Scratch Build – In Progress Project Quintessence - 29Jun-She's Live- CPU Magazine!

Nice work so far. I know what you mean about preferring woodwork over metalwork. Aluminum is not so bad. Steel sucks.

+1 Rep for wishing everyone a happy 4th of July on a British website. LOL

 

Nice shop there man and also nice to see that this mod process going really well. Cant wait for more!!!!

 

Nice catch there on the July 4th well wish. Actually, it is probably a good thing for the British that the US became independent as at least we didn't fall into the hands of the French or Spanish. The US is one of the strongest allies that Britain has.

Thanks AnG3L. Its not going as fast as I would like, but I have determined with this mod that I am going to pace myself and not work quite as feverishly as i did on the last one. I worked so hard on the last one that I got to the point of being sick of working on it. I determined not to let that happen this time. So far I can say that I have been working at a pace where I have been enjoying the process.

 

Its all that counts after all man, enjoy what you do, take your time and do your best!

 

Very nice , Ive always loved the use of wood in mooding and you just dont see enough of this material being use,This is superb!!

 

Thanks. After being out of town (mother-in-law's- definitely a working "vacation"), working a lot of overtime, and then spending the last 5 days sick, I should be getting back to work this week on this. The first thing on my chart is to remake the motherboard panels and make a new top panel. It should go a lot faster this go around than it did the first time.

 

I finally have some updates to put up on this project. Between going out of town, overtime, being sick for a week, etc., I just haven't had the time to do much of anything with it.

After having messed with and patched, etc. the motherboard tray just way too much for my liking, I just had enough and decided to scrap it and make a new one, as well as the rear panel and a new top panel design. I also didn't like the center support, so that needed to go. I was just running into too many nit-picky issues with the MB panel and PSU panel as they were. I split the design up into the MB panel, PSU panel, and a separate top panel. This will make countersinking the screw holes much easier to manage as that was a major problem with the sides bent like they were to cover the top.

New Center Spacer

I again used 1/2” square iron tube, but this time I got a friend of mine to weld the pieces together into one piece. It was a real pain having the pieces separate. He welded them for me, and I hit them with a grinder to get the welds ground down.





New MB Tray, PSU Tray, and Top Panel

I made the new panels. The PSU panel and top panels were pretty straight forward. For the MB tray, instead of trying to make a removable piece for the ATX wiring to pass through the panel, I just drilled the holes right into the panel. It gives a much cleaner look, and I am pleased with the result so far.



Here is the old MB tray compared to the new one so far.



I still have to drill and tap the MB mounting holes, cut the slots for the PCI slots, and drill and countersink the mounting holes for the trays.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Nice to see you back in action mate! These first steps are a real PITA but after that it will be a joy! Mod on my friend!

 

The new MB tray looks good so far

 

Its all fun or we wouldn't be doing it, now would we?

Thanks. I'm a LOT happier with the redo. The first one just nagged at me and ended up being too sloppy for my liking. Having separate pieces for the two trays and the top is going to make countersinking so much better, that and I got in #6 screws to use this time instead of the #8 screws that I was unsuccessfully trying to use.

 

Base Pieces Assembled, Center Airflow Divider in Place, GPU Fans Mount in Place

Time for a few more updates. I got all of the holes drilled, countersunk, tapped, etc. on the new pieces. It took like 8 hours just to drill, countersink, tap, and sand all of the holes. I don't have the bottom riveted on at this point as I don't want to keep having to drill them out to make adjustments. I also sanded all of the pieces with 60 grit just to do an initial sanding. I will go back and sand them all down to probably 150 grit before they get powdercoated.











As you can see from the pics, I also got the center air divider cut and mounted. In order for the screws to have something to thread into and hold, I had to JBWeld on some nuts. This is because I had to sand down the ends to adjust it so that it would fit properly, and the ends were just too thin to hold a thread.







I also made a mount to hold the 2 GPU fans out of 1/8” smoked acrylic.



Here are a couple of shots of the holes for the ATX power cable so you can see how they fit with the divider.





I next have to make a mount for the fan controller.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Lose the stickers on the front of the fans and yer' golden.
I love the project, but I can't help but feel disappointed that you haven't attacked the woodpile yet.

 

^ Agreed .
The foundations are shaping up very nicely voigts woo hoo for persistence paying off , keep it up bud , look forward to seeing some awesome wood work .

