Scratch Build – In Progress Project Stealthlow - Completed - preview of project next

wow! the design is just amazing! im excited to see the build off process. good job man!

 

Cooooooooool!

Im excited to see more of this evolve

 

Thanks mate .

Thanks DP

The exhaustion has taken me & just woke up from a 14 hour sleep .

Once I get the fan holders stuck together I'll sand them down again so they are seamless joints & possibly polish them, then put them in a box of finished parts ready for assembly .

 

How's the MDPC-X sleeving? I have some on its way too

 

As good as I was hoping for, so yeah very very nice , way better than others I have tried.

 

looks like i ordered from the right place

 

Yep .

Update

A day just doesn't feel complete to me without making some progress & an update while creating something lol.

Decided to change the hdd cages a little for more air flow & this will make it less work too .



Cut out & marked the extra hdd cage piece I messed up the other day from the new sheet of 3mm aluminium, so I have some spare if anything else goes wrong on the smaller parts, still only have 1 shot at the mobo tray & side panels though so I'll have to be extremely careful doing those .

Woke up too late in the day to be using noisy tools but had a very long 14 hours sleep so I'll be up all night & all tomorrow so I'll try to get the hdd cages, hdd stand & fan holders completed tomorrow but can do some drilling as that's not noisy.

So here is the hdd cage pieces ready for drilling.



And drilled, still need to use this nice stepless cone drill bit so I can get a nicely rounded ends & so I can use the reciprocating saw on it, then file & sand.



And a quick test of the hdd mount holes, had to let them acclimatize to the warmer room, condensation aplenty .







Also with my brain not freezing up in the garage & being well rested I've had a chance to figure out how I'll make the multi layer curved front/top pieces & in theory it works excellent & is pretty simple to be honest so that's 1 less thing to be concerned about , I think the bulk of the hard work will be making the side panels.

 

The supercharge from the long sleep wore off by the time I was able to get busy today but still got a bit more done today, took just over 3 hours to do these.

And thought why not do a step by step picture update for a change.

Piece ready for drilling with big enough drill bit to let the saw inside.


Start & end points in.


Clamp & cut.


The finished cut with selection of files.


After the coarse file.


After medium file.


After round file.


After rough sanding unwanted marks off.




Another test fit.




Not sure if the reciprocating saw needs a new blade or because it was a hard piece to clamp properly but the cuts took ages & left a nasty mark on the pieces so I used the disc sander to level it all off so they just need wet sanding now.

 

Sheesh, very insignificant update here considering the time spent on it today .

Took all day to sand the hdd cage bits.
I have learnt not to use the reciprocating saw without good masking tape on to protect the surface & never to use the disc sander on surfaces, edges are fine but definitely not surfaces, creates way too much work & as you can see on the piece at the top it left quite a big scrape, I did wet sand them but when I cleaned all the crap off the water must have had a bad reaction with the aluminium & left blotchy stains so I dry sanded them with 240 grit.







I'm not happy with these to call them finished so I'll have to put another day into these pieces, all the inside edges are good though so at least I did something good on it today lol .

 

Actually I just put them together & they don't look as bad as I thought they were lol, sure they could use a little more sanding especially the one with the scar from the disc sander but yeah, not as bad as I first thought .

 

The grinding will be a lot of work.

 

Sure was .

I don't know why but I felt like doing a little more so I cut all the rest of the bars for the lower part to rough size so they just need sanding down to precise size, then drilling & tapping, wanted to use the disc sander but was a tad too loud for 10pm .

 

Sheet I don't like tapping aluminium, managed 1 side for the angle bar & managed 1 of 2 taps on the other side, the 2nd tap the bolt just slips in & out, it's a very hit & miss thing for me & is prooving a real PITA on these hdd cages, I might use a high quality adhesive if it irritates me too much, but if I do I can say bye bye to anodising .

Anyway I think I'm at a point where I should step away from it until I get my sleep pattern straight & to relax a bit, turn off machine mode & become human again & so I don't have to worry about a noise curfew lol . 3 days max & I'll get get my sleep pattern straight & get the needed materials for making some jigs too.

 

Thats a nice bit of handy work Wayne. Nice one mate.

 

Wow!!! Very very epic design, and I can see that this will be awesome.

You put a lot of detail into this thing. great work.

I admire your ability to do succh stuff without a big mother lika CNC.

I will follow this + rep + 5!!

 

Thanks Jeff, about my last post I think maybe I've burnt myself out a bit as I've started mucking up lol, I know when I start making simple mistakes I need a little break to get back on form .

Many thanks Razer mate , I'm pretty sure I'll give cnc or laser machines a task at some point in the future when I come up with an extremely difficult design, would have to be something that would give the machine a challenge , after seeing Attila's efforts I see it like if it's doable by normal power tools & hand tools then I'll do it that way, if not then I'd look at advanced machines .

 

Thats because you're not hard core like the rest of us....lol 3 days straight with out sleep and then into work on a Monday...Not a problem

 

Well said mate .

Not an update, but a nice break through for me.

LOL, I just got an idea for drilling & tapping straight after saying I was going to have a little break.

I have used a cordless power drill before for doing some tapping but some how forgot about the success it was if done carefully, I also realised when using the drill press I didn't have the drill bit in far enough for it to drill exactly where I want.

So I thought I'd have a little practice/test with my usual 10/10 test to make sure something works , this time I made it 11/11 & they all came out absolutely perfect, so no need for a time out woo hoo , was really thinking I'm screwed when it comes to drilling even on a drill press, d'oh .





Only downside to this is now I can drill precisely where I want so none of this 0.5mm or even 1mm out annoyance I've been getting because of the drill bit not hitting the bullseye, so yeah I might remake the 4 hdd pieces, luckily the bases are spot on but the holes for the hdd mounts only just connect & is a struggle getting them to work right so I may re do these pieces, shame but I want perfection on all the function of this build, so no break yet .

 

I'm glad you got that right. I gotta learn to do that. My next mod won't be an easy one.

 

Oh me too , I really should have practiced a little before going for it, so you should do so too just so you don't muck up , luckily that extra sheet I bought will cover those small parts, another day or 2 to get them complete again but it'll be worth it .

I've also thought about buying some milling bits so I can use nut rivets, ones with a good flange on, then I just drill the hole & use the mill bit to make a little sink so the rivet nuts sit flush, I've tried flush ones & had bad success with them going in wonky, this will be used on pieces that are regulary removed like side panels, the picture of it in my mind looks spot on And I'll cover it in detail so anyone could do it .