The Skeleton Case Mod (hellraiser).

The sixth weekly winner of our third annual case mod contest goes to Bryant Baker of Roswell, Georgia, for his Skeleton case, made of copper tubing.

Bryant wins a Cooler Master Mystique 631 PC Case and a Cooler Master eXtreme 600W power supply, while also qualifying for our grand prize Core 2 Extreme gaming machine, which will be chosen next week and featured Friday, August 11th.

Let’s turn it over to Bryant as he describes his mod:

I built this computer mod in July 2006. The main board is an ASUS M2NPV-VM with an AMD 64 ATHLON 3500+ Socket AM2. It has a 1 Gig DDR2-667 and, until I can get more money, a built in video card. This mod is made of bronze-brazed, hammer-beaten copper. The drives’ support is a hammer-beaten and bronze-brazed silver-plated skull. I am an HVAC Tech by trade and create most of my art work using the material that I work with during my day job. The spine that supports the hard drive and DVD and the skeleton hands that support the motherboard are constructed from used refrigerant piping that I beat into the shape of human bones. The “on” switch and “reset” switch are from defective setback thermostats.

The skull and face suspended from the spine that frame in the DVD writer and 300GB hard drive are made from silver-plated bowls purchased at a junk store. When the DVD writer or hard drive power up or go into “seek” mode, the skull face jiggles. I had to take apart the 500-watt power supply to reverse the biscuit fan, because I wanted it to blow up through the opening in the base to help cool the main board.

I used a couple of old USB laptop flex lights to highlight the skull face but am hoping that the hardware manufacturers will come up with something a little brighter.

I have always taken everything apart to see how it works and find that the stuff inside is far more interesting then the plastic or metal skin that covers it.

This is my attempt to show off the inside of a computer in a fashion that complements and supports these basic computer components aesthetically. It took about three weeks to assemble and every dime that I got for it came from a birthday gift from my wife?$600.00. This is my main and only computer that I use every day