Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Purely for Show, 26th February

It is my 21st birthday in March, for which I am building myself my second ever gaming PC. I decided to make something special and fully scratch build the case. It could be described as a modern steampunk style, but its basically a combination of copper, stainless steel and olive wood. All lighting will be RGB but set to warm white/amber. As the title suggests, this is designed as a display piece, and is rather large.
It is an air cooled build, partly for style (the 212 matches the steel and copper nicely) and partly for cost, but watercooling will be compatible and would suit very well.
Front window will be tempered glass if there's enough money left at the end.

The intended specs (when I have the money):
i7-7700k
ASUS STRIX Z270-F
Corsair Vengence RGB (when released)
ASUS STRIX GTX 970 (a STRIX 1070 is not in the original budget but will come later down the line)
Corsair CX750
Hyper 212X

Although I have about 8 years workshop experience, I am currently at university with access to nothing. So this entire project will be made with nothing but a stanley knife and a drill in my bedroom.

I think that covers everything. No sponsors as of yet, but I'd like to get someone on board, perhaps even just a local company.

So...I have a little progress to show already.
This is the initial render in Solidworks. It uses a different motherboard and graphics card because I really dont have the time for that! The grey tube to the right of the motherboard is a clear tube filled with water that'll have bubbles flowing though and will be internally RGB lit.
The smaller tube to the right is a glass thermometer and will be similarly lit.
The light bulbs are the main interior lighting and are LED Edison bulbs (although real ones look better, I didn't want to add more heat to the case)
The three holes at the bottom of the left wood panel will have small bulbs for power and HDD activity lights.
The three holes on the right one will have taps for the air flow of the water feature.



These next two are all I have of me cutting the holes in the motherboard tray, because it was not such a fun process with just a stanley knife. You can see the basic box underneath being used as a cutting board, as it will be veneered in the end and I'm in my bedroom...




These are the side panels being made/completed




The motherboard tray is glued in, with the side panels being test fitted. They are held in by magnets



Painting the inside...



Painting done, with another test fit



Starting to veneer the outsides with olivewood. Not the cheapest so being careful as I have no workbench or clamps etc. Best I can do is a desk and a heavy flight case. Last pic shows a nice idea of the direction it's taking





That's all for now! It won't be long till more. Thanks for taking an interest!