Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Hush!

It does look very nice the pci/io piece mounted like that, nice solid looking psu stand too, this is still 1 of my favourites & that final shot looks very cool . +rep

 

One sugestion: black tubes out - copper pipes in

 

Black out - copper tubes in? Do you mean keep the tubes copper-coloured? The trouble is that they don't stay shiny copper - they get to about 40C and so oxidise to brown quite quickly..

Sorry for the lack of updates - Small update coming - just need to take some photos and upload them.

 

could you not clear coat them?

 

A little spray lacquer would do the trick and keep them clear.

 

Woah, shiny! This is an awesome beast.

 

Ailain-s is working on a build with copper pipes, maybe he can give you some inspiration!
Here's a link to the update where he shows a picture of the pipes in his build:
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=2667032&postcount=91

 

Thanks for the link TotalGaos - rigid pipes for tubing look a nightmare to change though, and they transmit vibrations, as I've found out recently!

Small update atm, another to follow with new watercooling bits...

I've made a replaceable front plate for usb, eSATA, audio etc. Still need to get my hands on some USB 3 ports though, so leaving it as just a flat plate for the moment without holes for the ports for now. Anyhow, the plate is removable so I can attach the aluminium plates (the bits with HUSH milled in) to the 37 copper fins with resin (in the 37 slots in the back) once they're ready and anodised, and take out the plate to adapt to attach new ports (or replace) in future if needed. Only a small piece, but filing it to just the right size and the tabs to the right depth by hand took a while!



I did have a small tab of aluminium cut almost to size, but it's a different grade of aluminium and I expect it wouldn't anodise to be an indistinguishable colour, so instead I cut and filed a section from the piece of aluminium angle in the picture.



The finished piece with some of the tools used to make it... missing the big file...



The finished plate (upside down).







In place, viewed from the back:- I'll need to cut into some of the fins for the USB/eSATA/headphone ports to attach the the little inset plate....



In place and screwed down:













Thanks for reading.

 

Shiny!

 

Looking nicely polished mate & probably good thinking on getting the same grade of alu for anodising, not sure if it was absolutely necessary but thinking on like that covers you just in case , I just know once I see this anodised I'll be wanting to get mine done too .

 

The rate you're going Wayne you'l be anodising long before me! If you could anodise yours in a gun-metal grey using two the two grades of aluminium I have that would be very helpful.

 

Apparently a quality black is supposed to be the most difficult to do perfect.
Bars are 6063T6
Sheets are 1050AH14
So if I do get the different grades anodised it should show nice & clear if there is a noticable difference.

But I'm still very unsure if I'll be getting mine anodised with the place I wanted to sadly, I contacted them but didn't reply so been preparing myself to keep all the metal naked brushed with polishied bits & most of the hidden parts painted.

I found it is possible to anodise 1 side a colour & the other side another colour but I think it would cost quite a bit extra but would be perfect for the back panel.
I wanted to colour a lot of the internals orange but as close to copper as possible & everything external black.
Think I'll phone them soon though to see if they are even a real business .

 

Bit of polishing, rerouted the loop slightly, and added Bitspower fittings.

 

Certainly looks good , I found polishing bars turn out best for a quality mirror look as it's easier & quicker to do on a bench grinder with mops but if putting in enough time on polishing a wider bigger sheet can turn out just as good but requires a LOT more patience & persistence to make it amazingly good like a mirror, it's fair to believe it's impossible but it's possible but something I've not properly attempted myself yet .

 

awesome work mate, keep it up

 

that mirror finish on the back plate is just.. wow

 

It's shiny and quiet... what more can we ask for !!

 

So this project was started in 2009, and got to a working stage with hardware in etc, but as I was moving every year or more frequently for work (sometimes out of the country) I switched to using a modded Lian Li PC7 watercooled case, or briefly a gaming laptop for covenience.

Last Summer when changing water in my loop I rediscovered this under a table, and for some unknown reason thought polishing it and finishing it would be a good idea. So what do we have?



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Some work is needed... Those dribbly gummy looking bits on the boxes at the end are polyester resin that was used to fill crinkled valleys left when originally casting the polyester for the water distributor boxes using acrylic sheet for the mold (the polyester resin pulled the protective sheet on the acrylic off as it set). That'll need sanding down...

Polishing was tricky - it's an intricate design with pipes in the way and is difficult getting between the cooling fins and pipes....

 

Yes, yes I could! From researching into it there was quite a big research effort because of the need for protecting things like copper and brass statues and brass shell casings for the army in the 1960s by the international copper research association (INCRA) in 1964 with the development of Incralac, a lacquer consisting of a combination of an acrylic resin Paraloid B44 with a chemical called benzotriazole (which chelates with the copper ions to help prevent oxidization by any oxygen that should permeate the acrylic resin). I read a research paper analyzing copper and brass statues polished and then treated with incralac in the 1970s, most of which had held up very well to oxidation (the ones that hadn't had generally been kept outdoors).

 

The cat helped supervise.

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