managed to get this guy for the price of shipping, and the extremely curious being that I am, plan to use it.
From the guy:
I washed the thing in water, then put it in a bag for a few days without thinking about drying it. You can always sand down the mounting bracket or get a new one, the problem is that the nickel plating started to come off, and has relocated itself inside the fins. This plating seems to be subject to flaking. I'm not really sure if there's a way to fix it, I've already soaked it in paint thinner for a week. In other words, I'm too scared to try it in a computer
this is how it showed up, I was actually expecting it to be much worse
i'm thinking pressurized water, 3200 PSI of love to blast it clean
was considering sand blasting, but don't expect that to end too well, so i'm holding off on that ;)
what the hell made him soak it in paint thinner, its not paint its NICKLE PLATING..
all he did was jack up the plating, no real good way to get it all off at home with out jacking up the fins. Might check with a chrome shop, be cheaper to buy the cooler new though... waste of a good cooler.
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
-Thomas Jefferson
yeah, not sure about that, just wore some of the black paint off
there actually isnt much rust built up around the pipes going through the fins, i'm thinking water @3200psi will do the trick for that then its just getting it to look nice, the fins are really strong so they don't mind sand paper
the silver brackets cleaned up mostly, but had one spot on of them that had a bit too much damage for me to leave silver, so i painted it (Gloss Black)
it actually worked really well to remove the calcium and whatever was built up around the pipes in the fins, so it looks like its almost ready for paint! just have to sand the sides of the base some since the paint is chipped
since the fins are clean now, i'm going to paint it, then once its dry i will wrap the bulk of it in saran wrap while i finish lapping it
edit: hmm theres some paint flaking off on the outer parts of the fins (on the flat sides of the fins, not the actual edge)
But its not paint, unless he painted a standard TRUE or Ultra 120. The Black editions were black nickel plated, what ever was done to it is making the plating flake off.
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
-Thomas Jefferson
yes it's black nickel plating, and i ordered the AM2/3 mounting bracket as an option for my AMD system(s) if it works as well as i expect
it looks like mounting 120mm fans will be easy without getting new mounts. paper clips will do the job nicely i think
also, air can pass through the fins easily now, even around the pipes, so the paint(OKAY PLATING) is just aesthetic and i'm removing a ton of metal from the base- so stop sounding so negative bubba!
bah... just me being anal about the look of the cooler. I have seen the black nickel on those and they are sharp looking. Trying to figure out what the guy you got it from was trying to do to it that he got it all jacked up in the first place LOL
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
-Thomas Jefferson
this is what happened with the bracket (yes, i know it was not smart as it WILL come off through use)
starting to get back in with the 150grit on the base
roughly how much i've sanded off (i blew a lot of shavings off the paper onto the floor)
the middle section of the fins is clean and not peeled up anywhere, three corners are like this:
with one like:
Got the AM3 bracketry and some new compound from frozencpu
how it looked after initial paint mmmmmmm getting excited now
after dry 2,000 grit - stopped once there was an even amount untouched on all 4 corners as any CPU will be more than covered by what i have already finished
sandpaper used (10 sheets of that 150grit were used, one sheet of the rest, 'get a clean sheet-> rotate and sand with same used sheet->rotate for next grit' -only rotating once the previous round's scratch marks are gone)
skier wrote:Got the AM3 bracketry and some new compound from frozencpu
/img
how it looked after initial paint mmmmmmm getting excited now
/img
after dry 2,000 grit - stopped once there was an even amount untouched on all 4 corners as any CPU will be more than covered by what i have already finished
sandpaper used (10 sheets of that 150grit were used, one sheet of the rest, 'get a clean sheet-> rotate and sand with same used sheet->rotate for next grit' -only rotating once the previous round's scratch marks are gone)
/img
WOW! look at that base shine!!
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](./images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
WOW! look at that base shine!!
