Scratch Build – In Progress Création n°2 - 2012.10.15 - Epoxy-wood pattern making

– Chapter 1 : HTPC = How To Properly Cut (aluminium without losing more than 42 fingers) ? –
Music : "Her sexy circuits", by Photophob.


Well... I don't know. And because I don't have the answer, please apologize me.
Apologize me (again) for the lack of politeness.

[Reboot - BzzzZzzz...]


Dear everyone, hello

Thanks for reading me, even if it's only by curiousity. Welcome on something I don't know what it's supposed to become, maybe a computer, maybe not, but probably a slooooow, sloooow, sloooow scratch build (more "scratch" than "build", if you want my opinion).

A few months ago, my parents asked me to think about their future computer. So, because I'm a good son, I began thinking about a computer design. A small, tiny, cheap computer, just to surf on the internet and write stuff (you know, parents' stuffs : emails, homeworks, administrative stuffs...). And I ended up with a design I was so proud about (but maybe I should'nt) that I prefered keeping it for me, and transform it into an HTPC. Because I'm a bad son, and because I don't realy need a HTPC. Furthermore, I don't need another computer at all, so that will be just for fun.

In my mind, the design was quite simple : two cubes (cube 1 and cube 2) kept in balance one on the other one, just touching by one top. Even in french it's hard to explain without a draw, so, please apologize for the explanation in english. And please apologize for my non-drawing skills
To create the two cubes, I needed to build two square frames, in aluminium. And here I am : after one month of work, I only made one frame, with a 20mm aluminium sheet. But it will be easier with photos :

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This is the evil waitress with whom I spent my last 42 days... A giant waitress (370 x 335 x 20 mm), especially if we consider I only have hand tools to deal with her. It.

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And first 16cm cut made ! After only 2 hours of hard and noisy work Only 166cm of hard cut to go. Well... One month after this first cut, here is what I ended up with this week :

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And because that still doesn't look like a frame, and because I wanted to double the pleasure, I started the second part today (yeah... )

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I bet I won't finish it till the end of frebruary, but I hope you will be there for the next update. Or not. Because I will (I hope).

Thanks for reading me (again), and see you soon

 

If you are still cutting by hand...probably not very soon. Good luck. looks like you have something interesting planned.

 

20mm alu handcutted? sir, You got BALLS! when i'll need carPC for my BMP i know where to find master

 

Hello ! And good morning (evening ?)
Thanks a lot for your nice comments.

Well, for me, "very soon" sounds like "before the next Olympics games", or before the end of february. I hope the secound frame will be done for the next month to allow me to start with carbon fiber (or flax fiber) for the connections parts.

Ah ah. I ignore if I've got balls, but I guess I'm (a little bit) nuts ^^
BTW, someone green I would love to know could say that "I'm not a master yest" (young Scratchbuilder). [Go go go Yoda !]

 

Welcome among us ! Very nice start, cannot wait to see more

And don't trust Cheaps, he's mean and mad ... * no no no don't hit me cheaps *

Nice to see some hand made work, not everyone got a CNC machine or at least an easy access to one.

Courage et bonnes ampoules au mains

 

Hello Guille

Thanks for your nice welcome message. I've followed your design thread for a wile and I have to confess a lot of your ideas amazed me.
For sure, I don't have access to a CNC machine, but with some imagination my Crappy Noisy Cutter is always ready (even if, because I live in a parisian appartment, because of the neighbourhood, I have to be as quiet as possible when I'm trying to make things...). And, please, do never tell my manucure about the "ampoules aux mains" : she would kill me

 

You're welcome

Thanks a lot, glad you like them

Nice CNC, must be a nice cutter . I know what you are going through, but glad you have a balcony (from the pictures). I had to cut 80m² of flooring with a hand saw on my balcony. I do not live in Paris, but not far away (20km), and there're a LOT of grannies in here (the kind that knock on the heaters pipes at the first "noise", or that leave a message on your door when you have a squeaky door).

Where did you get your alu from ?

 

I bought my aluminium on Metal Outil.com. They have irregular arrivals, and you have to often check what is available, but it was the only french website I found which proposed aluminium plates thicker than 10mm. They also propose iron, titanium, copper, and a lot of athor industrial stuffs.
Not so expensive, I think, but don't trust my lack of experiment with aluminium...

