If there's one thing we love around here, it's bombastic custom PC cases. The bigger and more ridiculous the better. This week we found one from Thresh_Keller, who used Destiny 2's Wardcliff Coil as inspiration this awesome rig. Thresh_Keller, a mostly self-taught tinkerer and creator of cool sci-fi stuff, also builds replica props from the Blade Runner and Star Wars universe using from all sorts of interesting junk.
I managed to get a hold of Thresh_Keller and ask about this tribute to the Coil. I asked about Thresh's background and how this wild built came to be:
"I've been taking things apart and reconfiguring them since I was a kid. Destroying, repurposing and reimagining things has always been interesting to me. I'm inspired by found objects and stuff others might consider useless junk.
The lore for the Wardcliff coil reflects this concept to a degree and it is what inspiration for my build. Making something from nothing. Using what's on hand because you have to. If it works, great! If not, it will be a hell of an explosion."
The Wardcliff Coil is an exotic rocket launcher that fires a volley of tiny rockets in a mostly unpredictable pattern that often if you're not careful, will get you killed. Here's the flavor text for the Wardcliff Coil item description that Thresh is referring to:
LORE ALERT
Ingenuity. Desperation. A haphazard prototype of terrible power. Such were the factors at play in the Wardcliff Incident.
"HAMIT'S LOG. The lead is good, but so are the Fallen tracking me. I swear on my Ghost there's a hundred camped outside. I'm cornered in the lab and they're using Shanks to run me out of ammunition. War cultist, arm thyself; at least it's a weapons lab. This, er, rustic device was once an experimental axion emitter, which sprays weird particles to light up the basement of the universe. Right here I've coupled the emitter to some catacaustic quark-gluon coils, which will not, due to my scrupulous safety checking, create a strangelet that devours the Earth. I cook up some pain in there, the microverse decays, and the result comes out here. If it doesn't work, well, please name the crater after me."
I'm inspired by found objects and stuff others might consider useless junk.
Turns out Thresh had a special someone in mind when building the Coil and, honestly, I could cry:
"I game with my daughter. She's 10 and has been playing Destiny with me since she was 6. We started playing D1 on Xbox. We've played the entire campaign together through to D2. We've got Thorn, Wish Ender and guns like Python together. I figured I would give the Coil to her as her first gaming PC. That was another reason I put so much effort into it this build. I really wanted it to be something she'd be proud of and excited to use."
Thresh_Keller also broke down the build process for me which involved a ton of elbow grease and drywall anchors:
"The whole project was one big kitbash. Which I loved about it. Getting the mobo to fit was pretty easy. I thought that would be hard. I made a paper template and drilled holes into the case. I had to make standoffs out of pieces of cut-up bic pens and rubber grommets so the circuits of the mobo and mounting screws wouldn't touch the aluminum frame and arc. The heated skin of the radiator was mounted using drywall anchors and random screws since the brackets that came with it didn't fit with my processor. A lot of the bolts had to be cut down by hand using a Dremel tool."
Thresh explained where the real headaches of the project were. Veteran custom PCs builders know this struggle between aesthetic and functionality all too well:
"Finding places to hide all of the wires was a challenge as well since I only wanted certain ones visible for aesthetics. I wanted it to be like an old school chopper where you get to see the functional parts and hear them working together and nothing is hidden away beneath plastic panels. The PC turned out better than I expected, so I decided to also paint the mouse, keyboard, monitor and an articulating wall mounted swing arm to match. The most fun part of this or any build for me is the weathering process. Literally destroying the thing you just meticulously built."
What I really love about this PC is that really feels like it was cobbled together from dangerous space junk you'd find in your inventory in Destiny 2. It definitely looks unsafe and wild, like a backup generator on the Millennium Falcon that Han would have to kick a couple of times to get running.
Finally, I asked Thresh if there other fun projects in the works and did not disappoint:
"I'm currently working on a retro sleeper build right now for a friend that uses a hideous Dell Dimension case. He doesn't know about the hideous Intel Inside monstrosity he's about to inherit. So if he sees this here before its done. Surprise sucker! You're gettin' a Dell! Hahaha!"
