Scratch Build – In Progress "The Golden Sail" - update 12/24/09

looks cool.. that cutter is very different... ive never seen one before.. looks cool

 

wow amazing.
nice hotwire, what sort of foam is it?

 

I think it´s time for an update once again. These update will be a little bit “bigger” with 25 pictures.

After I filled the left site of the form with Styrodur, I had to fill the right site, too. Ready with it looks so




Now I had to glue the several pieces of the form. For this I thought it´s ideal to glue at first 4 pieces together and then the “packages” in the basic form. So I build pairs of two Stryodur pieces at first.


These pairs I glued with Styropor-/Stryodurglue that I bought in the DIY market for 7€. To get a better result I ballast the separate pairs with glass bottles


After some hours I glued always two of this pairs together.
Nach ein paar Stunden habe ich dann jeweils 2 solcher Paare miteinander verklebt.


In the end I glued these „packages“ in the basic form. Here I noticed that the “packages” weren´t very good and I would have a better result without these “packages”. But now it was too late and except 2 or 3 bigger slots it hasn´t more effects.




After the glue was dry I could started with grinding the shape and after two hours this was the result.




Certainly there were some “holes“ in it, but all in all I was satisfied with the result and the holes I filled.


Ready with this I could start with the “second heaviest” work of the whole project. In fact after I bend the Plexiglas tube successfully (that was the heaviest work of the project) I had to adapt it very exactly. To realize this I cut out about 20 pieces that I glued at the front side. I aligned these while I press the tube into the immersion than the glue was still liquid.




Naturally I had now firstly a rough form, because between the separate pieces there were slots how you could see here


I had to fill these slots with filler, but this is easier said than done. To fill a 2cm radius freehand is not really easy (at least for me). To play it save I swathed the tube with baking paper at first.


Now I fill the slots generously with filler and then I press the tube “in” the filler.





Because I swathed the tube with baking paper I was no problem to remove the tube after the filler was dry. Certainly I couldn´t “find” a complete smooth surface.


To get a smooth surface I built a kind of scraper made of Plexiglas. This scraper has on the one side a semicircle with a diameter of 4.1cm. After the first “run” with that scraper it looked so.


I also filled the transition.


Unfortunately I hadn´t enough time to grind the form because the filler needs a lot of time to dry.


Beside the grind- and fill work I bend the inner tube for the reservoir. For this I had to built a new form, because the radius of the old form wasn´t still correct.


Now I built a kind of “oven” with a diameter of 8cm.


How you could see came the plexitube in the „oven“. The oven is headed with sand that got its temperature of 170°C in the baking oven before.


I fill the sand at first in the Plexiglas tube and then in the big tube. After some minutes the tube was soft enough to bend it.


Well I´m quite satisfied with the tube, because it´s almost perfect except one little bump. This bump I´ll “grind out” and because I´ll grind the whole tube matt it isn´t such a big problem.



A bigger problem for me is, that I don´t know how I should bore the 0.6mm holes in the tube through that the water squirt. But maybe you could help me. Here are 3 possibilities.



So which one do you like mostly, or have you maybe other possibilities? The only “condition” is that holes should be bored at a line of 70cm, and in these 70cm I could only bore about 140 holes.


@Djayness: I hear/read the comparison between my project and the hotel very often. But look a little bit more exactly at the hotel you´ll notice that the two things haven´t a lot of similarities in the form. Short to say the comparison between the hotel and the PC is the same like a comparison between a cube and a body with 8 edges and no right edge…;-)
The thing with the tubing, you are right that all have black tubing, but black and gold is a really great combination. So I´ll use this, except I´ll find tubing with leaf guilding…;-)

@dan-ere-07: It´s Styrodur foam that is more finely pored than Styropur.

 

Can you remember on my last Con. I had to drill 0,5mm holes in aluminium. you can use a Dremel or something else. Or you can use a small electrical motor, than you have to clamp a small chuck on it. I used the small motor version this works fine. You should buy more drills and you should cool it with water.
Here is a picture of my drill.


A additional idea for your drill scheme you can make a double helix.

 

Wow, nice work. I'm very intrigued with how this will look when finished

 

Good to see it's coming together. For the squirt holes I think the one on the right looks best, but I think a helix/spiral would look better.

