingy...lol

Hey this looks really cool.

Just wondering what prog did u use for the sketch?

Oneos said:

Hey this looks really cool.

Just wondering what prog did u use for the sketch?

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look back on the first page


Ok so finally i was able to find the time to get my pictures uploaded sorry it's taken so long but first off the sanding took for ever, and then theres the fact that i started another mod which i will be posting in a little while in the worklogs. anyway so on with some pics

First i started out with a wire brush on my drill to remove the rest of the paint and get it down to the bare metal then i started with the base plate to make sure i didn't gouge the metal with the sand paper i was useing since that would just make more work for me in the long run.

A few hours and some wire brush work for the hard to get places and here it
is half of the paint gone.

After a few more hours and a few more grits the True shine slowly starts to emerge and now we’ve got it down to a chrome like apperance. Looks good but still not the goal I have in mind.

While sanding out on my porch I got a visit from a cute little praying mantis. I guess someone approves of the idea.


Looking much better starting to get that chrome like apperance with some spots of the mirror like showing through


So after a lot of putting it off I finally just got down to business and finished up most of the sanding here are some pictures of it.



And after about an hour I got this image looking pretty good if you ask me but not there just yet.



And a couple shots from the out come of this session of sanding.




As you can see it’s looking pretty good overall the mirror like shine is coming out but the texture is a pain to work through. Over all the sanding takes a lot of work as you can’t do it for to long or it will heat up the metal and start to discolor it and then you have to let it cool back off and come back and take off the discoloration.

So the final sanding session, pretty much went from 400 to 600 to 1200 grit to
take it down to a nice clean smooth surface. so after about 5 hours of
sanding it finally comes out pretty sweet a few spots still have to be
hand sanded down to a nice shine but the bulk is done. heres a few pics.





Over all other than the detail work in some of the parts i couldn't get the sander into the sanding is pretty much complete. next i'll start actualy putting the computer in there.

That is one amazing sanding job. Keep up the good work man.

basically i used the same premiss of lapping a heat sink start out with a grit and slowly work up to the highest you can get

You mentioned pass through cables on page 1. How about wireless keyboard and mouse? Maybe wireless for the lan. Note that the metal may interfere with the signal, so putting the receiver somewhere plasticy (like near the window). Fo the monitor lead, monitor extension cables (male one end female the other) should be pretty easy to come by. Where you mount it is up to you - wherever it goes you'll be breaking up that fantastic finish

Good work. Btw, how eco-firendly was that paint stripper? Do you have red grass now?

Edit: Something just struck me when I was looking at that panel leaning against the chair - a set of dog tags to go with the military feel!

the paint stripper is some pretty bad stuff but no my grass is still green... mostly. most of can basically came off as this gunk rather than how the can says it's supposed to. so most of it was scraped up and disposed of with a paper towel and a putty knife. the dog tags are deffinently an interesting idea. maybe one with typical name and such plus the modders name make a great contest piece and poof all the info right there.

so here i am trying to work out these on switches i don't know if you can see them but on the top front plate of the gas can right behind the opening there are two holes. one is ment to hold the screw on lid and the other to be honest i have no idea what it does. so i figured i would throw the on/off switch in the hole seemed perfect place for it and it would work with the can it's self rather than drilling a new hole somewhere. the hole it a hair to small... not a problem just find myself a drill bit to fit it I've got the tools hell there everywhere (much to the displeasure of my girl but my workshop is my office the porch and the living room at times what can you do) i go on the hunt for a bit that will fit, no problem, pop out the first set of bits, the one i need is missing go firgure. Head to the tool box where they end up if they don't make it back to the case, not there either. ok, ok, next option that monster set someone gave me a few years back where is it... closet... pull it out obviously someone other than me has been useing this set because yet again a lot of the bits are missing. ok.... hmmm.... i know the old reliable fall back..... DREMEL.

I will hpefully get some new pics up either today or over the weekend.

too sexy.......

Wow that sanded one is beatiful! I love you idea by useing gas cans. Makes for a great lan rig. I may wanna do a mod like this someday. Great work and keep it up!

Damn, I'm getting tempted to follow your path and mod an oil barrel we have laying around ( 120L automotive oil barrel, stainless steel ) that will prolly need some shortening but hell, it would make a kickass case + nice screen stand

Are you gonna cover your case with something after all that sanding and polishing? It looks great, but I would be very worried about oxidation...

this is gonna look sick when its done, awesome sanding man

keep the updates often!

UnknownSouljer said:

Are you gonna cover your case with something after all that sanding and polishing? It looks great, but I would be very worried about oxidation...

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I am curious about oxidation too.

I love the polished look of the gas can! Looking like a great mod!

awh it woulda looked so sexy if it was still bubbly lmao....... actauly that would look kinda cool if you could get it to stay bubbly like that, though the bubbles would have to somehow harden almoast like a plastic or somethin, but hey that would be a cool idea.

XeRo_Dark said:

awh it woulda looked so sexy if it was still bubbly lmao....... actauly that would look kinda cool if you could get it to stay bubbly like that, though the bubbles would have to somehow harden almoast like a plastic or somethin, but hey that would be a cool idea.

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actually your the third or fourth person to say that remember i've got four of these gans to play with maybe i'll give it a shot on one of the others