Scratch Build – In Progress Fresh Meat: A Dota 2 Tribute [Updated 7/5/17]

Serious attention to detail going on there! Spooky perfect indeed.

 

They're going to be sweet, just finished up with the poly on them! Gluing this week

I'm slowly going crazy not getting it done. Must work to stop that. Yeah, the fit was nuts, imagine my surprise when I tried a test fitting only to realize it quickly became a friction fit. That was a tense few moments trying to get the plug back out

Oh no! You've ruined my big hover lid finale!

I wanted something discrete for the latch, I didn't realize it would be this discrete. Success so far!

 

I know that feeeling all too well.... "must close chapter, to open next!"

 

Valve Time slowly ticks away on this one. Let's this baby together, first up, finishing the legs.




Out for a little sunbath after they've dried up. Looking good.




Hitting up the corner hold-downs.




Gluing up the sides and corner posts.




Two sides, ready to go.




Getting ready for final assembly. I have to glue the wooden frame around the motherboard tray as I won't be able to get it in once the frame is in place. After a few trial runs I think it'll all fit.




Clamping action!




All set, finally a free standing case! AND it's level! It feels good to finally have a properish case and not just a pile of wood after all this time.




Back shot.




The motherboard tray is screwed into the frame, nothing too elaborate but enough to make sure it doesn't go anywhere if I pick it up by the bottom.




Front hold-downs, nothing too fancy here.




I got the side slate pieces mounted too, slowly getting to the final product. The lid is up next.




As always, thanks to the patrons of my art.

 

Awesome!!!

 

Thing of beauty or piece of art? I think it's both.

 

Oh God. The shine coming off that corner post. If you can replicate that with the whole case, it would be so juicy.
-Take another year on this and do the French polish thing!

 

Thank you sir!

I'm trying to blend that line. I might need to build a coffee table to display it on

The running joke in the dota community whenever something isn't released on time is that it needs more polishing. I'd really like to avoid another year though


I've been doing work, I promise! Now that the case is together, time to assemble the lid and its components. There will be two lid pieces sandwiching frosted acrylic which will be illuminated. First up, I had to finish the internal face of the lid pieces, I won't be able to get at them easily when it's glued up.




I have to glue up both pieces with an insert AND dealing with miter joints isn't fun. I found a frame clamp online, time to see if it works.




Things want to buckle up due to my clamping pressure being only on the bottom 10% of the surface. After everything got set up I'm feeling pretty well about how things went.




Pulling the clamp off the next day, things look great. I'll have to sand down the miter joints so they line up, but there aren't any huge gaps.




Same deal with the bottom section. Inserted is my 280 radiator mounting plate.




The bottom section came out great too. Of course I have to test how it will look.




Same as the top section, there is a little unevenness from the gluing. Putzy miters.




I picked up some flexible sanding blocks to deal with the contours on the bottom section. They worked out well.




Smoothing things out.




While I'm working on the bottom section I'm going to apply poly to the top. Pre-treat on!




Doing a little sanding to smooth out the bumps and runs. I'm thinking probably 7 coats on the top section because it'll be touch the most. Most of the case will end up with 4 coats. 600 grit sanding every two coats.




Next up, magnets to mate up with the ones imbedded in the case. This will provide the latching mechanism to keep the case lid down. Not a hard latch but I'm not anticipating a need for one.




10mm hole, same as the case size.




Plugs again.






And epoxied in and sanded flush.




Screwed up on this one, got the grain off. Modding while half asleep is never good.




Hey, I even got the magnets in the right way!





The lid is coming along nicely, this is 3 or 4 coats I think? Wet.





A little natural light, this is 5 coats. Only a few more to go.



Until next time, maybe the lid will be together, who knows? As always, thanks to my lovely sponsors. I'm getting close to hardware!

 

Starting to get shiny too. Sweeeeeeeet!

 

It's getting a nice gloss. I thought it would end up a little more matte but I'm loving the final product.

Back with another update! I'm grinding away on Fresh Meat, which at this point, let's face it, it's more like Rancid Meat. I will not be stopped however! I must overcome all set backs!

I figured I needed to test if the radiator would fit in the case, thank god my math worked out. So the radiator and fans will be in the lid with the fans blowing down into the system.



Like so.




Rad will sit on the underside of the lid. I figure I'll get some air flow blowing down and mixing things up enough in the case I won't run into temperature issues. Famous last words.




Before I could start applying finish to the bottom section of the lid I needed to add the countersinks for the screws.




All good there.




Speaking of the screws, ugh, these are way too shiny and new, something needs to be done about that.



Like burning off the zinc plating! DIE! FIRE!!!




Ok, calm down, breathe, much better...




On to getting the bottom section finished up.




I needed something to do while that was drying. I have this nice stock Silverstone SFX PSU that needs some attention...




Never liked those stickers.




Guttin' it like a fish.




So cute!




Worst part about the PSU: the fan grill. Man, I start getting sleepy just looking at the thing. Had to go.




I suppose I'd better throw some paint on it while I've got it all apart.




That'll match with the theme a bit better I'd say.




Working with wood as a building material has been a huge learning experience for me. For example on the lids, not only does it take me around 5 days working at night to finish and sand the exterior, but then I have to do the same thing on the inner lip that will be visible. The time adds up.




I decided to glue up the inner light diffusers too for the lid. Nothing fancy.




I hit up Greg at Smart Computer Store to get a new grill made up for the PSU. Laser fun!




Cutting out a Dota fan grill on 1/4” mahogany.




It came out great. I'm really liking the burned edges.




Here it is with a few coats of finish on it.