 

yeah i agree with the guys.. helix or spiral..

but i do like no1 or the left one.

 

Hello, I it´s time for a further update. I know more little updates would be better, but anyway I don´t find for this. Therefore you have to settle for bigger updates every week or every two weeks unfortunately.

Well as might have been expected the first part of the update is about filling and grinding the positive form. After I glued the “socket” for the reservoir at the rest of the form I filled it with surfacer


And then I grinded it.


Ready with this I filled and grinded the „front“ of the form, that the reservoir exactly fitted


Thant he reservoir fitted I could put the peak of the form on the rest of the form

I don´t know why the peak is ca. 3cm higher than before…;-)
This gap I filled also with surfacer and after the surfacer was dry I grinded it. And at the end it looks so


Now the surface was really smooth, but because of the surfacer really absorbent, too. That means I had to seal the surface. For sealing it I decided for epoxy resin because it don´t damage the Styrodur.
After I was ready with spreading the form with epoxy resin I hit the sack for an hour and ditched the form in the sun. But this was a little mistake from be, because than I stood up I found this picture.

Unfortunately it wasn´t only one fly that taped at the form, but rather ca. 40 mini flies and ca. 10 bigger flies.
However I had blessing in disguise, because the flies were soaked with epoxy and therefore they were similar solid how the rest. Because of this I could grind the flies very easy how the rest. Therefore it wasn´t such a big extra time, because I had to grinded the form anyway.







With this step the filling and grinding of the positive form was concluded. After grinding the epoxy the surface was a little bit “blunt”. So I had treaded the form with car polish. Ready with this some party of the form get a blue hue based on the polish…;-)





Ready with the positive form I could start with the negative. For this I thought a form made of plaster is the best thing. At first I would casted a complete form, but with a complete negative form I would have problems by laminating the form. So my plan was to made two forms, one from the right side, and the second from the left side
With this plan in my head I started with building a form in that I could put in the positive form and cast the plaster in it. I started with the form for the right side.


The edges I reinforced with architectural foam to get a better stability.


And so looked the form with the positive form in it.




After I casted ca. 25kg plaster in the form it looked so.




Past 6 hours I could remove the positive form relative easy. Now the negative form looked how a Swiss cheese, but I think after I´ll fill it with surface it would be very smooth. And I think it´s better to have a lot of little air inclusions than few big air inclusions.






Ready with the right form I could started with the left form. At first I built the form for casting the plaster in it.


With the positive form in it, the form looked so.




And so the “havoc“ after the casting session.



How you could see was the leaky so the plaster flowed out because of the pressure of ca. 80kg plaster…;-)

I´ll remove the positive form tomorrow, but at the following pictures you could see the two forms abreast.



Well at least a little Hardware News, in fact I got a great packet last with the following content.

How you could see is this a Dark Power Pro 1000W that I got from be quiet. Therefore I would say a big, big THANKS to Aaron from be quiet for the great support!!!


@ringo: Thanks for the idea with the double helix!

@mnpctech: Well I´m also very intrigued how it looks at the end and if it looks how I conceive.

 

Good work on the molds! Can't wait for tomorrow to see how the other one worked out.

 

Nice work! I can wait a week or so for the next big update!

 

wicked molds mate!

 

Hello, after I cast the big form with plaster and the plaster was try I could speculate about getting the positive form out of the plaster. For this I installed at first two self made grasps on the positive.


With this grasps it was really easy to get the positive out of the plaster and so I had two negative forms.

The result of the second form was a little bit better than of the first form, but only a little bit. That means there were a lot of air locks that I had to fill with surfacer.

Well and so we are by the “theme”, because to fill a concave form with surfacer isn´t such a problem with a normal scraper, but to fill a convex form is a bigger problem with a normal scraper. So I had to look for another alternative. After I short look in our kitchen I found an ideal scraper.

This red thing made of plastic is an ice-cream scraper from the DDR that means more than 20years old. At this thing you see that you should never trash anything…;-). This scraper was ideal for the big convex surfaces, and for the tight radii I used a silicone scraper from the kitchen.

