trueg50

The following is my project to create a powerful, yet inexpensive external watercooler ie a "Waterkeg". I have always thought they seemed neat, and have been dying to build one.

Here we have the start of the case; it is an old, rusty toolbox I picked up at the flea market this morning for $1.

Dimensions:
7 1/2" x 20" x 8"

The plan:
-Remove flaking paint and rust.
-Paint insides and outsides with Plasti-dip.
-Line bottom with some sort of rubber to absorb vibrations.
-Install 2x 1977 Pontiac Bonneville heater cores and the various water cooling items.

The paint was flaking, and was covered in rust; sadly I have no original pictures of it, but here are some restoration pictures after sanding it down:

Insides:



Insides with the shelf cut out:



Me in the process of removing some rust on the handle:



Here is the top of the toolbox; note the bottom has already received 1 coat of Plasti-dip.



Lastly here is the bottom, after 3 coats of Plasti-dip:




Well thats it so far; right now I am awaiting the radiator (in case I end up going with just 1 heater core), and I am also waiting for the paint to dry before I do the insides tomorrow.

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Cable manage and liquid cooled Thermal take Armor

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TikiMan098

cool concept; do you plan to just sorta sit it next to the computer its hooked up to? idk i would just watercool a whole micro atx system in one self contained unit if it were me (with everything including pc in the box). And maybe its a poor picture, but the outside of that toolbox looks like its still rusted or has flaking paint, or something... did you sand it down before you painted it or are you going for the 'distressed' look...

Stellarex

Damn, You shoulda spent $5 on the one that wasnt so beat up...

TheWolfe

Goodluck dude. The top looks like it has uneven dents in it. Will this be a problem?

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trueg50

Unfortunately all the other ones at the flea market were not quite tall enough to fit a heater core well enough (heater cores are ~6" wide and 10.5" tall).

Well thats the nice thing about it, I could slap it on top, next to it, or under the computer, and even if it was a M-ATX HTPC I could water cool it. It will be the radiators, reservoir, pump, and fans in this box, and then a set of quick connects that lead to the computer, so in the case all you have are 2 tubes coming to the water block (or multiple water blocks).

Yes, you are quite correct some of the paint is off and some of the metal is rusted, however the entire box has been gone over by a steel brush on a power drill; so any paint that is on is not going any where, and any rust is merely discoloration and nothing structural (note how "shiney" the rusted spots are, thats down to bare metal).

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Cable manage and liquid cooled Thermal take Armor

Synergy (G5 case mod)

Stellarex

Its an interesting concept. Looking forward to see its progress =)

TikiMan098

agreed, you know, for maybe 20 dollars you could make your own out of alum angle, sheet alum or steel, some rivets, a handle, hinge, and a latch. That way it would be a perfect fit and it would look real nice. But thats just my

venom55520

in b4 lead poison

good luck man

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trueg50

Nah, I tried to pop the small "divet" out, but it wouldn't budge; the light also makes it look much worse than it is (it is a drop of perhaps 3-5 mm at the worst point, and not structural compromosed). Given that it is at least 1-2mm thick of good steel, I am not too worried.


But where is the fun in that? Plus I do believe 1mm thick steel, hinges, handle, and rivets cost a lot more than $1, and a lot more than an hour or two of clean up.

Yea tell me about it, all yesterday evening, and this morning I was blowing blueish and rust dust, so if this is my last post, I hope some one carries on my project!

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Cable manage and liquid cooled Thermal take Armor

Synergy (G5 case mod)

CattleRustler

Ill be following this, these types of builds intrigue me. good start mate.
as for the lid dent, if you want to fix it, and since your painting it, you could pound it out from the inside a little, then use body filler (bondo) or evercoat everglass fiberglass reinforced filler (short strand) (stronger than bondo) to fill in the dented area from the outside, then sand it out smooth and flush, ready for paint or plastidip. I had a couple of dings in the Intelligence briefcase that you cant see at all now (I used the fiberglass stuff to body fill)

good luck mate

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