Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Beyond The Grave [It Has Been Done!] [18th June 2007]

Hi and welcome to my new worklog.

This is my 2nd real build, and it will be made in red acrylic and brushed aluminium, just as my last project Temple Of NOD.

Main objective of this case is to act a a fileserver, and it also needs to be relatively quiet. My old Chieftec Scorpio is quite full, and needs a replacement that looks cool, and that isn't as noisy. The case will be able to house 12 HDDs, and a lot of 120mm fans to try to keep the noise at a minimum. The name and some/most/all art are from the anime series GunGrave. It's an excellent show, and it's theme fits in nicely into my color scheme. The case will be 52cm deep, 33.6cm wide, and 37,.6cm high.

I actually started the planning and some purchasing a while ago. To be exact, almost a year ago

This project hasn't really been #1 priority, anyways, let's start it up.

Navigation for the lazy:
Update #01 [HD-cages 01] [2006-12-03]

Update #02 [HD-cages 02] [2006-12-19]

Update #03 [HD-cages completed] [2006-12-24]

Update #04 [Corners] [2007-01-14]

Update #05 [Disassembly 01] [2007-03-10]

Update #06 [Disassembly 02] [2007-03-31]

Update #07 [Assembly & Acrylic] [2007-04-07]

Update #08 [Front 01] [2007-04-22]

Update #09 [Front 02] [2007-05-02]

Update #10 [Hmm] [2007-05-03]

Update #11 [Front Completed] [2007-05-06]

Update #12 [Top Completed] [2007-05-13]

Update #13 [Stuff] [2007-05-20]

Update #14 [More Stuff] [2007-05-26]

Update #15 [The End Is Nigh] [2007-06-03]

Update #16 [Final Touch Before...] [2007-06-14]

Update #17 [It Has Been Done!] [2007-06-18]



A few schematics that I actually spent time making beforehand:

This is the front:

* The darkest part is supposed to be a cross that is fitted about 1.5cm from the real front, and on that cross there will be 21 small parts of 1mm alu.
* The 2nd darkest part is the real front which will be made of 3mm dark red acrylic, and have 4x120mm holes for fans.
* The white parts will be 2mm alu.


Back:

* Not much to write... 2x120mm...


Left side:

* Text and pic engraved, 1mm alu at upper right corner.


Right side:

* 1, 2 & 3 mm alu on top of 3mm red acrylic. See-through on upper part.


Top:

* Same stuff as seen before, 1mm alu on top of 3mm acrylic.



That's all for the schematics, time for some real pics...


This is what I purchased nearly a year ago, two (excuse me, no hard feelings) really ugly cases.

Why, WHY would I buy something as hideous as this?
Well, I can't be arsed to make something to hold the 12HDDs in a good way, and even if I could be arsed, it would never turn out as good as these, same with the I/O and PCI cover at the back. Now go wai damn cases...




Yesh yesh, let's make a start with the mainboard part:




And the back:




Temporary test to see if they fit together. This part with the mainboard, the PCI cards and slots and the I/O shield is always the most tricky part -_-



There will be more... Stay tuned

 

OK for starters im subscribing to this project due to the gr8 work with the temple of nod,
very intresting designs from your planning will be watching for more hopefully you will be able to exceed yourself.

Good Luck.

 

Hiya, thanks, I hope so as well =D
A little less show, a little more user-friendly and hopefully a better weight and size than both my current fulltower and the temple...

 

really cool man i hope it turn out great (i loved the series).
keep up the good work.

 

oh nice a Gungrave theme, great anime. ^^ I will keep close watch on this one, keep it up

 

Great-Name!!

 

Highly detailed and though-out sketches you have there! Do you think this will be comparable to Temple of Nod?

 

Your last mod was cool and i hope the gungrave theme works out cool.

 

I learnt a lot when building the temple, and hopefully I'll put that to good use in this project. For starters I actually took a lot of time to produce the schematics (maybe it does't looks like it, but oh well..) In my first build I pretty much only knew how I wanted it to look like, and all the rest would have to be solved along the way. This time I believe I pretty much have everything covered, which means that there will be more building and less thinking from now on, instead of the other way around.

I made the schematics in scale 1:3, scanned them into my facsimile at work which mailed them home to me, and then I printed them to use them as somewhat accurate guidelines. Is there any easier way of doing it if you don't want to sketch in the comp? ><

Comparable, I dunno, in some aspects it will be better, and in some it wont

 

Looking real good.. Good luck..

 

WOW!!! Nice cuts!

 

man au did you do the cut because they are stunning?
keep up the good work

 

Thanks, will try to do the HDD stuff thingies next weekend.

Jigsaw mate =D

 

What a thing. Its awsome. you rock

 

AWESOME! I love the layout and design. Can't wait to see more progress.

 

the start is very promising, now keep it up...

 

Sorry for the absense of updates. I've been held back by not having the necessary materials that I needed, and having some layout problems that needed to be sorted. I'll work on the HD-cage area and the internals of the front tomorrow, and I'll hopefully update with pics saturday/sunday.

 

Update #01 [HD-cages 01]

I spent about 10 hrs yesterday building.
I didn't complete as much as I hoped to, but I also had to do some sketching and planning as well.


I started by threading the MB plate, and It ended up almost perfect. Much better than in my last project.




Some of the 6mm holes are for fitting 5mm LEDs that will (hopefully) backlight the MB, which should make it glow around the edges from the left view, and hopefully it will make the skull glow nice as well from the right view.






The CD will be mounted from below so I don't have to waste time on building mounting-brackets. (I'm not gonna use this CD BTW, 1994 - Why do I keep this ****? )



This is going to be the top and bottom of the HD-cage. No plain rectangular design here.






Some filing & sanding later:










This will be one half of a support for the front part of the case, as well as a mounting for the HD-cage.









This'll be all for this time, next weekend I should be finishing the other supports and the HD-cage mounting.

 

You are ridiculous. I wish I had the skills to do that with aluminum

 

Not that much skill needed mate, just a few tools, and an hour or two