The PC case I made from wood!

[PatrickHuynh]

Hi everyone!
I posted on these forums a while ago with a fixing dilemma I had, and thanks to you guys, I got enough inspiration for how I could overcome my problem! I just thought I post pictures of what I made and see if you guys like it. I have only ever worked with wood on a small scale, perhaps the size of a small load of bread, so this was a huge learning curve for me and I made lots of mistakes when I was fabricating this case. Thankfully, most of the mistakes are very small and were made on the MDF that lies beneath the veneer, so you can't see them. The big curved thing is purely for aesthetics, and also acts as the left "leg" of the case. The lights you see beneath it are from LEDs that lie between the straight leg and the case itself. The pictures I currently have are okay, however you cannot really see the grain of the curved panel, which is very clearly visible in real life. I intend to take more polished photos and add them to the thread! My main inspiration for creating this case was that nowadays, most computer cases are made to be functional and easy to mass produce- simple aluminium boxes that riveted together. I wanted to step away from this meta, and try and create something that be both an aesthetically pleasing piece of furniture, as well as a piece of technology that is invaluable to society nowadays.

I would love to know what you guys think of my creation!
Patrick

 

[Bodgers]

Looks very stylish - is the curved thing plywood (did you steam that)?

 

[PatrickHuynh]

Looks very stylish - is the curved thing plywood (did you steam that)?

Yes it is! I actually glued several 3mm sheets of ply together in a vacuum bag, like this:

 

[Woodmonkey]

I really like it, a wip would be nice...

 

[PatrickHuynh]

I really like it, a wip would be nice...

Thanks! Is a wip a build log? I didn't intend to upload one initially as I have to finish my coursework by tomorrow and wasn't sure if people would be interested in my product, but if there is interest, I would be more than happy to show you guys my pretty bad woodworking skills :S

 

[Woodmonkey]

Yes wip Work In Progress, always nice to set how stuff is made!

 

[SteveF]

i am computer tech and like your style
a WIP would be interesting

Steve

 

[Mike.S]

I recall your original post. Nice to see the finished product. Excellent job.

 

[custard]

Very nice job. For someone who doesn't have much woodworking experience you've managed to get a lot of things absolutely right,

1. Really tight, clean mitres.
2. Seamless wrap around grain
3. Chamfering the top of the curved red component so that it's parallel with the base
4. Excellent timber selection (although the front panel looks a bit "plywoody" but maybe that's just the photo)
5. The small red brackets that joins the curved section to the main case are well integrated and workmanlike, that's the sort of detail where you could all too easily have gone for a clunky, expedient solution

You should be proud of that.

=D>

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I don't like it much - but well done that man!!

 

[PatrickHuynh]

I recall your original post. Nice to see the finished product. Excellent job.

Hi Mike! I'm surprised to see that someone remembers that post! Thanks.

Very nice job. For someone who doesn't have much woodworking experience you've managed to get a lot of things absolutely right,

1. Really tight, clean mitres.
2. Seamless wrap around grain
3. Chamfering the top of the curved red component so that it's parallel with the base
4. Excellent timber selection (although the front panel looks a bit "plywoody" but maybe that's just the photo)
5. The small red brackets that joins the curved section to the main case are well integrated and workmanlike, that's the sort of detail where you could all too easily have gone for a clunky, expedient solution

You should be proud of that.

Thanks a lot custard! I must admit, those aren't actually mitre joints. I used a dowel jig my dad purchased many, many years ago to fix several pieces of 15mm MDF together, and then veneered the entire thing with Brazilian Rosewood. I would have loved to work with solid wood, however my school simply did not the funds to supply me with enough materials to do this.

I don't like it much - but well done that man!!

Thanks for the reply Phil. Could I ask why you don't like it? For the next part of my project I have to evaluate what I've made and any criticism would be really appreciated!

 

[rafezetter]

I like the shape, and clever use of the curved panel to hide the airflow slits but I'm also not a fan of the overall styling in as much as the 3 different types of wood grain and 4 different colours - having said that however, the actual finish of the fabrication is excellent and as Custard says, definitely something to be proud of and shows promise.

I am curious though - are the photos mounted backwards? Reverse negatives instead of positives ? Or have you made the access panel facing the Mobo - in which case.... your whole system must be mounted upside down - nothing inherantly "wrong" with doing it that way - just... wierd either that or you've mounted it rear facing down.... also a bit wierd, plus the light underneath will highlight all the cabling making it even more obvious - plus plugging / uplugging will be a pita. I really really hope you haven't made the access panel facing the back of the mobo because that will become the reason why you throw the whole thing out the window one day.

