Hi, this is my first post on this forum aswell as my first attempt at building my own PC Case. I havn't really thought about a name for the project and because its made out of wood i just called it Wooden No Name for now. I first thought of this a few days ago while bored and looking around the internet at case mods, i began to think about building my own case and stumbled on this forum and was amazed by some of the setups in the mod of the month section and got some inspiration. Basically its sort of a triangular rectangle shape and made out of wood. I did start with some basic sketches and working out of angles and dimensions but i had to work within the dimensions of scrap material i could find at the family workshop and so these dimensions were reduced by about 4cm's which isn't too bad i suppose. So i got started yesterday. and to let you know, Im still young and never really built anything challenging before or used these tools much. By trade im a signwriter, ive made A boards and other little things but nothing special. I have however fixed/upgraded several local shop bought PC's and built my own from scratch in a coolermaster case. The first step was to find some materials for my build, i came across some 18mm thick good quality (i think) plysol plywood. I cut the 2 side panels out of this roughly 65cm x 50cm and also the top panel 20 x 50, the bottom panel was cut out of some thinner plywood 35 x 50. I used a radial arm saw, disc sander and a planer set at an angle of 10 degrees (i had to use a protractor as it has no angle markings) all of these machines are very very old and been in the workshop since new. Next steps were to attach all the panels together which was abit challenging being at an angle, i used two supports for the bottom panel and screwed the supports to the sides and the base to the supports. All screws were drilled first and then screwed in by hand due to me not being too confident powering into the sides of plywood which can split. Clamps as you can see were very useful . My ruler has got to be the best being like 10 foot long. I took all photos today using my phone camera and in future will use my proper camera. Next step was to dismantle an old no brand atx case, this required the use of a screwdriver and a drill to drill out the rivets (i broke a very thin drill bit doing this). Also some anger was needed with a screw that just wouldnt not come out and you can see this in a picture below. Next i sanded it all down, made the front out of some more mdf (cut with a jigsaw) and strength tested it with a 60lb weight. I also checked the temperature and was surprised to see it working as it was above the 0 degrees it normally says it is inside the workshop.
Now i wont probably do any work on this tomorrow due to being out all night tonight but should get back to it on saturday, what does everyone think? im going to add a big intake fan (possibly the antec big boy) to the front with a dust filter. and two extraction fans (one on the top and one at the back) I will either screw the door on (this would mean all access would be from the back) or hinge itand have not decided if to have the optical drives coming through the door or behind it. I have decided to put the front usb ports, multi card reader and power button coming out of the top of the case. The front headphone and microphone port will be on the underside. I will paint it all and add some cathodes underneath it when the structure is complete. I have a few questions for everyone about my design 1) can a motherboard and cpu with fan operate on an angle ( i want to have it mounted on the right hand side) 2) will hard drives operate on an angle? 3) most cases i see have vents on the sides (does my case need them if its got good cooling and extraction from fans?) 4) anyone got any suggestions?
Update Right so i got back at it today, i got the two holes jigsawed for the fans in the front of the case aswell as cut off and hinged the bottom 10cm so that it can be opened downwards and the optical drives, usb ports and mic and headphone jack can be accessed. Also made a grill out of some metal gauze thats used for gas burners. The main progress of today was the making of two frames out of perspex for the optical and hard drives, for this i used old drives taped together as a template and bent the plastic using a vice, heat gun and length of wood for bending the plastic when heated. ( the dodgy looking optical drive frame shown in the picture is how it looked before i bent it back to straight and bent it again at the correct length). Ive also drilled holes in the sides for the fitting of screws.
Interesting shape. Any reason in particular for the triangular shape? Not that there is anything wrong with it, its just different. How are you going to hide the plywood edges of the front panel?
