Scratch Build – In Progress Zenith Antique Radio Complete Case Build- Update 24Nov10

You might be able to get away with window screen. It's cheap and it won't restrict too much airflow, you could probably paint it too. Mounted diagonally it might give it a neat look as well. *shrug* Hope you're able to find something that will work.

Looks great so far. Good luck.

 

Beautiful build so far, but the details are what make it stand out, I'd hate to see the radiators given a treatment that doesn't flow with the rest of the case.

Antique radios usually covered the speakers with a sound-permeable decorative cloth but I don't imagine it would allow much airflow.
I think a more open fabric in the same style would fit the theme well.


edit - spelling

 

Thanks for the comments folks. I am at work redoing the rad side panel now. I'm not satisfied with how it turned out. I just got the cutouts all drawn up and am about to go cut it all out. Hopefully it will turn out much better this time. I got the last coat of urethane on everything else, and I am completely fired up about how the finish turned out. It looks fantastic.

I am going to try and see how that would look diagonally. I have some black window screen.

I have reproduction Zenith fabric for the front grill area, but it doesn't let squat for air through it. I also have some material more like mosquito netting that I am attempting to dye brown to see if that will work. I could only find a fairly open weave in tan and white.

 

I used a plain old wood spade bit this afternoon to cut the circles, and then my scrollsaw for the straight cuts between the circles. My scrollsaw for some reason just didn't want to cut the circles out right. After some Dremel sanding and Mouse sanding, the new rad side looks 100% better than the first attempt. It was worth spending the morning redoing it. I've got one coat of stain drying on it now.

 

Stain and Finish Done, Almost Ready for Parts

Recut the Rad Side Panel

As I mentioned, I wasn't satisfied with the radiator side panel. So I took one morning and remade it. I am much more pleased with the remade panel. I still had to drill the holes and cut the rest out with the scroll saw, but I used a spade bit which worked out much better. I left 3/8" between each cutout which made all the difference.



Stained, Urethaned, and Starting to Put It All Together

I put the dial together with the mock radio acrylic radio needles.



Here are some shots of how it looks at the moment. I am very pleased with how the finish came out. The stain is Ace hardware walnut. Their stains cost a bit less than Miniwax or the like and work fine. I put on two coats of stain. I used General Finishes Urethane for the top coat which was recommended to me on my last project. This stuff is great to work with as it goes on very smooth and doesn't easily run like polyurethane does which is a huge plus when working with so many small detailed areas.



I used semi-gloss and gave everything 3 coats, making sure to lightly sand out any rough spots between each coat of stain and each coat of finish. I followed up with a good wipe down with furniture polish. The finish is literally baby-butt smooth.











Bottom

I mounted the two bottom intake fans and the DVD drive. I bought some brown strip furniture felt to line the bottom of the case with so that the bottom of the case doesn't scratch or get scratched.



New Reservoir Mounts

For whatever reason, I just haven't liked the look of the reservoir mounts that I made. I saw this idea on another case online and kind of borrowed the idea. I took my measuring tape and picked up a piece of 2" schedule 80 PVC coupler. The inside measures 2 3/8", and the OD of my res is 2 1/4". I cut the pieces at a 10 degree angle using a miter saw, drilled countersunk holes, painted them, lined it all up, and mounted them to the air chamber using #4 bolts and nuts. I drilled and tapped holes for the #6-32 x 3/8" set screws to hold the res. I found this idea of set screws instead of normal screws while looking for something to mount the front grill cloth. They just have a thread with a small regular screwdriver slot to tighten them. I used some small rubber foam pads between the screws and the res and on the backside between the res and mounts so that the mounts grip the res well and don't scratch it.







I just got the front grill clothe attached this morning, and have cut out and painted the grills for the other openings. I used small carpet tacks to nail it to the mounting frame, and then screwed that to the case. I thought about gluing on the cloth, but I want it to be removable if necessary.



I am almost ready to tear down my system and start moving the guts into the new case!

 

Looks amazing.
I like what you did to the wood.

 

I am very pleased with how the finish came out. The oak really took the stain and finish well.

 

Does The Amos and Andy Show come in clearly?

 

ummm...

@Voigts - Wow, great work! I really like how that has come out, especially with the authentic bits. The whole case looks great, and love the front panel with the fabric, but think something needs to stealth the USB ports. Maybe a little brass ring like the buttons or something. Sorry if you've talked about this already and I've missed it. The side panel cutouts look great!

 

Looks great!

The only thing that throws off the look of the case is the usb ports in the front and you could easily fix that with a brass button or something like that glued to some old usb connector that you could just stick in there until you wanted to use it.

Either way, well done!

 

Now that looks awesome.

 

/\ ditto

 

Yup, it sure does. http://www.otr.net/?p=amnd

I haven't attached them yet, but I have replica radio knobs for this Zenith to use for the power on and reset buttons, usb, and other hole on the escutcheon. For the one covering the USB, I will probably just put a piece of magnetic tape on the back of the knob to stick it to the USB ports so that I can just pop it off whenever I need to use the ports. The knobs will be one of the last things I attach lest I hit them and rip them off accidentally.

 

Oak loves the walnut stain. That looks beautiful!!!!!!!
+rep for Clocker.