 

Thanks for the link, very interesting and not very expensive (+rep).

 

Hell Bit-Tech, it's time for a short update


– Chapter 1 - Part 2 vs. Part 1 - Chapter 1 –
Music : "Sail", by David Forest, remixed with courtesy of Awolnation .


What is nice when you plan to build a two parts computer is the explanation of the second part : "guys [and girls], it's exactly the same." Easy ! But it wouldn't be fun enough without two mistakes and three disasters : I broke my metal handsaw while I was handsawing (don't know why, don't know how), and smoke came out of my drill. Twice. Didn't smell very nice. This will teach me to go faster by cheating using electronic tricks that make noise. Bad me, bad me.

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Holes, small holes, holes again: a first hole of 5mm, to drill the plate, and a second passage from 8mm to remove the material.

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Real "hand saw" cession, to get...

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And voilà ! That's all for today (did I tell you my arms hurt ?)
Next step will be filing, filing, and filing again, to get smooth edges, surface, and to match the first par.
That's all folks. To be continued...

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Hello Bit-Tech

This is not a real update (or it is a real not-update, whatever you prefer), but I wanted to share something I had in my mind while I was having a great filing time (of my life... ). I remembered a photography I shot last august. While I was in Tokyo, I felt in love with a perfume bottles sculpture in Shiseido's Store, Ginza :

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When I think about them, I have to confess I now remember where I founded my inspiration for Création n°2.
BTW, about it : I'm almost done with the second frame, and finished to file it today. I've also started the template for the feet, so I think I wilt begin to cut them newt week-end, in a 10mm aluminium sheet I have in stock. Still with my trusty handsaw (because I have nothing else and I love her/it). I'll keep you in touch and leave you with a short teaser :

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See you soon !

 

That is wonderful, can't wait to see more! Great work!

 

Thats some serious arm pain you got there. This is looking really good, the thicker the alu, the more promising project I know your feeling living in an apartment and have to be as quiet as possible. Would atleast have been nice to use an angle grinder for the outer cuts, would probably have saved you some hours/days. But as you say, neighbours, some even complain if you fart to loud.

Anyway, looking promising and rep for all that hard work.

 

@ Kid & The_Gnu : Thanks for your nice comments (and your rep). I really appreciate this after these long hard working hours (even if I'd prefer a good and fresh beer, to be honest, but that's not the point...)

About the angle grinder : more than the neighbours, there is a reason why I don't use (or try to not use) electric tools : I just don't haveany, except a drill ^^

 

– Chapter 2 : Happy Feet // Part 1 –
Mioudzic DJ : "Take on me", by A-Ha.



Hello Bit-Tech !


PLease forgive me the musical selection, but that can't hurt (especially if you're a Jeffster's fan, but that's not the point today) [really, you are ? Excellent !]. Today's update is not about music, is not about philosophy, is not about Chuck,but is about... hum... feet ?
Yes. Feet are fun. Feet are our futures. And cutting some feet like a foot in a 10mm aluminium sheet is my business. And I'm proud of it, even if my arm hurts a little bit now...

This update will be in two parts : first part is about cutting, second part will be about filing. This explains why my feet don't look sexy yet : my handsaws only allow me to cut straight lines. The curves will come with the files, I hope next week.

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First one done !

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And here comes the second ! But... but... but... :'(

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It doesn't matter. I managed to finish the third foot today and, trust me, these threes "things" are feet, and on these feet I will raise my HTPC. Or not. Until it collapse (but I hope it won't.)

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Guess what : next week will be about... filing. Again and again...

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Thanks for following, and see you soon

 

Is filing sexy ? Hum... not really.
Is filing dirty ? Hum... let me think... Yes ?

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– Chapter 2 : Filing does not forgive, filing does not forget // Part 2 –
Music : "The Empty Bottle", by Archive.

Hello Bit-Tech !

One of the best thing when you write a worklog is you can share and check where you come from, where you are going to, and if what you are doing now is he good thing (or not). Kinda anti-amnesia medic.

