Bezel Cutting
Cutting a blowhole in the front bezel can significantly improve the ability of the front fan to suck air into your system. As you can see below many cases are designed with only a small gap or holes at the bottom of the front bezel - forcing all the air sucked into the case to be drawn under the bezel and up to the fan before making its way inside your case.

The front bezel does not allow for easy airflow.

Cutting the plastic bezel is a little easier than the metal of the chassis - its softer and hence easier to work with, especially if you are using hand tools. However, the softer plastic also means you have to be a lot more careful. The first step involves creating a template or outline of where the hole is to be cut, you can cut it with a jigsaw, simply drill numerous holes around the edge, or use a hacksaw. Personally I find the hacksaw method easier, I find my jigsaw is too fast and it melts the plastic rather than cutting it. OCAU has another article on making a 120mm front intake here.

Anyway, after you have hacked out the basic shape of the required hole, use the drill-grinding stone combo to tidy things up. Ensure that you have your hole edges clearly marked, because the sanding stone easily chews through the plastic, and it is easy to get excited and sand too much of the bezel away. It's a good idea to use the round or semi-round file to complete the hole, as it allows you much more control when putting on the finishing touches.

Finishing Up
Now that we have fairly unrestricted airflow into and out of our case, there is only one more problem to overcome - dust. However, it's fairly easy to install a cheap dust filter after you've cut both your case and front bezel:

Cut your case and install a finger guard and your fan.
Cut the front bezel and install a finger guard.
Dust filtering material can then be 'sandwiched' between the two finger guards as you attach the bezel.

I have used some air-conditioning filter material available from Clark Rubber shops here in Australia. But people in our Case Modding Forum have suggested many different types of materials - including stockings and fly wire.

My KF45 modified for a 120mm fan at the front :

Front of case with fan and finger guard (fan is mounted on the outside of the case so that all the air is sucked through the bezel-hole because machine sits on the ground and no air can be drawn up under the bezel.)

Sandwich the filter material between the case and bezel.

The completed project.

Yes it does work to collect dust!

Check out the Top 10 PC's in the PC Database!

---

Other Recent Reviews:

DIY Parallel-Cable Remote LCD!

TwinMOS PC2700 DDR

MSI K7N420 Pro nForce Motherboard!