Only alternate I can think of is you've made an inner sliding cage mechanism to pull the whole shebang out at once!!!! Which would actually be very very cool (if pretty tricky) as you could add a dvd drive to the machine and it wouldn't show.

How a PC is mounted inside a custom made case is second only in importance to the cooling of the components inside, and something that will ultimately judge it's functionality and make or break the ability to sell such a thing.

Purely in the interest of feedback (as I've seen hundreds of home PC builds / mods as I do it myself for a hobby), I would have used a red led for the glow with red or clear perspex / acrylic as the light emitter, possibly mounted horizontally and inset into the base so it wasn't actually visible at all, unless that is where you have mounted floor intake fans alongside the PSU intake, in which case (haha) you could mount 2 led strips either side - there's nothing to stop you making a PC case wider than the average, my current wood case PC build will be about 500mm wide - or make it the same size as the base and cut out the intakes leaving the rest to emit light. Another tip is that, as you can see, the light emits far more from the perspex edges than the flat sides (it works the same way as fibre optic bouncing light inside until it reasches the end), so to get a deeper more vibrant colour bevel and polish the outward facing edges of the perspex to increase the amount of light transmitted.

I would also have used a push to open latch instead of the finger hole as that will be a source of dust in and sound out.

The plywood edge grain looks a little incongruous to the main case grain, either edgebanding it or solid colouring it may ease that. You can still retroatively fix that by scraping off the varnish and applying.

I'm not sure what varnish you used on the ply side, but it may pay you to spend a little time "flatting" it - wet n dry 400 grit to smooth it out progressing to 600 then 1200 for satin finish or higher still for gloss. A valid woodworking skill to learn, that add's just that little extra touch of class to statement pieces like this.

Otherwise all in all - better than many other user built case mods I've seen - could be the start of something

 

[PatrickHuynh]

Hi rafezetter!

I am curious though - are the photos mounted backwards? Reverse negatives instead of positives ? Or have you made the access panel facing the Mobo - in which case.... your whole system must be mounted upside down - nothing inherantly "wrong" with doing it that way - just... wierd either that or you've mounted it rear facing down.... also a bit wierd, plus the light underneath will highlight all the cabling making it even more obvious - plus plugging / uplugging will be a pita. I really really hope you haven't made the access panel facing the back of the mobo because that will become the reason why you throw the whole thing out the window one day.

Access to the IO panel is indeed on the underside, which was my only option if I wanted to have all sides "natural" wood with no visible ports. It is quite annoying having to rotate the case whenever you set it up, however once it's all set up, I think it looks cool!

Only alternate I can think of is you've made an inner sliding cage mechanism to pull the whole shebang out at once!!!! Which would actually be very very cool (if pretty tricky) as you could add a dvd drive to the machine and it wouldn't show.

I actually contemplated creating something like this as it would give me a lot of cool possibilities with how someone might use the case, however it would have been much more time consuming and because this is school project with lots of deadlines, I chose to simply build it as a normal case. I think I could adapt the design to have something like this though!

Purely in the interest of feedback (as I've seen hundreds of home PC builds / mods as I do it myself for a hobby), I would have used a red led for the glow with red or clear perspex / acrylic as the light emitter, possibly mounted horizontally and inset into the base so it wasn't actually visible at all, unless that is where you have mounted floor intake fans alongside the PSU intake, in which case (haha) you could mount 2 led strips either side - there's nothing to stop you making a PC case wider than the average, my current wood case PC build will be about 500mm wide - or make it the same size as the base and cut out the intakes leaving the rest to emit light. Another tip is that, as you can see, the light emits far more from the perspex edges than the flat sides (it works the same way as fibre optic bouncing light inside until it reasches the end), so to get a deeper more vibrant colour bevel and polish the outward facing edges of the perspex to increase the amount of light transmitted.

Lots of people have actually mentioned using red acrylic, however in this case (no pun intended!), my school only had light blue live-edge acrylic in stock and the store we purchase doesn't do clear, which was really annoying. There are 2 intake fans underneath as well as the I/O port (the insides have been rotated), but as you said, if I were to polish the face of an acrylic layer this would create a really nice glow!

I'm not sure what varnish you used on the ply side, but it may pay you to spend a little time "flatting" it - wet n dry 400 grit to smooth it out progressing to 600 then 1200 for satin finish or higher still for gloss. A valid woodworking skill to learn, that add's just that little extra touch of class to statement pieces like this.

I used a clear Polyurethane varnish, but mainly to protect the wood for now. I do intend to go over it with glass- paper and try and improve how it looks in the near future

Otherwise all in all - better than many other user built case mods I've seen - could be the start of something

Thanks a lot I had to do a lot of things I haven't done before in this project, and am very tempted to start another project once my A levels are over and done with!