Just to start out, i haven't done this before, so if the log sucks for a little while, i'm sorry. but anyway... I am new to computer modding, but i've been a furniture make for a while. My roommate is the opposite, so naturally, i decided to combine the two and make a computer that resembles a peice of furniture. My basic idea was to have a wood frame, joined with a few different joints, and an inside frame where all of the hardware would fasten to. The interior frame will be made out of grey transparent acrylic, along with the front and back plates. the floor and ceiling will be sitka spruce, and for an extra japanese flair, the side doors wil be sliding shoji doors with one panel left clear to see all the goodies inside. And to top it all off, there will be two massive aluminum doors which hopefully will have a hand hammered look, and will be anadized black. Here are some pics of the frame. The wood i'm using is a mahogany, i chose this for the color, and well, it was just left over from a project that i majorly screwed up on and it just happened to be suitable for this purpose. For the joinery, the top peices are joined with a half-lap joint and the vertical members connect with a pinned through mortise and tennon. The black wood in the picture is ebony, very expensive but very hard and works very well for the purpose of pins, knobs, and the like. The joints should be strong/tight enough to hold everything together. What i like a lot about this whole thing is i can take the entire outer frame apart, since the pins are not glued in. This is handy in case i need to change hardware, or whatever else i might need to do and its just kinda cool. oh, and here are some of the tools i used to make this so far. and for scale, here is the case with my modular power supply, skyhawk power one 470w, which my former roomate sleeved for me.
I dont know if it is just me but that thing looks HUGE. Could I get a comparasin shot, like you standing besided it or something. Other than that, AWSOME.
Japanese joinery is so awesome. There are some japanese joinery books in my Lee-Valley catalogs I've been tempted to order. I think this is an excellent idea and you are doing a very clean job so far.
FREAKIN AWSOME!!!! I will be following this for sure. Make sure to post lots of pictures, especially about how things go together.
does anybody have a better name for this case because "wood/acrylic case" doesn't really seem too catchy?
Check out the PSU in it. That's quite a good comparison I think. I think you're doing a great job on the wood work. Keep it up, and it will be a great project!
some sort of kung Fuu or japansesy kinda name like hmmm 'Orku' some something look's kinda japansesy to me...
Nice, I like the Japanese/Korean look. But I wonder what's on the background. Something about 'What is the ?AIDS? / Living Memorial ......' What the hell is that Board with those pamflets about ?AIDS?, oh dear, doing in a/your workshop!!? Contagious machinery???
alright, while still trying to figure out a name for this thing, i decided to do a bit more work, including cutting the grooves for the floor and ceiling, and the front and back plates of acrylic. The floor itself is sitka spruce, a really nice wood, usually used for the tops of acoustic guitars. i just liked the tight grain and it will be really nice for the shoji doors as well. the acrylic for the front and back panels is a 1/4" transpernt grey, really nice, and will hopefully be strong enough to support the whole inner frame thing. here's a pic of the acrylic installed, with the paper still on. i love it when things look like they're actually taking shape. alright, now for some of the hardware. i'm using an air cooling system, but hopefully a pretty good one. I have the XP-90C heatsink, possibly one of the prettiest hunks of copper i've ever seen, and i have 3 case fans, one 120mm for the front, one 92mm for the heatsink, and another 92mm for the back, plus the fans on the psu. The fans came with blue LEDs but since i like white better, i switched them: next, i needed a nice large hole in the acrylic for the fan. i decided to use a circle cutter for this: oh, by the way, the fans will be painted/anadized black there is the finished hole, the other smaller peice with the whole will go behind the fan, for a fan sandwhich kind of thing. alright, with the front and back there, i can finally work on the interior frame. but to see how it might work, i made some study models, instead of doing physics hw, but anywhere, here they are. oh, i forgot to mention, the psu is going on the bottom, and the motherboard is totally flipped around, to assist with the cooling, and it will also show off the cooler on my video card when i get it. Originally, the interior frame was going to be two peices, one attached to the front panel, the other to the back panel, but there turned out to be so little clearence between the two that i'm just making them one peice, (good thing for study models eh). after i got done with the mini model, i was able to make an exact model on the real thing, with black foamcore board. i can use those peices as templates for the real thing, hopefully. but anyways, thats all for now, hopefully the shop here will fix their bandsaws so i can cut the acrylic, and hopefully i won't screw up on that part too. oh, and if u have any questions about anything, just ask and i'll explain things better
ha, no, that's actually the study lounge in my dorm here, i guess they just want to make sure we're safe? i dunno, that would definately not be in my shop
well, i thought that normal fan grills wouldn't quite work for this application, so i decided to make my own out of cypress, here is what i came up with...
Very nice case... I really like it! Maybe you should call it "project dojin"? Would make sense, a dojin, if I'm not mistaken is a building? Or something... ?
Wow. Look at those knives. This project looks very promising. It looks like you're keeping great attention to every little detail.