Keep on keeping on everyone, make something beautiful and stay out of trouble. Thanks to my awesome sponsors on this project too!

 

I've had photos sitting on my camera forever, time to get some of them out.



If you recall from the last update, I had a fan grill laser cut for the Silverstone SFX PSU. Here she is all finished up. I think it came out great and I'm glad I did it.




Installed on the PSU.




Now, turns out the power cord hook up on the PSU was backwards to my liking. After a little modification I flipped the power connector board over 180 degrees to give me the orientation I wanted.




As you can see I had to tweak the cover a bit to make it fit. It passed the PSU tester, I hope it doesn't blow up with a load hooked up.




After I got the PSU squared away it was time to play with some Darkside lights! Only red lighting on this build.




Picked up a fat sack of dank pots yo.




Laying out the LED strips.




It's always good when it works.




I went through a few iterations on lighting the Dota logo for the lid. I settled on using Darkside strips, it came out to be the easiest solution. I had to carve cavities for them to sit in on the acrylic back piece.




After I got everything wired up I epoxied the LED strips in.






Nice la.




I routed the wiring under the mesh and secured it with 3M VHB. This is thinner stuff than 4010 tape, maybe 1/3rd of the thickness but all the same holding power. I love 3M.




For lighting control I have two 25k pots, one for the logo and one for the lid wrap-around lighting. I'll be able to tweak each in terms of brightness. It's a bit of a mess here, just wanted to make sure it worked before I finalized the layout.





After a few iterations I got to the point where everything worked as expected. Awesome.

Thanks for stopping by, I'll have more soon as long as life doesn't get too hectic. Thanks to my awesome sponsors!

 

Darkside Cheesecake! Looking good!

 

Thanks Bart, baby steps to the end game hombre!


A small but significant update on the build.



This is how the wiring got left. Not the prettiest, but it works.




With the lighting good to go, it was just a matter of screwing the two lid halves together with the acrylic rim in between.




So I had a little diagonal wobble in the lid, maybe 1 or 2 mm. I put some spacers under the good corners and left the bad corners clamped for a while. It came out better, not perfect but I can live with it.




Hinges yo.









Now for the guts. Speaking of guts, thanks to these fine folks for supporting Fresh Meat:

 

I've gone forum silent on the build as of late, but I've been getting some work done. Here's where I'm at currently.



Playing around with the guts, making sure everything fits as it needs to. Turns out a few things lined up a little different than I had planned but everything will work out.




On to wiring, sleeving, and general electron wizardry.




Oh yeah, I got the key plate switch installed and wired up too. Being as I have no where to hide internal wiring (you'll see that later) I can't go with the easy extension route for sleeving. It's time to hack up the stock cable pack from Silverstone and do all custom lengths.




24 pin WIP.





It's been a while since I've done this, but it's all coming back. Everyone seems to hate sleeving but I find it relaxing





Kind of a sleeved up cluster **** at the moment. 24 pin and 8 pin CPU Aux power done, I need to get some cable combs/scrunchies/brushes/twist ties/hand cuffs going on or something.




GPU power next, one plug, two 6-pin GPU power ports. That sounds like a hot NSFW link.




Speaking of hot, it's getting cold here. Winter is coming.




Joe Mercado told me to splice. Bless his heart. I don't think I grabbed finished pics of the GPU yet, but that'll come next time.




Had to fire up the lights to figure out which lead was positive so I can wire those in next. Man, it's so great when the things that are supposed to light up light up.








Sometimes you just have to do it with the lights on.


Until next time, keep on keeping on, and thanks to these fine folks for supporting Fresh Meat:

 

Case feet looks amazing. This all sounds great!! You did that very well.

 

What is this cold you speak of?
That is looking pretty awesome... I hate to suggest that the side panels look lonely without a matching red glow.

 

Thanks much, slowly but surely it's coming together!

We're having a heatwave Cheaps, it's only 3 F outside right now. Not too bad if you stay out of the wind

Dude, of course I have to do lights on the inside. I mean, I know that.

So I did some stuff. Little stuff mostly, but things I'd wanted to do for a while on the project. I had some free time over the holidays to swing down to Greg's shop and we had some laser fun. Here's what I got:



We cut some EK logo circles for the EK components in the build (motherboard block, GPU block and res). I thought matching mahogany would go better than the silver.




I wanted to make leather cable combs for this build. I thought mahogany would be too brittle, acrylic was completely out, and steel would have been doable but more work. It was either punch holes in the leather or try out the laser. The laser worked out pretty well and I'm really happy with the results. The downside was it smelled like burnt hair in Greg's shop. Thank god for exhaust fans.




I cleaned everything up after they got cut. The laser didn't make it all the way through in a few spots so I had to clip some of the stray fibers and scrub off all the charred bits.




Next up I hit them with some leather dye and conditioner to darken them up and match the build.




Poly for the EK logos.



The combs all finished up, they look awesome. I'm thinking about marketing them to the major cereal manufactures. Start your day off right with a bowl of Cable Combs! (Trademark pending, it's all mine you thieves!)




I like.




Oh I did some lighting on the inside of the case too, red Darkside strips in some select places.

I've set the lofty goal of finishing the build this year. I believe in me! Wooooo. Okay, thanks to my lovely sponsors for coming along on this journey:

 

This is still a thing? I thought we finished? Haven't I said that before? I fear I may say it again in this thread someday..

Now you know why they don't brand cows in the barn.
Give Greg some antler to laser and he'll probably sell the machine.

 

Wow! Wooden scratchbuild and Dota 2 <3

 

How did I miss this?
Beautiful case noob. I applaud your skills.

mal