The chassis is small but fairly wide. This may allow room for hiding cables behind the motherboard and drives. Always take advantage of case space for hiding cables. A messy case looks unprofessional and hinders air flow. One disadvantage of the chassis is the top panel being riveted to the chassis. I couldn't take it off to paint so I plan to mask off the chassis and paint it. But, before that happens I need to cut a blow hole for better air flow. Interestingly enough, the top panel has a bezel of its own.   I'm going to take advantage of this and cut out a design for the blow-hole fan and mount it in the bezel.

I've got a lot of pieces to primer and paint. I have limited primer so only the chassis & side panels will be coated in it. The rest of the plastic bezels & drive covers are all the same color and I'm using a plastic paint that adheres to other plastics (so I won't be primering those). I was hoping to cut out a clever fan grill in the front bezel because a fan mounts on the chassis right behind it, but time restrictions prevented that from happening.

The first step to the Armor case was to design a window that was more interesting than a plain square or rectangle. I was thinking of a WWII armored vehicle and for some reason a cross came to mind. I started measuring the panel, first by leaving at least 1 1/2 inches on each side for room to slide the panel back on the case, second drawing out each corner to make it as straght as possible. I knew ahead of time that cutting with a jigsaw will ruin some of the perfect lines but a handy metal file and some patience will straighten it out, literally. The existing vent will have to be cut in order to create a cross window. Maybe not the best decision functionally but I can still make it work with some filing.