Case Mod - Complete ⭐ Verktøy Cu | An Elegant Steampunk 2P Workstation

Finally took the hardware for a photoshoot last night. The CPU block plating was botched (local guys) so I'm going to be polishing it up and starting again...

First, a shot of the whole family



Asus Z10PE-D8 WS "Copper Edition"







Kingston 8x16GB DDR4 ECC 2133Mhz Memory!







4x 1.2TB Intel 750 NVME drives... 4.8TB total









SO, this is the their old U.2 cable that they used to include with their 750 2.5" drives... colorful cables and overall, quite ugly.



Ugh, those cables.



THIS is the new m.2 direct version of the cable! All sleeved and in black, with a sexy black PCB to boot!



Those cables tho...



Then of course the 4x Nvidia Titan X in full copper glory! Let me tell you how much it sucks to clean these backplates...







Single slot Cheesecake!

 

Mighty sexy stuff Derick. <3

The intake and outlet blocks on the SSDs. I have seen those on the 8pack Parvum build as well. Custom made? Or does EKWB do these nowadays?

 

We sell 'em!

https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-fc-terminal-angled

 

Looks nice. Also the straight ones.
The SSD blocks should come with them standard though.

I guess the next step is those 2 in plexiglass/PETG versions instead of black.

 

Decided to add some gears...cuz Steampunk



Then I painted them for a subtle look







Then I polished the hell out of the EK pass through fittings, Step 1:



Step 2:



Step 3:



Repeat Steps 1-3 24 times



In place up top:



Beneath the grills you'll be able to see the coolant running through connecting everything



Moar gears





Cables started:



Externals got some paint...they've still got some filling of holes to do as well as more layers of paint. Still contemplating if I'm going the leather/copper route again or not:









Oh this too:

 

So... as you'll soon see, I've made life incredibly complicated for myself:



Tubing for SSDs. Under each layer of copper tubing, is a a mix of PETG/soft tubing, this is so I can cut windows into the copper tube to see the coolant flowing through.



Coming together...





Polishing...



Polished up the brass splitters!



Next was to wear down the paint on the fittings to make them look more...Steampunkish?



Piled them all onto a PETG tube and took them to the sander



Did it to the short fittings as well



Fittings!



So shiny







Did some plugs too

 

So...cables, all these GPUs need a lot of cables.

This was the original plan:



But as you can see, the cuts in the Ts and corners weren't very nice...

...

So recut them and I think the result is much better:



Routing all the custom cables through them like this:



Epoxying them...



x2



Pipes up top were getting dirty...



So I gave them a clean



But I'm sure they'll be dirty again soon.

Then I worked a bit on the top spiral bit:

 

The secret, cut the soft tube (the part that goes in the copper elbow) at an angle!



So here's the "loop layout"



I also had to polish these, as all the copper came with red/pink writing on it...



While I was polishing I practiced on one of the old copper panels you may remember from before:

Before:



After polish, before wax



Final polish/wax



And we're back...



So many tubes!





is it looking Steampunk yet?



I lost a gear here...but it went back on later lol



And the GPU cables all done!



Not too bad eh?

 

Big update time!

Painted the QDCs (not that you'll see them in the final product anyway...but details!



Underside of top piece:



Sorry for blurry pic, but here's the chassis side



Back to the rest of the system!



Finished up the last of the internal tube runs





Added some details to the GPU cable tubes



Altogether



And around the other side...











So at this point, the internals are pretty much done. I have some cable management to do underneath, but it's basically done...so I got brave and decided to put the windows back into the panels

I forgot how damn good these things look























I changed up the FC10s a little I like them much more now!

The copper shroud I quickly whipped together

 

That copper piping looks very tasty. Let's just hope you'll never have to swap out a component...

 

Am I seeing this right? You have plastic tubing and hard line cobbled together inside the copper pipes? Why didn't you just solder the copper lines?

-Also, my browser crashed once just getting through the page. You definitely have your pics too big.

 

Your case looks amazing. Love the pattern on the window and the copper work is mesmerizing. My only complaint, and this is common to most steam punk themes, is the random none functional gear decoration. I don't minds gears when they appear to be part of some clock work mechanism, but with most steam punk, gears are added without an being connected to anything or in a non functional arrangement (typically three gears in a triangular pattern that would prevent the gears from turning).

 

Beautiful build! The finish on the water blocks, the copper piping, your cable management... and not to mention the hardware used.. lol you could ruin a small country with that build!

Amazing work! The theme is brilliantly executed

 

I have been brainstorming and testing for the last few months on how to mix copper and rigid tubing so you could cut windows into the copper to see the coolant for my next build... it's 100% not as easy as that.

I did a lot of work on mixing copper and flexible tubing a few years ago - and, a word of warning, that tubing is going to come apart inside the copper. I sat at a LAN and watched as my system heated up and the connections started pulling apart.

 

Yeah, That's kinda what I was worried about. This is a pretty big investment in hardware.

 

motherofgod.jpeg

Derick, that turned out so sick!

 

Over the top hardware. The copper is a great look.
If you're not cutting holes in the copper (for viewing coolant?) on this build why not just go with all copper or all rigid tube?
Also, IMHO, the hose clamps do not fit in the build at all. That should seriously be revisited. Hose clamps above 4 Titans? Really?
Why am I critiquing? Dam arm chair quarterbacks like myself should shut the hell up unless we can or have done better!
Excellent job Derick!

 

turned out killer!

 

Guys. I'm finally done. Sorry for delay!











Fully functional btw!

 

I'd say that came out pretty awesome. But god help you if you have a leak!