For the last two weeks, my free hours were very funny : file n°1, rough filing. File n°2, smouth filing. And again, and again... There is one thing I realised while I was making the feet : the aluminium get hot very quickly. NOthing dangerous, but I was quite impress, and now, I better understand why CNCs are waterjet cooled.

Welle, let's go back to modding.
As a remember, this is where I was ten days ago :

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Something rough and not really sexy. From this, my challenge was to create the internal and external curve, with three feet as equal as possible. I began cutting tamplates with my handsaw :

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After hours and hours and days :

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But there was that scratch that kept bugging me :

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Better, isn't it ?

Now, it is time to start the external curve :

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And now, I split the three feet apart, and discover how they indivudually looks like :

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I'm satisfied for now, but there is a lot of things to do : brushing the aluminium, filing the angls at 45°, anodisation... It's gonna be a loooooong journey. But I'm nice and leave you with a family shot :

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[I can't really realise these three small things took me three months to buid...]
:wave:

 

Hello Bit-Tech !

I have to say, I missed modding a lot. And I have to confess, I've cheated on modding with Real Life. You don't know her, but she's a real bitch and wanted me to spend all my time with her. Money for my friend and my passion ? She didn't want. It was very hard these last months, but last week I managed to escape. And I'm back, with new projects and new motivation.
I've changed a little bit my mind about this scratch build : since I built a simple PC for my parents, since my iMac runs slower and slower (and is now unable to run Lightroom 4 [because I'm still under OS X 10.5.8 when Lightroom 4 only works with OS X 10.6.8 or higher), I've decided to transform this HTPC built into my main rig. This will be my first PC ever, and, I hope it will turn well, and nice, and... powerfull (luckily, I'm not crazy about gaming stuffs, so I don't need to spend my money in an expensive GPU or un ultra-top-über-nuclear-overclockable CPU).

For the last six months, I was looking for an efficient way to make the pattern for the master for creating my molds. I wanted tomething "cubbic" with rounded corners. Since I wanted it highly good looking and regular, it was difficult to create such a thing by hand (because I'm not very skilled and I don't have the tools to get that king of industrial perfection). I was about to abandon my plans while I found, in september, the perfect stuff in the Home Depot close to my appartment :

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It's the perfect thing ! Made of plywood, it has the perfect sizes I needed : 32x32cm on the outter part, 29x29cm for the inner part. With such a thing, I will be able to create two molds : one big enough for the motherboard (mATX, because I love their square format), one smaller for the other stuffs (SSDs, PSU, Rads, etc.).
In order to work on it, I had to make some sanding :

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The one on the left was sanded and it is smoother and whiter than the raw part. In other words, it was... mickaeljacksonized

Next step was to cut the outside pattern on an MDF board I had :

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I glued the MDF part on the case :

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After the glue has dried, the two parts were stucked together, so I can adjust the MDF part (which was a half millimeter larger). So, I was back with sanding and polishing :

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Hummm... Looks almost perfect to me. Now, it's impossible to feel the difference between the MDF part and the other part.
Time has come to try something very dungerous, a.k.a. "things I've never done before and I should'nt fail", because it's highly toxic and will condition subsequent events. Also know as "Epoxy time !" :

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First step is to make the wood "epoxy friendly". So I need :
- a pot (from any fast food),
- epoxy,
- hardener,
- and something for mixing... like... a MDF stick.

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This is higly toxic and dangerous ! Don't forget to use gloves and a mask, because it stinks ! (Imagine a thousand eggs with a thousant old dirty socks... and real odor is worse !).

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Here is where I am for now. I just need to wait 24 hours before the epoxy will be completely dry. Then I will be able to sand (again), and obtain a perfect mirror finish, highly smooth, without imperfection. And if it's a success (and it has to be successfull !), I will be able to create a female mold out of this. And guess what ? I hope the carbon parts I plan to make will look awesome. I hope...

See you soon and don't forget : whatever happens, be happy

 

Ah, Progress! I feared you were permanently crippled by all the filing and sanding.

Carbon? Sounds cooool! Don't mix the epoxy indoors next time, though.

 

did you run over the epoxy with a torch to pop the bubbles?