Ready with filling the air locks of the two forms I could start to seal the plaster surface with epoxy resin.

The white box is a blow-drier to accelerate the process of drying.

After the second layer of Epoxy I treated the form with wax to get the GRP-form easier out of the negative. Than the wax was dry I polished it and then the drama could start. At first I measured out the “ingredients” for the first layer.

This is gelcoat for the outer layer of the GRP-form to get a really smooth surface.

After I stirred all together I painted the gelcoat on the form with a roller.

The black color is more just for the hell of it, because the case will be varnished black either way at the end.

During the gelcoat dried I cut out the fibreglas mats.


Well and now I got the first little “doubts” because the gelcoat didn´t dried, that I wondered about. But a short internet research said me that the gelcoat haven´t dry at first, it will dry complete after the first layer of polyester resin.
So I could continue without any doubts with the first layer of fibreglas and polyester resin.


And so looked the form after 3 layers of firbeglas.


Currently I got a real great problem. In fact I noticed that the gelcoat wasn´t dry after two days, and I haven´t had really big hopes that it will dry the next days. That means I had to change my plan.
After I gave some thought to the problem I came to the decision to put the GRP-form out of the negative and then I would continue the work on it.
No sooner said than done and so looked the two GRP-forms.


And so the two negative forms made of plaster.

I´m actually satisfied with the two GRP-form. To get a better surface I pained the two forms with polyester resin and the following week I try to put the two forms to one form together. The result you´ll see hopefully next week.

At the end I´ve one question, namely I don´t know how I should install the LEDs in the interior to illuminate it really good. So if you have a great idea how I could integrate the LEDs in the design of the PC, please let me know it!

 

This is madness... Gotta love when people do things I could never ever even imagine completing! (not even with such a lovely garden) Keep up the good work, it leaves me speechless The scale, the smooth curves.. Dang.

 

Hello

Nice work man.

I work every day with polyester and gelcoat.
I'm from the Netherlands so sorry for my englisch.

Gelcoat always gets hard when you put 3 % hardener in it, but it stay's sticky so you can put youre firbeglas on it.
So if you put the gelcoat with 3% hardener in your forms (about 2 or 3 layers ) and wait 1 hour and then put youre firbeglas on it then when it comes out the side of the forms should be a dry solid surface.

If you don't want the sticky gelcoat you should also put 2 a 3 % paraffine through the gelcoat.
One disadvantage of this that nothing wil bond on it unless you sand the gelcoat.

I hope you can understand me.

I love youre work !

 

Looking forward to chek the next pics.

 

very nice work in this update. the molds appear great to my inexperienced eye.

I'm not sure what help you're asking for with LEDS?

I think you should have an led in the bottom of the res tube thing for sure, and stuff like spotlights inside and out. I forget what your original inspiration/goal was.

 

Hello, after I had to noticed that my „gelcoat-action“ went wrong last week, I brushed the sticky surface with polyester resin. When the resin was dry I had at first a surface that doesn´t stick anymore. The surface wasn´t indeed so smooth how I want, but it was still acceptable for me.

Now I could continue with working on the two forms. At first I marked the cut edges.

To get a clean edge I used a Dremel, which I got warmly from the company Dremel. At the beginning I wanted to use a angel grinder, but I´m happy that I scraped this idea…;-)

After the two form were cut I washed them.


And now I stand „in front“of the question how to get these two forms together to one. Beside the fact that the backside had to be completely flat it was very important, too that the tube in the front fitted exactly at the end. Therefore it was inevitable to use the tube during the “glue-process”. That the tube wouldn´t be damaged I wrapped it with kitchen foil.


Ready with this I could adjust the two forms. For this I screwed on the forms with the backside on a flat board made of wood. Therefore I could be sure that the backside would be really flat at the end. After this I inserted the tube a fix it with cello tape


Now I turned the board with the form, because at first I would stick the front edge together. At first I laminate on layer GRP over the slot. After it was dry I touched a pulp made of polyester resin and “fiberglass chips”. This pulp I daubed at the inner surface of the front edge.

Over the dry pulp I laminate on layer GRP to get a smooth surface.

And now the sail with the tube in the front looked so.


