Water + Wood

Basic Idea behind this case...

I recently moved into the world of watercooling, for temperature, noise reduction, and the Wow factor. Now, with my current case, my rad is mounted externally, which takes up a lot of space, and with its mounting, ends up in a slightly choked for airflow area... which cant be good for temps. What I really wanted, was for my case to be sleek, elegant, and QUIET! I made the initial mistake of not w/c'ing my 7800GTX, not quite realizing how much of a noise source it was. In this project, I will be putting a block on it.

Now, whats the easiest way to have internal watercooling, without spending tonnes of money on a beautiful aluminum case like a stacker, or TJ07, and still retain the size of a mid tower case? Build it yourself was my only conclusion, after searching for a case that would be even remotly easy to install a 2x120mm rad up front. What to build it out of? Aluminum was way too expensive, plus its a lot harder to cut, than wood. So, off I went to the building center, and got myself some wood.

Basic design will include a removeable motherboard tray, removeable PSU tray, Motherboard above PSU (a-la newer lian-li's) Front mounted 2x120mm Rad, with fans on intake, a single 5.25" bay for my DVD burner, a custom resevoir, matte black finish, green lighting and green water.

So far, I have made the frame for front and back, the attaching pieces are cut out but not joined yet, as the rest of it needs to sit first. The wood glue I am using can sustain 3,500lb of pressure, so I figure im good for strength...

Anyways, on to what youve all been waiting for: Pics! Id say they're fairly self explanatory...












Current challenges -- How to attach side pannels. This is the biggest thing im having trouble with.

-Cameron

perhaps you could use a "cam-lock" type setup, where you would use a phillips or something to back out the screw, which remains in the side panel...the cam itself would be flush mounted into the frame, or "case"

thats for the side panels i mean.

good lookin pics so far too.

Interesting Idea, but id like to have the pannels slide off, somewhat like a normal case pannel. Ive got a basic idea in my head, where on the bottom pannel of the case, the edges are turned up, so the pannel has channels that go overtop these turned up edges -- slide in, slide out.

-Cameron

How did you do the corners on the frame? Pegs, screws, nails, nothing but glue, ... what?

You might be able to rig up some drawer hardware to make the sides slide on/off.

looks nice so far.

thewhiteguy said:

How did you do the corners on the frame? Pegs, screws, nails, nothing but glue, ... what?

You might be able to rig up some drawer hardware to make the sides slide on/off.

Click to expand...

It was going to only be glue, because the glue stated that it could withstain 3500lb of pressure. Figured that was BS when it really wasnt holding together all that well, so I added some 1" thin wood nails, and wood filler to fill in the cracks. Its holding together quite well, although it isnt as sturdy as I had hoped... The front / top / bottom pannels should help with this though, as the frame is really only there to provide something for the pannels to attach too.

Il have more pics tomorrow.

-Cameron

Wood glue is extremely strong (the wood will break before the glue joint), but only if the two pieces are clamped together nice and tight while it dries for >= 24 hours.

More pictures!

Even with the nails in the joins, wood glue between the joins, and wood filler to smooth it all out, it wasnt feeling very sturdy last night. Well, give it 12 hours, and what a difference it made! Fairly sturdy, less wobley, and a lot closer to what I was shooting for... Pics ahoy!











Still working on a way to attach the side pannels... current train of thought is to pick up some kind of rails, like what are used to attach shelves to a desk, or something along those lines. (thx thewhiteguy) Il check out the hardware stores and see what theyve got to offer.

-Cameron

Is it me or that frame is a little crooked? Use a leveler to check.

Tis just camera angle, leveler says its fine ^_^

-Cameron

TrueChaos said:

Click to expand...

Unless there is some sort of phenomenon in your room that's bending light, that's crooked, but to be expected when trying to clamp smallish pieces of wood together

Either way, decided it wasnt strong enough for my liking, so instead of using a bunch of small pieces like that, the ends will be cut out of a board, so the corners will be very strong. Only weak points this way will be the beams connecting them, but I think that if both ends are very stable, making the 4 connecting beams level will be a lot easier.

-Cameron

TrueChaos said:

Either way, decided it wasnt strong enough for my liking, so instead of using a bunch of small pieces like that, the ends will be cut out of a board, so the corners will be very strong. Only weak points this way will be the beams connecting them, but I think that if both ends are very stable, making the 4 connecting beams level will be a lot easier.

-Cameron

Click to expand...

You might be best off making the top, bottom, front and back all solid (with MDF it will be cheap) then cut out whatever you need to. With all of that solid you could drive in some nice long screws and it will be very very strong.

At the very least put braces in the corners.

Well after deciding that the current frame really wasnt all that strong, and actually came out slightly crooked, I decided to remake it. Now, the key idea for strength was to have the front and back pannels be all one piece, so they would flex less. Its hard to describe how it was done, except that wood glue and 3" long screws were used to hold it all together this time... So, Pics!







...Oh the mess we make...



And the one tool to rule them all! (ok, I was just playing with my camera focus settings...)



Comments welcome!

-Cameron

So you cut the front and back out of solid pieces? Unless you made some extremely good cuts I don't see it being all that much straighter than before.

Front / back are from solid pieces.

The support beams are exactly the same length, as they were cut as one piece, sanded perfectly flat, and then cut into 4. Cuts are straight... This is what lines are for, + a little bit of sanding. Plus, it is a lot more stable.

-Cameron

UPDATE!

PSU plate almost completely finished, just need to cut out the vent part...



Rest of back pannel (This is where PCI slots, and rest of motherboard connectors will come out)



Hehe.. the modding mascot is in that one

Front pannel was also cut and attached, with screws going from inside the frame into the pannel, so you cant see them.







