Epic Gamer Scott Munro got the idea for making a Gears of War Case mod after playing the game with his friends. He has planned on doing a case mod for a while, but wasn’t quite sure what direction to take and the Gears case is his first attempt! He did an excellent job, and he now has a PC case that would make any Gears fan envious.

I’ll let Scott take it from here and let him describe the process for creating the case. If any of you try it or if you already have a PC case based on an Epic Game, we’d love to hear from you!

My Gears of War PC Case Mod
by Scott Munro

I looked up a picture of the COG symbol and studied it for awhile to try and figure out how Id do it.

My tools and parts:

Dremmel 300 hobby tool
x3 cutting discs
x1 pair of scissors
x1 sheet of UV reactive acrylic sheeting
x1 epoxy resin
x1 paper stencil
x1 crayon
x1 double sided tape
x1 Jigsaw
x1 masking tape

Step 1 -

I put the cog tag symbol into Photoshop and resized it to A4 and printed this out.  This was going to be my template.  I cut around the edges of the template carefully and did the same for the minor detailing of the skull. Once I had finished this I then got my side panel off of my PC case and cleaned the inside panel from any old dust. I then placed the stencil where I wanted it and used the double sided tape to hold it in place whilst I carefully went around all of the edges with the crayon. Once I had finished this and was pleased with it I removed the paper stencil and prepared for the next stage.

Step 2 - 

I got my side panel and measured roughly the same size as the sheet of A4 I had used to print out the stencil. I made sure all edges and gaps were covered fully by acrylic but at least 1-2cm on all sides. I then got my acrylic and prepared it for cutting. I clamped the sheet down to a bench and the measurements I had used earlier were then used to make another stencil this time of the acrylic. I used masking tape on both sides of the sheet along the edge I wanted to cut. The reason for this was to give me a smooth finish and protect the plastic from shattering or cracking. I drew my cutting line along the middle of the tape.  I made sure I had a sawblade on my jigsaw that could cut through the plastic. I started cutting and took my time mainly because once you cut into the plastic it starts to loose its rigidity and needs to be supported well along the cutting line to reduce accidents and keep all of my fingers intact. This took about 20mins in all to do.

Step 3 -

Now time for the fun part. I got my side panel and clamped it down the bench. I then got my Dremel and attached a small cutting disc to it. I had at first decided to cut the cog tag out and go from there but after spending 10mins cutting a few lines I realized I was running into the same problem I had with the plastic sheet. The side panel was starting to do the same and making cutting more difficult and dangerous without me having to clamp every little bit. I went back to the drawing board and after a strong coffee or two I then decided to cut out the smaller parts like the eyes, nose and teeth. The eyes and nose were cut out OK but wasn’t too happy with the teeth, I found it quite difficult to attempt really small accurate cuts due to my lack of skill and use of the dremmel. I managed in the end but had numerous little bits of metal now and plenty of tiny cuts.  I kept them safe alongside the half circle I cutout.   I would use these parts later. All that was left at this point was to finish cutting around the edges of the COG symbol, nice easy straight cuts I thought. This took me a good 2hours of work to fully cut out and clean.

Step 4 -

Now by this point I reassessed. I had my plastic sheet cut to shape – check, Side panel cutout – check, small pieces of metal – check. Everything looked good so far so it was time to prepare to fit. My first attempt didn’t go well to be honest.  I had decided to use strong double-sided tape to mount the plastic to the panel.  I did the same for the smaller pieces of metal.

This worked pretty good and fast.  20 minutes later though, I heard a thump behind me. I turned around to see the panel had popped off under the weight of it and decided to use epoxy resin instead for a stronger bond. As I had taped all the small pieces I had to remove the tape and clean the glue off. This was time consuming to say the least, took me about an hour to do. Once I had finished I mixed up the epoxy resin and applied small amounts to the plastic panel. T The overlapping edges I had measured out to 1-2 cm before, helped me with this as these were my glue points. I applied all of the glue I needed to the sheeting and mounted it again to the panel. I had to wait a few hours for it to fully set before going onto the next stage.

Step 5 -

This was pretty much a smaller step of the one above but was trickier to do. I was doing the same with the smaller pieces of metal. I had at this point kept the big metal stencil that I cut the smaller pieces out of. I thought this would be a good thing to place it back on the hole I had made so I could place the smaller pieces correctly. I mixed up some more resin and applied small amounts to the slithers of metal and placed them inbetween the gaps of the stencil. Waited a few hours again and lifted off the big metal stencil to see my work. I was quite pleased with it and decided to keep the stencil for another case for the future.

Reflection -

I was very happy with what I had created so far. I got my case and added a small power supply into it and set of dual red cathode lights to illuminate the inside. As I don’t have a spare PC or parts, all I can do for the moment is have the case set up like it is until I can make more money to fill the inside up with shinies. For this being my first ever mod, the amount of interest it has gotten so far is unreal. I plan on doing another case soon and cut out a circular design and will mount the big spare stencil I have, thus giving me an inverted look to the COG tag and another cool case.