day 4 day 4: blood, sweat and splinters Here's the finished product! No, actually it's the parts stacked on top of each other to see what keeps this from being the finished product. Needs much TLC still! Since I am stuck with this crappy choice for case walls, I decided to cap them to smooth things out. The first idea was to put a mitered top across them. The better idea turned out to be something a little simpler in design and more complicated to achieve. I am using cedar here because it smells so good. Or because I can work it like styrofoam because it is so lightweight. This part complete and ready for the optical drive to drop in. A side view before clean up. I am adding mahogany strips to the front. The optical drive door will be integrated into these. Time to bring in more padauk wood trim. This stuff just looks good on anything. It will darken to a deep red once I finish everything. Part of the fun for this type of project is anticipating the finished look of all the wood together. I haven't had this go wrong yet. Maybe it's me, but I like the mix of many woods together and they all seem to go together well. another strip of walnut on the back. The top needed some serious trim work as the plywood was showing it's crappy side here. Another reason to stay away from this stuff. I'll stick to that rule until I build a PC for Trading Spaces or something. Again, this is the ed padauk trimmed with red padauk. The top section has been trimmed out with cedar as well. I've continued a trend that I am not so fond of. As I did with FiveWood and a few projects before, I had a blood-letting in the shop. The floor of my shop tells a story that only a crime scene investigator could appreciate. Here we see a faded FiveWood blood stain next to the newly left AtomWood blood stain. Fortunately, this one required no stitches. There is an important rule when using cutting tools, always cut away from yourself. There's another, less well known rule: don't hold utility blades by the, uh, blade. more mahogany trim. The top as it is finished with a strip of walnut. This project requires just a little wire work. The momentary switches needed connectors for the motherboard. I'm making my own buttons again. These will be the power and reset buttons. more soon. CC
day 5 Day 5: 01.30.09 as we near the end - my only friend, the end This is the last update before I post pix of the final product. I anticipate that to be very soon (2 to 3 days). For various reasons, all of which relate to my stinking choice of the multi-ply, oak veneer walls (I just can't bring myself to say plywood), I had to go from a simple hole cut here for the fan to a chopped up, squarish shape. This is for the 30 mm wall fan. Never fear, I have a plan that cleans up this sloppy mess. Ta-dah! It doesn't end here, it just keeps on going. No project is complete without blood (already did that) or needless rework. I dropped the middle section revealing the weakest of the glue joints! And here's the glue up...again. here's my main air mover. I call it Hugo. I had a dressed rehearsal for the power and reset buttons as well as the fan, power LED and motherboard. This went smoothly. The homemade buttons in a dry run. This looks a little over-exposed. So I took a penny and after hours of hammering and hours of dremel work, I came up with this cool copper grill. Or, I cut it on the waterjet. Whichever you'll believe. and now for a hint of what's going into my next project (ZK)! That's 12Gb ram loaded on this puppy! Here are the parts stacked. Here is the back, ready for hinges. Hinge#1 went on quite easily. You can't assume things like this will go on easily and work right. I've done several hinges like this now and have discovered something each time. If I'm not paying attention to every part of the hinge install, I end up with a misaligned door, one that won't close all the way or worse! A simple method for keeping the hinged sections closed. This simple brass latch does the job well. This is no cheap little latch either. They're about $8 (US) each, but they're worth it. I bought these for another project and they didn't work out, made good use of them here. A demonstration of the top opening. A demonstration of the mid-section+ opening. And a few shots of the case in it's current state. Here, you can also see the copper grill for the air-port on the front. A shot showing both latches. Okay, until next time when I plan to show you the finished product. Thanks for looking. CC
Thank you. I am going to finsih this with tung oil. It's my new favorite: easy to apply, hard to mess up and looks great. It is what I used on the box in my first post. This will darken each of the woods and bring the grain out. This should give the case a more serious look (I hope). We'll see.
Thats looking really good. You ever used shellac? I'm thinking of it for my next wood based mod, if i ever finish the current one.
AtomWood - complete! This will definitely take the record as MY fastest mod. I can guarantee that they'll never be another one from me THIS fast. I hope you like! Please keep an eye out for my next mod - codename ZK CC
I like. But more importantly, did the wife like? Nice work, even if you did use that evil simulated wood product thingy.
