Scratch Build – In Progress Level Eleven

Very nice Slip, love the saw !

 

YAY! A Slipperyskip's worklog! I love them!

Have you ever tried a jeweler hacksaw on the backplates? It will save you TONS of time.



I use one with a 0.8mm blade and a deeper throat. Fantastic adition for your toolbox I assure.

 

Thanks for the great compliment! Smooth is what I'm after.

The small stuff opens up a lot of possibilities. I had to narrow down several ideas for this build. Not a bad problem to have.

Thanks Frenkie! The saw is very common around here and that makes it easy to find replacement blades.

Obrigado Yemerich! I have used those types of saws and I really don't like them. I can't seem to control them very well. I'm sure that's just me. I'm not much into doing things that save time. I often envy Oldnewby and Boddaker who sometimes take a year to complete a project. I often finish a project and feel saddened that it is over. Thanks for the tip though.



I made a mistake! Oh no! Tragedy! Not really, I failed to properly account for the thickness of the IDE cable connector and it now sticks out over the "boundary" set by my mounting board. I will probably just attach a small piece of wood to the end to push it out some.

More importantly, what this error did was make me think about the SATA connectors on the SSD and how they would similarly effect the size of that mounting board. The project is on hold until I receive my angled SATA data and power cables and determine the dimensions based on actual "in hand" equipment.

Anyway, I'm just glad I reached my mistake quota for this project early rather than later.

 

The need to compensate for the danged connectors seems to get worse the smaller the board is. The pico makes it worse because the connections are poking out from all directions.

 

Nice little bad-ass MB you got there. So tiny, so innocent... until turned on.

To compensate for the connectors, can't you hollow out the wood a little? That way you get it nice a flush. I don't know if this restriction of airflow would cause any major heat spikes, but it is a thought to prevent "bulkyness".

 

Nice work!

 

Yes, cabling seems to dominate these small builds. The shear mass of cables and routing them around becomes critical when trying to build something as small as possible.

Boundaries must be obeyed. All will be revealed.

Thanks!


I found something to do while I'm waiting on the post. I'm going to build some 2.5" hard drive mounts using an old 40GB Toshiba drive as a model.



I cut my 1/2" x 1/2" aluminum angle iron (yes, that is a correct term) to length with an old X-Acto saw blade. To clean up the aluminum cuts I clamp on a 1/2" square board with a laser cut end and use it to guide my flat hobby file.





I follow that up by filing all the sharp edges down until everything feels smooth to the touch.





For once I break out my rule and measure where the mounting holes will go. I use my old center punch and a one pound hammer to mark the spot. It is a one pound hammer because it only takes one pound. Ouch! Sorry about that.





Drill the holes out? Nah, it can't be that easy. [I have deleted this text because I fear it will be used against me in a future psychiatric evaluation]





Result of efforts. I need to get some of those sexy knurled Allen-head screws I see being used by oldnewby and others.





And the big question is whether my angled SATA connectors will obey the boundaries. I realize this is an IDE HDD and not a SATA SSD but I can still tell it will be close.

Thanks for looking.

 

Calculated, cut and glued the extensions onto each mounting board. These boards will eventually have another very thin layer glued over the top of them so using extensions instead of completely re-doing them is reasonable IMO.





Sizing them up to the master board.






Time to make the boxes. These tops are identical to the mounting boards except for being 1/8" thick instead of 1/4". When I finished cutting the boards I noticed that the widths were off which is very unusual. It must have been a bad day for the laser because these boards are suppose to be exactly 3" wide from the factory.. I fixed it by tacking on a 1/64" strip shown here before trimming.






To make my 2" tall box sides I start out with 1/8" x 24" stock that are slightly wider than 2". My carpenters square is exactly 2" wide so....






I clamp the boards to the square on one end.






And the other.






Using my Olfa razor knife I shave the wood down almost to the steel of the square. Using 60 and 100 grit sandpaper I finish hand milling the edge down to the metal.









The result is two 2" wide boards with sharp edges.






I then cut out the box sides by measuring each side of the mounting board, adding an 1/8" and then adding a skosh. 4 long sides and 4 short sides for two identical boxes.






The sides will be assembled in what I call a "pin-wheel". Here I have loosely arranged them to hopefully better illustrate the pin-wheel. Each end is facing clockwise.






To assemble I first lay down the mounting board and loosely place on top two 1/2" spacer blocks.






On top of that goes one of the box tops.






I assemble my pin-wheel with a rubber band to hold it all together. This process usually resembles some sort of clown act until you get the hang of it. Here I have decided to go with a counter-clockwise rotation. If I needed extra strength I would just add another layer of wood using a clock-wise pin-wheel rotation.






I next add another level of 1/2" spacers.






And the remaining box top.






I use yellow carpenter's glue applied with a small brush. The block is shown prying apart the seam to expose the gluing surface and is really just illustrating what my fingers are doing during the gluing process. Note that I'm only gluing the edges of the sides. The box tops and mounting boards are not being glued...intentionally.






Add a multitude of rubber bands and after about 5 minutes of drying I flip the entire assembly over to expose the mounting block. Here you can see the "skosh" I added earlier to each corner. These will later be sanded down.






I then push down on the center support and break any bonds that excess glue is trying to setup. Wait another 5 minutes and repeat. Let assembly dry for three hours.

Thanks for looking.

 

The box tops are loose friction fit. The Pico box I/O plate interface work is next up. I'm having great fun.

 

Pretty boxes

 

Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes made of ticky tacky

 

Oh, I had no clue the bottom bit was going to be part of the case. My feeble brain thought you chopped it up to make the smaller boxes.

 

Why would he chop up the box for his slimline drive?

That kind of puts the size of this in perspective though; the biggest part of the case (so far) houses the slimline(!) optical drive!

 

Hmmm given the project's title, methinks this last pic's orientation wasn't by accident......

 

God, I've just seen all five seasons of WEEDS.
Do you know when Season six will air? Fantastic show....

 

Oh wow. I hadn't even thought of that...
Would be sick to see a homemade level-10 styled case..

 

Gets the geek inside one all excited, doesn't it?

 

We got a Belgium guy working on that on HighFlow: http://www.highflow.nl/forum/f34/chillers-level-11-a-4509/

 

Sweet project, I can't wait to see this finished

 

...A streamliner level 10...all in wood...that fits in the palm of your hand...
BT doesn't have the smiley to describe how that makes me feel.