So this would be the hardest of the mods I'm planning on doing.  Well, not necessarily hard, but most stressful.  Cutting a huge, gapping hole in the side of your $200 case...yeah, I'll remain calm and collected...one little slip up and I need to find a company that will sell just a side panel.  Or I'll have to get VERY creative with how I fill the hole in.  Lexan's not that expensive, so I keep that in mind as I get ready to begin.  You can always buy a new piece of Lexan should you mess up cutting that...best to get the case panel done right though.  So here we remind ourselves of how we left things from our last mod and then we take a look at the proposed outline for the window.

Rounded corners are a very necessary piece of this project as the molding strip that will be used doesn't take to right angles at all.  That and after looked at dozens of other people's window mods, I'd have to say it just plain looks better.  Thanks to the lid to a can of fish food, you can see the traced curves inserted in the otherwise rectangular outline.  Now this was the easy part...the trick is now to slap on some masking tape so we don't inadvertently scratch the case and then to break out the dremel and follow the proverbial dotted-line.

My, look at how that aluminum just chews up those dremel wheels....all said and done, I think I went through about 18 of them...should have used a jigsaw or something, but the dremel was all I had...hey, it gave me something to do and filled the house with this most wonderful smell....oif.  But as the next three pictures show, the dremel still managed to get the job done...about an hour later, but finished none the less and in relatively straight lines too.

Taking the tape off, it looks oddly nice...albeit a bit confusing.  Slapping in on the case and we get a little sneak peak of how things will look.  Time to start in on the Lexan.  Keeping the protective cover on so as to avoid scratches, we break out the dremel yet again.  Only 5 cutting wheels this time due to them heating up too much and snapping off.  (Almost nailed poor Ivan with one of them)  Now the smell changes in the house to that of melting plastic...mmmm, mmmm tasty.  That will sure wake you up.  Notice yet again, the blue outline, a smidge bit smaller than the actual hole to accommodate the molding to go in to place.  Easier to cut than aluminum, but melts a little if you're not careful.

It should be noted that I did have to break out a grinding stone and smooth down the rough edges on the case and the glass.  A bit time consuming, but pretty damned straight forward. Also, notice the molding...it goes on to the case without any hassle...just be sure and cut it right...I shot a little low, so I ended up with a small gap that I had to fill in after the fact.  With the aide of a trusty flat head screw driver, the window manages to get coaxed in to place after about an hour...the locking strip takes another hour to get in right (note that I'm also distracted by TV at this point *grin*)...As you can see however, I managed to pull it off....and it doesn't look half bad.  In fact, I find that I prefer the window to the dull, boring normal case side.  Too bad this innards are in an embarrassing state at this point.

So, there you have it.  The biggest mod to date.  A common mod, but still a very pretty one...as long as you ignore the nightmare that is the inside of my case.  But hey, what do you expect...at this point we have a ribbon floppy cable, a ribbon cable for the Live!-Drive, a ribbon SCSI-2 cable, a ribbon UW SCSI cable and a rounded U2W cable.  Not to mention power, fans and audio cables.  Part of this project's goals is to complete replace the innards as well, so who knows where things will lead...stay tuned I suppose.