Ive decided that the side pannels will simply be attached using screws from the top pannel. The plan is to use 2-3" long screws, countersunk so they sit flush with the top pannel. The screws will be painted black, so they will fit right in, and hopefully only be visible if your looking for them.

The rad + fans will be mounted by drilling 4 holes through the front pannel (2 corners per fan attached to front pannel) countersunk, and then filled in with a wood filler so that all you have is 4 bolts comming through the front pannel, but nothing visible head on.

DVD drive -- Much the same way as the rad, except that I will use 2 2-3" wood screws, onto wood beams for the drive to be screwed into. Not sure how strong this will be, currently considering other mounting options.

2 3/4" holes will be drilled in the top pannel for tubing for the res.

Plan for the res is 2 acrylic / clear pvc cylinders, 2-2.5" ID, joined near the top, with inlet and outlet near the back, angled so that they are slanted up towards the front of the case. Some type of fill cap will sit on the front of each cyliner.

This is all for now...

Oh, the mascot demanded another picture...



Comments welcome!

-Cameron

Couple things

1: It looks to me like your first frame is made of solid wood, while the new frame you made out of a solid sheet is simply particle board. Believe me, if you can reinforce the solid wood frame, it would be a zillion times stronger than particle board.... heck paper is stronger than particle board. Something most people don't realize is that pound for pound, solid wood is stronger than steel.

2: As for your side panels, why not use some simple keyhole brackets to attach your side panels? I would think that 1/4 sheet good would be plenty enough for your panels, and these little brackets would be a nice way to give you removable side panels.

http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPRES.exe?PARTNUM=893-459&LARGEVIEW=ON
(product numbers 893-459, and 119-957) If you turned them sideways they would make an excellent way to slide your side panels on, you would still need some kind of thumbscrew on the back side to keep the panel secure just like a regular pc case, but those should do the job just fine. You can pick them up at Lowe's, they sell them in the slide out trays in the hardware dept.

I think your work looks great so far Cameron... ignore the haters that nitpick to try and make themselves seem important and objective...I actually understand the anamolies on straight lines a still picture can render..its a small ratio of perspective and relativity...

What do you plan on making the side panels out of? smoked plexiglass would be cool...

Well, ive got a lot done since the last update, pictures will come tomorrow, as I just got home from work and am about to collapse.

Top / bottom pannels are done, attached to the case, and make things 100x stronger again. I can sit on top of the case, no side pannels on, without any warping, bending, or twisting, so if it can hold my weight, im definatly not worried about streanght.

Side pannels are currently cut out, and fitted on to the case. Attaching methods are still unknown, but at this point im leaning towards magnets. The pannels fit snugly enough, that they will stay on unless the case is bumped, so a few well placed magnets should do the trick, and still allow the case to sit flat.

Side pannel window -- Im thinking just a basic square, im not looking for a fancy window design.

As I have said before, if this all turns out well I may build another with something like white pine. The only problem with that, is that 4'x4'x1/2" pine is 40$, compared to 8$ for the particle board. However, it would be a lot easier the seccond time around, and there are a few cuts I would definatly use a different tool for (This has all been done with a jigsaw -- as it turns out, my dad had one of those massive handheld spinning blade deals, which cuts straight lines one hell of a lot easier, simply due to its size there is less imperfections in the cut.)

Either way, updates tomorrow.

-Cameron

Just a suggestion - more like my viewpoint on wood.

Hard wood sucks to work with, but can produce a computer case with more character and expression than metal. The wood I'm talking about isn't particle board. I'm talking about solid wood.

If you are going to be taking the effort to pull togeather a wooden case, use beautiful wood. Ebay has a decent source of beautiful yet inexpensive hard woods. I'd suggest something like redwood, maple, or walnut. I'd personally love to see a beautiful case made of a combination of figured walnut and maple (I hope I have the time to build one some day myself).

Just search ebay for 1/2" thick (approximately) slabs of hard wood and cut them to size to fit your case!

If the plan was to leave the wood visible, stained etc, then I would definatly have gone with a more solid wood.

However, As I plan to paint the case black, and particle board is easily able to support the weight, it is, for this project, more economical. Especially with this being the first one, and slight design flaws being corrected throughout the build.

After ive got this one done, if it turns out really well, I may make another one, exactly the same, except using real wood, and staining it to produce a nice finish. As it stands, there really isnt any point to getting a nice wood like you listed and painting it black -- when a much cheeper material is more than strong enough for what I need.

Again, if I were going to stain, and not paint the case, I would definatly have used something other than particle board.

-Cameron

...Well, if this is just a prototype to work out the details... great!

Otherwise i would avoid using particle board, it will fail you when you least expect it (think Murphy's law). MDF gets my vote, even if you will spray-paint it.

As for the case so far, I like what you are doing.

Well, heres the update I promised was comming yesterday -- got home to no power, damn storm interfering with my modding!

Anyways, Side pannels cut out...



General case structure, top / front / bottom all cut out / attached



Now the one that was easier than I'd imagined it would be -- attaching the motherboard tray to the back pannel piece. Lined em up, drilled some holes, added wood glue, screwed in the screws, and filled in the screw holes with wood filler, and presto:







And... Pannel just sitting in its spot:



Il be doing some more tonite, possibly another update.

-Cameron

Well, after a lot of thought and consideration, Il be doing another rebuild of the case.

Not for any major design descisions mind you -- Mainly because there are a few minor changes id like to make, with the rear pannel, and a few lengths were cut slightly off, but all in all it came together really well. However, the model out of particle board provided a really good learning experience, as this is my first time working with anything related to wood. Learning from that, I feel that another runthrough will yield much better results -- this time out of pine. Stay tuned, il be picking up 2x 2'x4'x1/2" pine boards tomorrow.

-Cameron