Custom Fan Grills

    The Eye Of Ra.  A mod based on an Egyptian theme with a custom side panel cut out, great idea... but when you cut out your window what do you do with the scrap piece that you removed?  Well, if you are an inspired modder you use it as fan grill material.  The picture of the window panel below shows the four quad LED illuminated fans through it, the grills will be custom cut, painted and installed onto them.

Phase I :

    If you have a themed mod, such as this, it will be important to find images that suit the mod and fit within the shape of the grill.  When you are satisfied with your image selections you will need to use image editing software to crop and then line up the image with the outline of the 80mm fan grill.  Orion's mod is Egyptian themed, so the Ankh and Eye of Ra images are very fitting.  Below is also a template for an 80mm fan grill, click on it to open the full size version and then save it for use in creating your own custom grills.  The template lines up perfect with the fan's screw holes and 80mm edge cut out and should at least provide a starting point for creating your own custom fan grills.

    Below are examples of test fitting the cropped images onto the outline of the grills, the template provided above is different from Orions outline design but it can be modified and the end result is really all that matters.  Notice that the images appear detailed and yet at the same time are actually fairly simple, there is a reason for it and this next section will truly test your meddle as a modder.

    For this part you are going to have to trust in the advice of Vivio as there are no progress pictures of the grill cutting procedure, but anyone that has hands nicknamed "laser cut" has a good idea how to do this type of thing and any advice given helps... Here Is Vivio's advice on cutting your grills...

"First of all, the main tools are a Dremel, drill, spear-head file, flat-head file and half-sphere file.  Besides newspaper and sticky tape.

1)  Draft the figure of the fan grill and the pattern design on the aluminum plate.

2)  First of all, drill the four holes for the screws of the fan grill
(please be reminded that the holes should be drilled BEFORE cutting out the grill from the plate. It is because a reverse order of the above processes will result a deformation of the grill).

3)  Cut out the pattern design ONLY of the grill by the dremel
(wearing a goggle and a dust mask is highly recommended).

4)  File the pattern and refine it BEFORE cutting out the whole grill from the plate

5)  Finally, file the sides of the grill
(please note that careless filing will lead to deformation of the grill) "

    Above are the (nearly) finished products, all bright, shiny and freshly cut... they look ready for some custom painting action.

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