Brushed alu/wood über case...

[jim_e]

Right - first post guys (and gals [maybe?] ) but I have been watching the cases threads with interest for a few weeks

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 )

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 )

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

Jim

 

[jim_e]

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.

 

[jim_e]

Right, found an old piece of teak in the shed which has come in useful

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 )

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

If anyone is interested I can put some pics on.

 

[jim_e]

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

 

[jim_e]

My assistant:




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

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 )




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.

 

[jim_e]

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

 

[jim_e]

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 )


#

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 ) 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

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

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

 

[jim_e]

I'm working on it

I have got one sample ready for varnishing and another for polishing when I get some french polish and can compare side by side until I get it bang on

 

[jim_e]

Right, back from holiday and ready to do some more.

Just wandering about fans, will one intake fan on the side of case near the front (don't really want to cut through the aluminium on the front), one exhaust fan on the top of the case as well as one behind CPU cooler be enough?

At mo my system is weedy as hell but this will have to hold new system whenever I get round to affording it

 

[jim_e]

Aluminium is cut, brushed, lacquered bent and ready to be drilled the moment it stops bloody raining!

Got no pics because metalwork is not my forte

By end of today (if rain stops) will hopefully be the first assembled pics

 

[jim_e]

More Pics finally

Well a mate asking for pictures on MSN finally spurred me into taking some...



That's one side of the case, almost finished. Is shinier in real life than appears on photo.



Those weird fingerprint things don't appear in real life.

For those who are interested, to get the redness to the wood I simply used 2 bottles-worth (14ml bottles) of windsor & newton artists ink on each side, in Deep Red flavour. Wang on a coat or 2 with a paintbrush. I then used French polish (which stinks and emits nice ethanol and methanol fumes to get drunk/blind to) to shinyfy and seal it all up nicely.

As far as aluminium goes, I just cut with a dremel, sanded using a block and a straight edge to guide me (180 grit normal sandpaper). Coating it was a pain in the donkey as all floaty mess got into it and things but it looks ok.

When I can next be bothered I'll screw it all together and make the back panel, no rush though as buying bits to go in it either late August or October or basically whenever I have some money

One more point...

its HUGE! About same size as the Marshall amp in picture 2... about 50cm square, which is pretty big I reckon.

 

[jim_e]

It is complete!

Sort of...

Slight matter of fitting everything inside, but that can wait for now.





Any suggestions/tips, as I still need to sort ventilation, power button (a few slight marks on aluminium) and fit mounts inside for everything to go on.

 

[jim_e]

Thanks for the offer, but I still have the case I salvaged from the tip so doing ok for back panel.

Think I might go for one of those buttons mentioned earlier.

 

[jim_e]

Looks really good . The only thing i have noticed is that you haven't stained the inside edge of the timber and there is some light wood visible at the front where it curves. Other than that it looks great, well done.

I noticed that too and hoped nobody else would until I got it done and changed photos

 

[jim_e]

jim_e, what method did you employ to bend the radii into the front corners of the aluminum? I'm inspired by your design and wish for a similar look for my project.

Thanks

To choose the radius of the curves I just set the router to it's minimum radius when doing the wood, which cam to 75 mm.

Measured the centre of the curve on the aluminium and marked with a line and then took a section of pipe (the type that goes between your toilet and the magical poo land where it ends up) of radium 55mm i think. Clamped it all in with enough sticking out the end of the work surface to bend on.

Then the fun bit: Lined the mark on the metal along the pipe and pressed on both sides with heavy pressure, putting the pressure quite close to the line.
To get a decent curve had to move it around forwards and backwards a bit and kept bending until it all looked right.

Still wasn't perfect but screwing it into the wood solved that.

Do start a topic or something so I can see how it goes

Edit: Just been looking at those nice Bulgin buttons but can't see the one I want in a white LED. If anyone has one of these buttons: Are the LEDs swappable? If not, I guess red is next best.

 

[jim_e]

Yeah I been thinking about the button and am just going to hide on round the back for now, may change it in the future.

The screws cost me £1 as a sort of intermediate stage, when I see nicer ones I'll try them out. (I did consider the no-screw method mentioned above but for me it detracted from the simplicity of the design - bracing and stuff sounds way too complex for my woodworking skills)

I've made some drive-bay covers out of wood with same finish as on the side but I'm not sure they look that great, I'll try them out but may end up making aluminium ones instead.

Will post more pics of the additions on sunday, at mates house tonight and wishbone ash gig tomorrow so no time really.

Considering project #2 already, possibly an aluminum/perspex guitar amp. If anyone has any knowledge of speaker/amp design, drop me a line!

Cheers for the support guys


PS. As for cooling, intake fan on the base at the front (any good ideas for raising case up? Legs may ruin style)

 

[jim_e]

Thanks for your ideas.

I like the round wooden feet best at the moment, but I also like the quirkiness of the mirrored curve thing that Nick suggested - maybe in a mirror finish or something, I'll give it a think. (welcome to a live brainstorm!) This has also just given me the idea of refinishing all the aluminium in mirror. ARG! I think that would be bad. Anyway... I'll leave these thoughts to myself for now...

I would take a photo of the backplate, but it looks rubbish. Once I've splattered it with some kind of paint of something I'll let you see

 

[jim_e]

Ahh felt, cracking idea

 

[jim_e]

Feet are made thanks to a hole-saw and some leftover teak, will stick some chair-leg-pad thingies on.

Bits are in! However to turn the thing on I'm having to poke a USB cable end onto the motherboard jumpers

If anybody has a switch (any old one will do, its to be on the back) and/or a thing that will connect to the front_audio pins --> green hole.

Photos taken but need to make the perilous trek downstairs to the mac to get them off the camera so they'll be on later.

 

[jim_e]

I can't stand tidying the workplace mid-job





Loads of room

If your interested:

Q6600 at 3.4ghz
2GB Crucial Ballistix
X1950 with gynormous heatsink
X-fi pro gamer
DS3r

Temps are good, idles at 33 degrees with vcore of 1.3875 (lots of droopy droopy though)