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Scratch Build – Complete ⭐ Mahogany Desk by Husky Bongs [Build of the Year 2018, FINISHED]

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by Huskybongs, 21 Feb 2017.

  1. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    Hello,

    I've been building this a while but wasn't confident enough to put it up on these forums before now.

    The idea is to take that grand piano feeling to a pc. We'll be using fairly nice materials for this such as teak, mahogany, oxygen resistans steel and a lot of chromed parts. The build has been in the works for about 2 years with an estimated finish this spring. (currently doing bespoke cables). With that being said let's go over the parts and into the actual buildlog.

    A massive shoutout to Mikael who's helped me with a lot of the woodwork. This build would not have been possible without your help

    PC parts:

    Motherboard: MSI BigBang Xpower 2, x 79 lga 2011¨
    CPU: Intel i7-3930k @ 4.6Ghz
    RAM: 32GB Corsair Dominator 1866Mhz
    PSU: Corsair ax1500i
    GPU(s): 2xGTX 980s overclocked to whatever I can reach:)
    HDD/SSD: 2xWD red 6tb+3xV-Samsung 500gb. 2 in raid and 1 as bootdrive

    Watercooling:

    Radiators: 2xmonstah 560mm,1xalphacool 360mm
    Pumps: Plexitop EKWB d5x2
    Piping: Iodized copper
    Reservoir: Custom Singularity Dual loop acrylic reservoir.
    Fans: Various Noiseblocker fans 25 in total.

    Sponsors:

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    Lets start off then.

    Solid drawing

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    Let's weld. Starting off with the basic shape. Table will be roughly 1800x780mm

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    Radiator bay:

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    Parts started to come in

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    After a few more hours I have room for my legs and some placement for the fans

    http://i.imgur.com/UKIGtMkl.jpg

    Space for knees

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    Gonna want some monitoring

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    The wood was ordered like this. Huge chunks of birch. The will be shaped to be the outer panels of the chassi. It's a really dense wood and it's been dried for years properly before being used.
    Quite heavy actually. These 3 parts weigh about 50kgs or about 110 pounds

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    After using different bits and sanding roughly down ending at about 320 grit paper I managed to shape them to the shape I desired.

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    Playing around a bit with some of the parts. That's an ST8 Motherboard tray from a caselabs pc

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    Last edited: 9 Apr 2017
  2. GeorgeK

    GeorgeK Swinging the banhammer Super Moderator

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    Can you resize your images please - the imgur large thumbnail option usually works best.

    Thanks

    GK
     
  3. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    Aye, massive pics are massive.
     
  4. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    Will do as well as all the previous pictures. My apologies. Ill do it on friday
     
  5. kim

    kim hardware addict

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    yeah, pics are just giants ones, i thought it was my turn....but lessening scale, i could see pics, and wahooo, i love what you've done...for many reasons, first one, your work on wood and metal is just great, it's gonna be a very beautifull and original compter desk, then, your running x79 chipset like me, and third, I am building a PC-desk myself for several weeks, waiting the right moment to start a thread here, so, I will follow your build with interest...good luck for the following
     
  6. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    Let's continue then with properly sized pictures:)

    So I contacted Singularity Computers and he luckily agreed to make my design of a dual loop reservoir come to life. The plan was something like this

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    Then I needed some legs. Used 60mm hollow steel pipe and some 40x40mm steel for the upper bars.

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    And the mounting for the screenstand was lathed by some shaft steel

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    Got ze legs in place

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    And this will be the placement for the screenstand. Mirroring the design of the legs

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    A very professional way of planning:)

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    Wouldn't be a proper desk build unless we had support for 3 screens

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    We used some 12mm thick steel for this. It's incredibly overkill but it can handle whatever I decide to mount on it

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    The legs are connected to the frame with 5 x 8 mm bolts (oxygen resistant)

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    Trying to make the angles "talk to each other" if that makes sense:)

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    Testmounting some stuff

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  7. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    Thank you! I've resized the picture to the large thumbnail now as previously requested
     
  8. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    Continuation

    Had to play around with the parts to see if they fitted properly. They did:)

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    Big radiators but they will be completely hidden:)

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    Even though it's quite a tight fit

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    All the major watercooling parts testfitted

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    Playing around with the fan controller

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    Got my reservoir back and Singularity Computers also made a video of it. Very very happy with result. It's just fantastic craftsmanship.

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    Le Video



    And on to the interior wood. Now this is actually a pretty long process. But to roughly summarize it:
    I had lying around some teak and mahogany plywood and it had been drying up since the mid 1990s so it was just too good to not use for this. I'm just in love with this stuff

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    Very tedious process of fitting each panel in individually as well as matching the lines perfectly

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    After several hours all the panels fit.

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    Had to rework the starboard side a bit

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    Got a new cover plasmacut from the local workshop

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    Looking decent

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    Time to make the holes for the fans and PSU

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    In order to cut this out a special tool had to be made.

