Scratch Build – In Progress Project Stealthlow - Completed - preview of project next

http://theinfosphere.org/Clamps

 

Cheers djzic .

This is what the rods are for, something solid to bend the acrylic against .




Made a start, mounted, drilled & tapped an angle bar for the acrylic to attach to for the bottom end, if I get chance tomorrow I'll finish off placing the cut down rods, cut a long thin strip of acrylic, bend it against it to find out precisely how long it needs to be & to see how good a curve I can do, then cut the acrylic piece & get it fixed on .

Now I'd better switch over the motherboards .

 

Good idea with the supporting rods but...

Since we live on a planet with gravity, would it not be more fluid to start from top down? Let Mr Gravity help with holding the plexi closer to the alu than sticking up in the air like a flag pole?

Did for me once upon a time.

john

 

like the bread box bay door

 

True I was going to work from the bottom going up, never done this before so I'll fix to the top now & let it droop down, can see how that will produce a more natural curve cheers John saved me some messing there I think . +rep

Actually that might not quite work with it being 2 curves going in different directions so probably be stuck with working from the bottom lol doing it so it's flush to the curve bars, ordinarily your tip would be perfect though .

 

Oven mits and a partner. One to heat evenly and one to smooth plexi from top down. Plethora of quick clamps. Don't push heavily in the middle unless well supported. Plexi also does not play well with reheating. Micro fractures appear as imperfections.

john

 

Won't be able to start from top down, it'll have to be bottom going up with the double curve but I'll make sure I don't need to reheat thanks for the heads up John .

Typing from my new B3 mobo which I've clocked back to how it was at 4.5ghz woooo but need to reactivate win 7 & need to phone ms to do so bit of a pita when you have to phone them lol.

 

Just entered the massive code into the phone to get the activation key, then it switched me over to an unmanned call center with irritating music I was right when I said it can be a pita I've had it before where I could barely hear what numbers were being said by someone with a hard to understand accent but the last 5 to 10 times I've had to activate by phone it was nice as it was an automated service that worked perfect so this is rather irritating as I want to get to sleep knowing I don't have to mess about with this.

 

Just tried it again & spoke with someone & they said their servers are not working at the moment try again in a couple of hours .

 

windows7 fail?

Looking forward to see the front plexi, u can do it !

 

I need to get better at reading build logs, I totally missed this, subbed

 

I really like the grills on this mod man. Can't wait to see how the plexi works out.

 

Got it activated later in the day , acrylic bending is surprisingly easy but man the extra curve lip made it really difficult & I failed .

Thanks SNiiPE_DoGG I'll be checking in on yours too mate .

Thank you stonedsurd .

Laying the case down was the easiest way to place the rods but needed a bit of weight to stop it falling off the work top.

Took hours to get it so I could use the clamps.






First time I some how introduced a couple of cracks to the sheet while cutting so used it as a practice piece to see what I've gotten myself into lol.

Second time all was going ok but was just another learning bit lol.

Third & last time as I don't have any more of this length acrylic to try again went well kind of lol so I'm going to try & use the majority of the window & I think I'll have to come up with a different solution, maybe a mix of window & little part of my backup plan, if I didn't add the extra lip curve I'd have done it easily but man that extra curve lip made it really really difficult lol.









To be continued .

To be honest I'm kinda happy I went wrong lol allows me to come up with an addition to make it better than just a window , now I need to brew up a nice addition, already got an idea storm whirling together in my head hehe .

 

Came to the conclusion I can still do the window but to keep it in place all along the curve I'll have to use 1mm sheet alu overlapping the seams & vent areas I'll do my mesh thing on 3mm pieces of alu & an internal piece that lets the outside 1mm sheet fix so the acrylic & meshes are fixed in place nicely, this allows for some nice features that are hard to do to a high standard so the low standard will be hidden .

Here is a seriously rough idea of what I'll do .


I might think up something better, we'll see.

 

It's all looking great Wayne. I would have thought that the plex window would be better if it was cut oversize so it can be fitted to the inside. But I guess this would make bending just that little more difficult. I can understand how that little spoiler would be very difficult to realise.

 

It's a clamp party! It'll look great, ghetto window or not.

 

MS Paint planning - you gotta love it! \o/

 

Paint Cheesecake !

Comming allong, Take ur time !

 

Couldn't you just spray a heat gun on that plexi when its clamped to form it to the curve? thats what I would've initially thought to do, but more than just a straight window will be cool too!

 

Thanks Attila. To be honest if it was over or under I think it might be easier as going flush with the bars definitely needs some permanent clamps so it doesn't bulge in or out, I think it is a task for thermo forming to successfully do multi curve perfection, 1 curve is fairly easy, add another & it's not easy, also any cuts or drilling needs doing when the acrylic is flat else it shatters with the faintest wrong move lol, it's a new challenge for me so I shouldn't give up after 3 trys but it does mean the budget swells up a notch more again .

The curved acrylic piece seen on the final pic is good up to an inch or 2 above where the top of the motherboard is, then the curve takes a dramatic curve that doesn't work with the rest of it so if I was to keep the piece I done it would have to lose a fair portion of the window top which would be a bit of a shame which is why I shouldn't give up on trying to get it right, well not yet anyway.

Yeah I'm not done yet on trying to get this done as intended .

That sounds like the way to do it actually & I'd be able to work it from the top as John said earlier, I'll order another sheet & see if I can do it right, a 1000x500 sheet allows for 3 attempts, could do the top area freehand, then once that tricky bit is done I could put the dowels back in & let heat & gravity do the rest, one of the the great things about doing a log live & up to the minute is feedback & tips . I am still thinking a trim to hold it together is not a bad idea even with a perfect window as it'll allow for a couple of extra nice touches for vents the bottom area vents & the main system vents as well as a thin long optical eject button built into the panel, still not even decided what I'll do about a power button .