After the front edge was glued I could devoted to the backside. For this a had to change the “stretch appliance”, because with the first version I couldn´t glue the whole edge


Ready with this a laminate at first the right side. When the GRP was dry I could unscrew the “stretch appliance”, because the sail couldn´t change his form anymore. At least I laminate on thin GRP layer at the inner surface of the backside.


After the edges were all sticky a reinforced the laterals with GRP, because in my opinion they were to flimsy.

When the GRP form was solid enough I could start with mark the things I had to cut out of the form. At the following pictures you´ll see what I´ll cut out next weekend.





I´m actually really satisfied with the form and hope that I´ll have enough place for the hardware in it.

To get a better imagination about the dimension of the golden sail I put the form besides the sinecurve (a PC that I build 2 years ago). The sine curve is ca. 70cm high but how you could see at the following pictures this PC would be a “little bit” bigger…

…if you consider that under the sail will come a 7cm high socket made of high-grade steel you´ll know that the PC would be really big.


And now we are unfortunately at the end of this update…:-(. Well one little hardware news I have for you. Namely I won´t use a Asus Board, but to 95% this hot thing.





@Jipa: Thank you and I hope I won´t disappointed you with the end result.

@truffeltje: At first WELCOME at bit-tech.net!!! Thank you for your very interesting information about gelcoat, because after I read that I noticed that I made a lot of mistakes. And if I´ll make a GRP-form in the future I´ll make I to your “instruction”!

@luis_pedro_Sato: Thanks!

@ModMinded: Well the tube in the front (reservoir for the water cooling) I´ll illuminate with 3 high power LEDs at each end. The backside with leaf gold will also be illuminated. But I don´t know how I should illuminate the great hardware. At the moment I think spotlights aren´t ideal, because I don’t know how I should apply it nice in the interior. So I think glowing Plexiglas would be better but here, too, I even don´t know how but principally where I should apply it. So if you have nice ideas for illuminated the interior and the hardware, let me know it.

 

that white case is very nice...and golden sail, i like it...

 

So after the weekend is over it´s time for a new update.

The weekend started with a small but mighty consignment of aluminum and Plexiglas

That´s 8mm Plexi and 3mm, 2mm, 0,8mm aluminum.

The 0,8mm aluminum I used to get a really plan surface at the inner side of the backside. I know another alternative was to grind the GRP, but I thought it would be too troublesome and inaccurate.

After I took the measurements from the GRP form I could start with cutting out the aluminum, and after with filing and grinding.


Ready with this I could bother one´s head about pasting the instable 0,8mm frame made of aluminum at the GRP really plan.
At the end I decided to glue the frame at the 8mm Plexiglas plate, but not absolutely secure, because after the glue was try I had to remove the Plexiglas plate. Moreover I screwed on the plan piece of wood at the Plexiglas to get a better handling and any more stability.


To stick on the frame exactly I marked the position at the GRP and then I brushed polyester resin on the GRP. Than the resin was everywhere, where it should be I pressed the frame with the Plexiglas and the wood at the resin and ballasted it with juice bottles.


After the resin was dry I removed the Plexiglas plate with the wood. This proceed without any problems. Now I could start with cutting out the hole in the Backside with the aid of a Dremel.


To get an accurate edge I treated it at first with a file. Unfortunately the aluminum frame removed at two “sites” during I worked with the file. Because of this I put it away a take my Dremel. At the following picture you see the big hole in the backside after I had grinded it.

How you could see, too, I started with filling the radii at the backside.

After the hole was nearly perfect I could started with Plexi plate. This plate is for the lightning of the backside. At first I cut a hole that was 8mm smaller than the hole in the backside in this plate. The 8mm at each side I needed for shaping a 8mm radius on it.

In the outside of this plexi frame I´ll bore about 100 holes for LEDs in it. I know 100 LEDs are a lot of, but I needed so much, to get a very consistent lightning.

After the Plexiglas was adapted I could start with the 2mm aluminum plate that should be the back panel of the case. At first I cut it out and filed it that I adapted exactly.

In this alumium I´ll bore a lot of holes (>100) through that the hot air from the case will stream out. Moreover I´ll cut and file the holes for the mainboard blind and the slot blinds.