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    Lathed out room for the fans as well. Despite the desk being really big there's not any extra room to work with

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    Happy with the result

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    The starboard side

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    Fused 3 panels on each side together to get them in and out of the table

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    Custom PSU mount that also fits 3 ssd's and 2 hdd's

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    Made a bottom plate for the Reservoir also to mount it more easily

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    Slowly but surely getting progress

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    Got some parts back from paint:)

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  9. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    Time to mount the sidepanels. Had to make incredibly sturdy mounting for this since they weigh so much

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    From the side

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    The front:)

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    Started with the varnish. Ended up redoing all this but you'll see soon enough:)

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    Couldn't cut these at home due to the thickness so went to the local woodshop. They were rather confused when I said it's a pc:)

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    Angles worked out fine

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    Starting to look better

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    Wanted to get a feel for how it will be to work at this thing

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    DX racer for scale

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    Got the hardened glass that I ordered

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    Rounded corners same radius as the fans:)

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    After some work with a CNC I got the sidepanels fixed to have openings for the fans and the fancontroller

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    Liking the look now

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    Was a bit worried before I testmounted this whether or not it would line up properly with the interior. Gladly it did

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    This is not the actual fancovers but wanted to get a feel for how it will look before I drew them up in CAD for the waterjet

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    From the inside

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    The nightmare of the top part of the wood:) To get this to fit properly we had to get all the angles right and shave off half a millimeter at a time until it fit properly. This was a lot harder than I expected but it was worth it

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    It fits!:)

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    And now to the gluing. Using Marine glue here. Takes a long time to harden but it's incredibly strong. Also tapping her up so it doesn't move

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    Gotta protect the painting

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    Probably not the best method but it works:)

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    After a bit of manhandling it it's finally glued and won't be touched for 2 weeks

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    Just had to test with the glass on.

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  10. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    The 2 weeks had passed and I put it back on the legs.

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    Didn't mention it before but the outer shell is actually removable and will remain so if a fan breaks or something like that

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    All alone in the corner:)

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    Reinforced the on some points just to make sure

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    Time to get those holes needed done

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    1 Radiator ventiolation hole

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    and 2 holes + the mountstand hole

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    Getting closer

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    That's not how the mountstand will sit. You'll see later

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    And the glass hole:)

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    Yeah, lets do key ignition. No real reason except it would be really cool:)

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    Sits pretty well at it's place

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    Trying to get some harmony with the design. Maybe you think that's jibberish but there's some thought put into this:)

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    The glass is finally inside

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    My friend testsitting it

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    And the last cavity needed is for the USB, 6.3 mm audio and volume controls etc. Will be using a homemade potentiometer solution here and hiding the DAC/AMP inside the table

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    Had to continue filling up the glue until there was enough to go sanding

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    First round of sanding down to 320 grit paper. Will go down to about 2000 eventually

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    Wasn't completely happy with the interior panels so I actually redid all of them with 8 layers of 2 component diamond mahogany varnish. It's resistant to heat and water so it will have a long life inside

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    Looks a lot better now

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  11. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    Had to make a solution for getting all of the pieces together so had some long screws that goes through the interior panel and the steel frame and end in the outer panel. These can't be seen unless you're actively looking for them

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    Mounting solution for the back panel

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    Back panel fitted

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    Ordered some more watercooling parts from Highflow

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    This is what I'll use for audio. The sennheiser hd 650s and and ODAC amp/dac solution from Mayflower Electronics

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    Had to make custom hinges or we would never get the glass out easily. Will also install electric motors for this so you don't have to do anything else than push a button

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    Might as well mention this is just prototyping. The actual hinges will be made out of 6mm steel

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    Instagram filters:) jk

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    Made a short video



    Started drawing out the design for the fansgrills. I'll get these chromed

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    Made some longer videos where I go through the build



    Lathing out a volume knob

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    Playing around with the stains

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    And a video update again



    That's it for now will start cablework very soon!
     
    Dietec likes this.
  12. storm-83

    storm-83 Minimodder

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    Wow, that looks gorgeous!
    Looking forward to more progress
     
  13. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    Yeah I'm a huge fan of the riva's and bösch boats. :)
    Furthermore my next project after this table is probably a custom runabout boat in mahogany:) Not that suitable for this forum though
     
  14. voigts

    voigts What's a Dremel?

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    I'm not really a huge fan of desk builds in general. Having said that, I have to say that this build is just completely awesome. I can appreciate the amount of time to get this thing looking and working this way. Absolutely excellent work with very appealing styling. I appreciate that your not just after bling, but really spending a lot of blood/sweat/tears on the styling.
     
  15. Hukkel

    Hukkel James' minion

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    I think I have seen photos of this online somewhere. Maybe social media.

    All I can say is that it doesn't even matter that much if someone shares you taste in design. You already have to respect the craftmanship in this. Very well done man. Big respect.
     
  16. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    Thank you that's very kind. Yeah I don't love the christmastree-e look of a lot of builds I'm more into the shapes and the less is more mentality. And I just love organic materials
     
    Last edited: 26 Feb 2017
  17. Huskybongs

    Huskybongs Minimodder

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    Thank you
     
  18. Cheapskate

    Cheapskate Insane? or just stupid?

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    :jawdrop:Whoah!...DUDE!
    Are you kidding? We LOVE this kinda stuff. You could probably post the boat build in 'general' too. there's several car projects in there.
     
  19. mal

    mal What's a Dremel?

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    What he said.

    The craftsmanship and attention to detail in the woodwork speaks volumes. Are you a cabinet maker by trade? Awesome job. I really like when PCs don't look like PCs. :clap::clap::clap:

    mal
     
    Last edited: 27 Feb 2017
  20. kim

    kim hardware addict

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    :jawdrop: what a job, OMG, your so accurate...splendid really
     

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