 

Yes, this case looks very amazing, very good wooden work.

 

V., your skill in design and execution continues to evolve and impress but I do have one comment that I hope you won't find offensive.

I absolutely hate the choice of wood.

There, I said it.

The flamboyant grain of the oak- magnified by the finish- overwhelms and obscures the overall shape and nuanced detailing of the design.
It reminds me of the camouflage employed by car makers to hide the shape of new models as they test before release.

Maybe for your next case- oh yeah, like you won't do this again next year- you could use a more subdued wood and let your craftsmanship shine through more.

This one is still very nice though.

 

No offense taken. I'd rather you say it like you see it. I personally don't think that the grain takes away from the design though.

So what choice of wood would you recommend? The only things locally available preplaned and ready to use are Pine, Poplar, and Oak. Anything else would entail planing and edge gluing boards to get widths wide enough to work with which would be a problem given that I don't have a planer. I could probably find a way to beg/borrow/plead around that one, but the other issue is that in order to make wooden side panels, you have to be able to get 1/4" plywood, which is only available in the above woods and also in birch. In order for the stained color to match, you need to use the same plywood panels as the wood for the case.

I would love to use Cherry or something of the like, but I don't see a way to realistically make that happen.

 

Looking at it again, I *almost* agree with clocker, but I've always had a soft spot for the heavy grain of Oak.

Th grain may take a small amount of attention away from your own work, but I think mother nature is a tough one to beat. The Oak seems to make everything else blend together more (minus the USB and buttons, but they're on they way, I know) and everything flows very well together. Overall, nicely done so far

 

Motherboard Mounted

I got the Motherboard from my old system mounted as well as the PSU and wires to power everything. It took me a good bit of time to work out exactly where to put my wiring. I knew with this design that wire management was going to be an issue since I added the rad air chamber to the case, thereby eliminating that area for wiring to be hid.



Dual Pump Problem

I planned originally on having one DDC pump mounted in between the HD mount and air chamber.





I made the mount, and test fitted it where I planned on it going.





I mounted the hard drives and fan controller, and made the SATA power cable.



Pump Mount v2 and HD Mount v2

I however ran into an issue. As I have been making this, I really wanted to be able to use 2 pumps for redundancy since my original DDC-1 is now about 2 1/2 years old, and I bought a new DDC3.1 anyway. Figuring this issue out has been a pain. I messed around with several different ways to mount two pumps, but with the wiring in place, nothing worked. So I went back and pulled from a different HD mount that I came up with earlier that would be thinner and allow for more room between the air chamber and HD mount.





So I have been at work making another HD mount and pump mount.



I have two 1/2" rubber pieces for the pump to sit on between it and the acrylic mount. The one pump will feed directly into the second pump. The angle on the end of the XSPC block is going to make getting the tubing from the one pump outlet into the second pump inlet a bit tight, but hopefully some boiling water will fix this issue.



I've made and painted the new HD mount



Pump Mounts v3

Well, after spending time looking at this pump mount scenario, I came to the conclusion that it simply isn't going to work well as I am going to have problems trying to get the line from the bottom of the rads to the GPU. So, back to the drawing board again. This time I think I've finally got the problem figured out. I'm repositioning the pumps again and changing the tubing routing. I think this will solve a number of problems regarding tubing routing and room for the wiring. The bottom pump feeds the bottom rad, and the bottom rad feeds the inlet of the second pump.









I made a nifty little mount using rubber stoppers for the bottom most pump with a small chipset fan underneath it that I have been using.





I've also made and mounted the second pump, but don't have a pic of it yet.

Trying to figure out exactly where to put a drain has been one other issue that I have been wrestling with on this case. I finally came up and made this fitting that will go between the bottom pump and the bottom barb on the rad. There is a 1/4" copper line that feeds down from the small barb through the bottom of the case that I will cap off. So in order to drain the setup, I merely have to park the case over the kitchen sink and remove the small cap from the line underneath. It is made from a 90 degree 1/2" copper street elbow, and 45 degree street, two PEX solder barbs, and a 1/4" hose mender cut almost in half and trimmed down and soldered into a hole I drilled.



Here it is painted



I've also been busy on wiring. Simple things like a short connector for the pump power leads have to be made.



The PCI-E wires that come with the PSU are of course too short to route neatly. I ordered PCI-E connectors from Performance-PCS. Since the page on their site however didn't mention needing to order pins along with the connectors, I got the connectors in sans any pins. I had to call them to find out which pins I needed and place another order and wait for it to come in with pins.

This is almost 60' of 18 gauge black wiring needed just to make the two PCI-E power wires. I squooshed on and soldered the pins today. I plan on sleeving them and putting them in place shortly. My daughter is holding them for the pic.



I'm really very blessed as she is a good kid. She thinks this project is really neat and she likes it. She however wouldn't mind when I am done with this one if I made one like it for her.

Once I get the PCI-E cables in place, I have to finalize some connections and start putting tubing in place. I also have to make the SATA power cables. I bought a little $20 single unit burner so that I can plug it in and use a pot for boiling water for the 7/16"ID tubing so that I don't have to go inside and take over the dining room table. My wife liked the burner idea. She hates it when I cover the table with computer.

 

Nice work on the pump mounts, looks like it is gonna work a treat.