Making a Shroud for your Radiator

To maximize airflow across a radiator when watercooling, a duct or what some of us call a shroud, is essential. Some of the watercoolers make their own from shoes boxes, baking trays, etc. Today, our member soki shows you how to make an effective and nice-looking shroud for your radiator with just very simple tools.

Generously contributed by soki, our VR-Zone forum member.

For those versed in the knowledge of watercooling computers, you will know
that the radiator is a very important component of the loop. The effectiveness
of a radiator is quite deeply affected by the airflow across it, to dissipate
the heat from the water.

Just placing the fans right against the radiator is not ideal as there is an
area of dead air (ie, non-moving air) right at the center of the fans. Therefore,
ideally, we should set a space between radiator and fans to maximize airflow.

For this, a duct or what some of us call, a shroud, is essential. Some of the
watercoolers make their own from shoes boxes, baking trays, etc. Today, our
member soki shows you how to make an effective and nice-looking shroud for your
radiator with just very simple tools.

First, let’s list down the tools needed:

- 1 roll of 1mm thick Aluminum sheet
– 1 pair of Shearers
– 1 roll of tape
– 1 Set Square
– 1 Hammer
– 1 Screwdriver

First, we start off by drawing out the dimensions of the shroud on a piece of
paper.

The actual shroud will be made using the Aluminum sheet and folding it.

We fold the paper shroud and hold her up using some paper clips and tape:

After confirming that the paper shroud is nicely aligned for the radiator, we
unfold it and use it as a template to draw on the actual Aluminum sheet using
our Set Square and marker.

Then, we use our shearers to cut out the shroud:

The end product should look like this: