This new Shuttle XPC based project was kindly sponsored by Modaholic.com. The bulk of the worklog will be featured on thier new site in the coming weeks. I will also be mirroring the work here and some of my other favorite places. Modaholic.com provided a brand new Athlon 64 Shuttle XPC and Athlon 64 Winchester CPU. This Project began life in the pages of my sketchbooks. It was keeping the Satan's Deuce project company for a long time. Now out of spite it has been bugging the crap out of me to be built also. This will be the 3rd Shuttle I have built and this one is the most complex of the 3 It has some very nice lines and these flip down doors are really sleek. Throughout this project i will be showing the original drawing with red outlines around the various parts of the case. These will coincide with the images of each part as it is being constructed. The main engine body is a plywood box that has been covered in foam and fiberglass, filled and sanded smooth in a lathe. The shuttle chassis is housed here. One of the ideas for this mod is to create a contrast between the base/stand and the actual turbine. The Turbine will be finished with automotive paint and clearcoat. the stand and base are made from various woods and plastics and will be finished in traditional furniture finishing techniques. The wood and painted surface of the turbine should create a very complimentary contrast when viewed as a whole. The base is made from black Walnut. This wood is very special, it is over 300 years old. The top of the base plate is a single 14"wide 1" thick board, the tree it was cut from was massive to yield a clean, sapwood-free board this size. Normally large planks are made by gluing smaller strips of wood together to form a wide plank ( like a table top), however the major drawback to this is the grain of the various boards does not line up or match and visible lines appear where the joints are. Boards of this width are very scarce, usually wide boards can suffer from warping if not dried or stored properly, which makes them even harder to find in usable condition. The base plate is tapered from front to back. the front is 2" thick narrowing to 1" thick in the back. The top was cut out and inlayed to create the design you see in the photos. The base is 25" long and 14" wide. The edges of the plank were cut down to 45 degrees with a router then shaped with handtools and sandpaper into gentle rounded edges.
Its a pleasure to see once more time one of your projects. I like the base design. For now, its of that kind of futuristic stuff that appears in classic sci-fi movies or novels, like Metropolis.
Here is another smaller part of the base, i made this from the cutting scraps that were removed from the original 14" wide board. Black Walnut has such incredible purple and chocolate color in the grain, I can't wait to have it sealed and laquered. This piece will be mortised to accept the stand.
This is going to be amazing. You do know that shuttles take air in through their sides, right? The way the shuttle is sitting in pic #7 of the first post looks like it won't be able to get any air. (But of course, you being the bonzanego, you've already planned for that.)
it wont be hot in there, remember this is a turbine, there are 2 120mm fans going in it and powered, functioning 12" diameter turbine blades in the front. It will be cooler than anything short of water cooling. The shuttle chassis itself will be inside, the old outer shell and front bezel are history. I will also be removing a good bit of metal from the chassis itself to make it lighter and more airflow friendly without destroying the ease of changing/cleaning hardware.
I think, Chasis (motherboard tray and drives cage) is always useful to support the system without making a custom one. In many other projects builded in custom cases, the modder used the tray from a case as base for the project. I suppouse, once finished you couldnt see the chasis and if you use it, the work is "easier" (if there is any easy on this project).
that's some INCREDIBLE wood work. I can't think of words to explain how sweet that base looks already! Awesome design, the idea to contrast the turbine and the base is genius! I love it!
It wont use the case, just the chassis frame. Which will also be relieved of some extra metal that is not needed. At some point the hardware may need to come out and it may not be me who owns it, so it must be easy to use, clean and replace parts, not some cobbled together system of mounting that cannot possibly top the engineering that went into shuttle's chassis. The stand and cradle are roughed out now. They are cast urethane from cardboard molds. The stand will be painted white to match the striping in the base and the cradle will either be veneered to match the base or covered in aluminum, not sure which yet. The base will have a skirt of aluminum to make it appear a bit thicker and make room for all the relocated ports from the back of the shuttle to the back of the base. so I am thinking aluminum on the cradle will accent that trim or if it is veneered in walnut, aluminum rivets around the edge to accent the skirt. There is a hole in the stand and cradle to run wiring through to the base. There is still some sanding and shaping to do and boring out the holes in the stand also. Is it heavy? You bet your sweet ass it is. Is it big? Yeah, but only about the height of a full tower, certainly wider though. Front bezel is up next.
This thing is coming quickly. Very nice. Keep up the awesome work. By the way: There will be like 12" blades spinning in the front of this? Any idea how cfm those push?
You seem to be truckin' along on the main body. Any plans for accompanying hardware (i.e. matching keyboard, mouse, etc.)?
