Brushed alu/wood über case...

jim_e

jim_e

jim_e

Associate
Joined
23 Jun 2007
Posts
102
Location
N Yorks
Right - first post guys (and gals [maybe?] ) but I have been watching the cases threads with interest for a few weeks :p

The idea is a case made from two pieces of wood, the left and right side panels, each with a rounded off front corner connected by a sheet of 2mm aluminium bent from the top at the back, all the way round the two rounded front corners to the bottom back case (Think Mac Pro, but with wooden side panels, and no perforations on the front).

I will be brushing the alu myself as the only decent looking metal I can find is plain.

Currently I am having a few problems I feel I need to resolve before actually buying the materials:

1. Back panel - I don't have an old case to cannibalise and cannot find back panels for sale anywhere. This leads me to think I may need to custom-build my own which may be tricky.

2. Aluminium coating - to stop it going manky after brushing I'm sure I will need to coat it with something... but what?

3. Power button - Having trouble locating a place to buy these - had a look at the Bulgin site and like the look of one but unsure as to wiring (No wiring experience at all except for wiring a plug in physics earlier this year :rolleyes: )

4. What wood to use? Some kind of solid hardwood or just a decently veneered plywood?

I'll leave it at that for the moment before before I send you all to sleep.
All help would be appreciated, I value your collective experience as I have none so far (except for changing RAM in a Mac Mini :p)

As for plans, my photoshop skills are woeful and I have no scanner to scan in my designs on paper.

Jim
 
its a fair task mate building your own case especially if youve only changed a stick of memory

mdf is great to work with, pine is cheap and can be stained and varnished/waxed to good effect. hard wood is dear to say the least 1 inch thick 8 inch wide planks of cheapest oak are priced about £30 a sqare foot

use a momentary push switch for power with 2 wires to motherbord header pins as listed in your manual

get a cheap case from an auction site to chop up for back panel

cant help with alu coating
 
Brushing alu. can be done as long as you have something to guide the sanding block along so that you have a straight line (it's supposed to be impossible by just sight). You can use 80grit wet and dry.
Afterwards, laquer it to seal the top and to protect the brushed effect.

and for electrical q's have a look here : http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/index.php
 
Last edited:
Yeah I've read a guide on how to brush the alu, just unsure as to what lacquer to use. Presumably something branded as "clear metal lacquer" or something should do.
 
Right, found an old piece of teak in the shed which has come in useful :P

Basically, sawn it into 50cm planks and glued and biscuitted them together to form sides of the computer (a few hours work summarised in one sentence :p)

One set is drying right now, other one will be glued tomorrow.

If anyone is interested I can put some pics on.
 
In the beginning...




That photo really showed the bentness of the plank - it is over 6 feet long so not as bad as it looks on the photo. As you can see the plank was all set up for sawing - however at over 100mm deep it took a circular saw from top and bottom, and still left a few mm of wood holding it together. A chisel and bit of planing later and this was gone though.




The master himself at work.
sorry 'bout the dodgy hair this morning, it was windy and I wasn't expecting my photo to be on the web.




Biscuit cutter attached to router allowed me to make some grooves (baby!) for the biccies to fit in when glueing it together later on...

Part 2 to come soon
 
My assistant:




Always there to get under your feet in the middle of some crucial operation :p

Missed out a picture, but basically, after routing sawed into 12 equal(ish) length planks and chose best 10, before putting together in sheets of 5 planks each with 3 biscuits in each joint to account for the dodginess of my planks (I haven't made anything out of wood for 3 years, since I made a dodgy box in tech :p)




After a few mins of trying different bits got to a pretty good solution




Cramped in place and clamped with all the clamps I could find to make it flat. The mysterious arm you can see is my dad's who was assisting me through this bit.

More work to do tomorrow...

Edit: Visited the local tip and got meself what I thought was a nice little case just for a back panel, opened up at home and it still had everything in! A bit primitive though but useful for HDD cages etc.
 
Last edited:
Cutting some holes in the aluminium tomorrow for the drive door the poke out of.
Will a knife cut through 2mm aluminium or am I going to have to find another way? Ideally the shape I am cutting out (sort of rectangle to go over end of drive door, with rounded corners) will be able to use the middle bit to glue onto drive door, so no big drill ideas please :p
 
My dad saw a dremel on special offer today in tool shop so I now have one! I just need to find an offcut of aluminium to practise on before letting looses on the final piece.

Use the router to get straight edges on everything after the glue had dried, then used it again to rebate the edge for the aluminium to fit in. Had to figure out how to use the circle-cutting pivot thing on router too, unfortunately on its minimum radius its still 75mm so the curves aren't as narrow as I may have liked.

Sanded the tops off and have to say it looks bloody good at the moment, not bad for first woodwork I've ever done! (Admittedly, my dad was showing me how to do stuff :P)


#

Probably won't be able to get any further until Wednesday, as I'm going to London for a bit.

I was going to go for a fairly normal wood kind of colour, however tried a bit on an offcut and didn't really like it, so using artists ink and French polish (method still in the guessing stage on offcuts :p) I'm going for a Gibson cherry red finish like on my guitar pictured here...




Gibson used nitrocellulose lacquer to achieve that, I think I can get something similar with ink, varnish, French polish and experimentation :D

Sorry for the lack of pictures of the in-between stages but the photos came out rubbish :p

Edit: You can't see it on the photo but the grain is still visible on the guitar, and grain on my case is very similar to the guitar wood so should come out nice
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom