After a few minutes with the Dremel I realized I had to cut straight lines. I could not cut curves with the cut off wheel of the Dremel. One thing I had not planned was the fine dust that was produced by the cut off wheel as I cut the plastic. I had to wash it in the bathtub after each major set of cuts that I made, sorry no pictures of me giving a cow a bath allowed. 4 washes and 3 hours later I had the hole cut and smoothed the edges with a file.

After I opened up the belly of the cow I cut out the holes for the USB ports and 1394 FireWire ports. I cut the basic shape of the holes out with the Dremel and a cutting bit.

Then I used a file to square them up. I keep testing the plugs till I got them to the right size. This also required 2 trips to the bathtub and apparently took several hours as I lost track of time. Then next step was to make a hole for the on off switch and the power connection. With that done it had to have another bath and then the next step was to decide how to mount the board in the cow. It was 2100 by the time I looked up. I had not realized how late it was. The next big thing is to mount the board in the cow and cut the slot in the top of the cow for the CD R/RW DVD combo drive. This will have to wait till the morning.

The first thing I did was to line up the drive where I wanted it then I made the best guess possible as to where it was on the outside. I used the Dremel to cut the slot on the top of the cow creating more of the fine dust. The house now has a layer of this dust all over the place. This is a major down side since when I am done it will require a massive dusting with a vacuum cleaner. The slot was too narrow when I was done so I had to use a fiber reinforced cut off wheel because they are thicker than a regular cut off wheel. This made the slot wide enough to let a CD slide in and out with binding. After I cut the slot I used 240 grit sand paper to smooth out the slot.

I put some hooks on the piece I cut out of the belly so that I could put it back in and have it stay in place without falling off the bottom.

The next problem I had is that one of the legs broke OFF. I will glue it back on when I have the rest of the components inside. It opened up the bell more making it easier to get inside to work so it was good in a way.

I glued 2 pieces of PVC pipe on the inside to hold the CD drive in alignment front to back. Monday after it dries I will glue 2 end pieces to hold it in place left and right. Then I will need to put something in to hold it up at the top to the cow when I turn it over to stand it up. I think 2 pieces of PVC pipe cut to length and wedged between the board with the drive mounted on it and the belly of the cow will work. By doing this I would be able to remove the drive when I need or want to. I am thinking I would want to take it apart when I ship it. Will let you know more Monday after I try it.

Well the idea I had about mounting the drive was good so I tried to put a pieces of ply wood on the back of the drives and mount the mother board to that. That part worked but the PVC pipe came off when I tried to mount the whole thing the same way. It was too heavy for the glue. I glued another piece of PVC pipe to hold the drive in place. This worked OK.