 

Those aren't the fans that I'll be using there. I've got some Gentle Typhoons for that spot. I just used the Yates to make sure it all works.

As far as the wood, believe me, I'm more disappointed than you that I'm not into wood yet. I'm almost there though. Just a little more metal and I'm done with metal.

Thanks. I plan on seeing this thing through to the bitter end one way or another.

 

Buddy congrats on the MOTM nomination you got my vote!! Now get back to work!!!

 

What AnG3l said , I just love this one, I'm a fan of intricate fret work & madly detailed cuts in general & your last case was amazing, near finished or not you got my vote . +rep

 

Thank you Alex. I'm frankly surprised at the nomination. I've just been so busy with work, etc. and having to go out of town that I haven't been able to get that much done lately. I've got to go out of town this weekend for 2 weeks again.

Just so you know, you did get my vote for MOTM on you Future Schlock project.

With the nomination, I'm really motivated to get moving with this. That and I am about done finishing a project redoing my front porch which has been seriously staring at me to get it done. My wife won't mind me spending time on this as much once the porch is done! I can't say I blame her though as I've been needing to get that porch finished for way too long.

I appreciate that.

I've bought the wood for the case already, and am just waiting to jump in and get the panels started. I was going to go with something more exotic, but I opted for readily available Oak. Thanks to Rich's recommendation (aka Spotswood), I got some prefinish that I think will eliminate Oak's tendency to soak up too much stain into the grain. I'll say more about that once I get to try it out myself and see first hand how it performs.

I'm still bouncing back and forth as to whether to watercool it or not. I've come up with a way to incorporate two dual rads with very little adjustment to the current frame if I want to. It really depends on whether or not I can get this setup overclocked like I want.

Since I'm done needing the MB for measurements, I took some time a couple of weeks ago to move the MB, I-875K CPU, and RAM into my Zenith case. I spent 3 days messing around with getting the BLCK and RAM speeds narrowed down and stable, but when I went to OC the CPU, I simply couldn't get it to cooperate at anything over 3.5ghz. Needing to get the system back up, I gave up and went to stock speeds and got everything installed. When I get a chance I may go back and mess with it some more, but if I can't seem to get it overclocked to 4 ghz or so, I see no reason to watercool it.

 

While being out of town, I find myself staying in a one bedroom apartment with a balcony. I drove here, and it is only about 1 3/4 hours from home. It also turns out that my work load is going to be very light in that I should be getting off every day for the next 13 days early. This got me thinking. I started searching a bit on Craigslist, and low and behold a guy locally was selling his 2 speed Delta 16" scrollsaw with stand for only $35. So guess what I did? I went and bought it.

I also went today and got scroll saw blades, wood for the top and front, drill bits, etc. I am hoping to be able to start working on the scrollsawing for the front and top tomorrow. I am planning on screwing the top and front pieces together and cutting them at the same time as the pattern is identical save for the center being cut out on the top. I am hoping that I can make some headway the next week and a half and get this scrollwork started. Stay tuned...

 

... tuned and waiting for more wood action never worked with this material my self so I hope I'll learn something

 

Starting Work on Front and Top Piece's Scrollwork

I started working on the front and top piece's scrollwork. I bought the oak and had it cut a bit longer on each end and left it wider than what I need. I drilled pilot holes and screwed the front piece to the top piece, since they are both using the same pattern. This way I am cutting them both at once which will save a lot of time.I printed out the scrollwork pattern using a laser printer on a sheet of regular paper. I then measured where I wanted the pattern to go, and used painter's tape to cover up everything else. Please bear with the pictures as I'm out of town at the moment and only have my cell phone to work with.



Using spray adhesive from Lowes, I put a heavy coat on the paper and the wood as once its down, I don't want it to go anywhere. I will sand off whatever is left after I'm done cutting.



Since I need a drill to get anything accomplished, I used this opportunity to buy a much needed close quarters drill. This is going to come in very handy. One time too many while modding I have had a horrible time trying to drill holes with a regular drill due to lack of space.



I spent over an hour drilling about 50 holes by hand with the drill. The smaller cutouts will require a drill press to get the starter holes perfectly perpendicular to the wood.



I'm going to see if anyone here has a drill press I can borrow, and if not, I'll start scrollsawing whatever I can. At least I'll be getting something done on this project.

Thanks for stopping by.