At the following two pictures you see how the backside will look at the end



At first it´s to say the radius at the Plexiglas isn´t final, that means I´ll grind it exactly later. Additionally the piece pasteboard that is between the GRP and the Plexiglas will be replaces by a frame made of black cellular rubber with a diameter of 2mm. That rubber will equate irregularities of maybe to 0,5mm, I hope.


Well and now we are unfrortunately at the end of this update. At least I´ve a picture for you that shows the GRP from with the tube in the front. I hope I´ll have enough time the next weekend to adapted the tube exactly with surfacer to the GRP form.




@starbee: Thanks and you´ll find here a worklog to the white case.

 

Well a little bit late the update for the last weekend, but better late than not at all.

Last weekend I started with chamfering the aluminum for the bottom. After this I marked the angel from the aluminum plate to the GRP form

I bend at first the aluminum and after I marked that angel to the form, because it´s easier to cut the GRP form in the right angel, than bending 3mm aluminum in the right angel.

Ready with marking the angel at the form, the form looks so.


Now I could crop the wedge with the Dremel. Certainly the cutting edge wasn´t perfect after cropping. So I had to file and grind the edge, but the rework wasn´t really much. During I cut and grinded the form a lot of swarf dropped at the form. This swarf wasn´t really good for the next work stages so the GRP form got a hot shower.


After the form was clean I could reinforce the cutting edges with a 0,8 aluminum stripe. Certainly I did it after cutting and not before like at the backside. Moreover I didn´t use polyester resin to stick that stripe at the GRP, but Rotabond 2000.


Thant he Rotabond was dry after 3 hours I could fill the “interfaces” with surface. I know, nobody would see this after the PC is ready, but my aim at this project is to make it nearly perfectly.


Now I could work again at the aluminum bottom plate, because the plate was indeed bend but not cut into dimension. So I put the GRP form with the aluminum stripes at the bottom plate and marked the dimension with a pen on it.

After cutting and grinding the plate fitted exact at the first dry. Unfortunately to exact, because after vanishing the case it wouldn´t fit, so I grinded of everywhere a little bit more.

Ready with the aluminum plate for the bottom I could give thoughts to the things that will come at the bottom and above all where. For this I took at first the Noisblocker Multiframe MF8 S2, that I got warmly from the company Noisblocker.

These fans I put at the plate to see how many place I´ll have at the end, because beside the 80mm fans 2 Multiframe MF12 S2 fans, 2 Freezone Elite radiators, one Laing DCC Pumpe, one be quiet Dark Power Pro 1000W PSU and maybe some other things had to find place their place at the bottom. Because it isn´t really little I decieded to make the inner bottom a little bit higher to 20cm. Because of this the window will have following measures that you could see at this picture.


With the final measurements in my head I thought to the problem how I´ll fix the inner bottom that you could see at the end through the window. Moreover the back panel had to be connected with the bottom, and this exactly in a 90° angel.

Because I thought a lot of you wouldn´t understand my explanation here 2 pictures.

Here you could see the 10mm plate made of Plexiglas, that I heated up in the oven to 185° and after it was really hot and soft I bended it over a form.

After the Plexiglas was bended I cut it and grind it. Than the Plexiglas fitted perfectly I screwed it with M3 screws at the bottom.



Naturally this wasn´t all I made the last weekend, because I started with adapting the tube in the front exactly.

For this I wrapped the tube with baking paper and after I pressed the tube into surfacer that I put before in the immersion at the front. Additional I filled the sides with surfacer and after it was dry I could started with grinding. In my opinion the result is quit good.
.


Maybe some people noticed at the last two picture that the white surfacer looks better than the black GRP, not only that the surfacer is really smooth in contrast to the GRP. In my opinion the color white is really impressive. Because of this I decided to varnish the case white instead of black.







In my eyes the sail get´s a “optical lightness” with the white color. And because the sail is still really big for a PC the lightness is good for the general impression at the end.


Last week I got also a package from PUR-LED with the following content

120xwarmwhite diffuse LEDS, 8x3W Power LED Samsung warmwhite and 70x Superflux LED warmwhite . For this big THANKS again.