Wooden M-ITX Tower

G

Gravitysucks

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Mar 31, 2010
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After reading the other worklogs here I was hesitant to start a log for this case as it's pretty basic but if nothing else maybe I can get some good suggestions when I run into problems.
I've been looking for a case for an ITX build that would accommodate full size components and still be fairly small. I prefer the tower look over the short wide lan box look and since I really couldn't find anything I decided to build one myself. Turned out to be a lot more involved than I imagined. This is the first time I've dealt with an ITX board, my current desktop is a double case ,2 loop, SLI rig I build a couple of years ago, so I've never really worried about packing thing as tightly together as possible. My first prototype was pieced together out of scrapwood around the 5 major components...motherboard, power supply, DVD drive, video card(going to be a 5770) and harddrives. The outside dimensions ended up being 13 3/8L x 13 3/8H x 7 1/8W not counting the Lian Li extension for the power supply which sticks out of the back 1".

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pretty boring looking huh. kinda looks like a speaker enclosure. power and reset will be on the right under the DVD. USB and audio at the bottom under the fan.

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This box wasn't intended to be any more than something to get an idea of size and how things would go together. (Please excuse the sloppy work) I hadn't intended to run anything in it but I decided to see what kind of temps I might get with it. Needless to say, as soon as the inside of the box started getting warm, the side panels started splitting apart and the top warped as you can see in the photos. They were glued up out of thin strips of 1/8" mahogany scrap and after sanding were only about 2- 2.5mm thick so I wasn't really surprised. The final casesides will be micro-ply with veneer, haven't decided wood species yet, that should be much more temperature stable. Anyway, the temps weren't really much different than I've been getting running the board on my bench.
I've decided that I can shrink the dimensions down about 1/2' in all directions if I used aluminum angle for the frame rather than wood so that will be the next step. I'll also look into using already built drive cages which will save space. If I only go with 2 harddrives instead of 3 there is enough room to fit a dual 92 radiator and res/pump if I decide to go that route, although I need to do some research on what kind of temps the 5770 puts out to see if the loop could handle it.
That's all for now.
 
That looks pretty nice, for made out of scrap wood. That would be great as a home theater PC, and look handsome on the desktop, too. Have you thought about using speaker grill cloth to cover the fan, to complete the speaker look? It would probably be as unnoticed as a subwoofer.
 
Looking at this last picture it looks like its some kind of small subwoofer.
 
Just a quick update.
Not a lot of progress as I'm still waiting on the sacrificial case to arrive so I know the cage sizes before I start cutting the aluminum for the frame.
I did decide to stick with mahogany and spent some time testing finishes. I decided on a dark mahogany stain as it seems to really bring out the grain and also makes it easier to hide any seams.
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I also spent some time roughing out a possible case front with a little detail to kinda break up the boring look that the test box has. I haven't decided if I like it or not but if I do decide to use it I'll carry the detail up over the top.
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Oh, and here's the MB that I'm building the system around. I noticed I forgot to mention any parts in my first post. It's an Intel DH57JG w/ an i3 540 and 4gb of G.Skill Eco. The GTX is being replaced with a 5770
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That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have parts in hand by the middle of next week so I can start moving this project along.
 
I think this Guy is Norm Abrams from new Yankee Workshop.
Who knew he was a closet geek?

Nice work dude, especially the front detail. Your "Rough" work tops my final product any day of the week, and from the pictures, it looks like you have the shop to utilize all your skills.

Nice work!
 
tjwenger said:
I think this Guy is Norm Abrams from new Yankee Workshop.
Who knew he was a closet geek?

Nice work dude, especially the front detail. Your "Rough" work tops my final product any day of the week, and from the pictures, it looks like you have the shop to utilize all your skills.

Nice work!
Click to expand...

Dude, if he is Norm Abrams, that's AWESOME! You make wood-working look so simple.
 
Thanks guys! I appreciate it. Not Norm but I used to be a cabinetmaker for a custom yacht builder so I'm not completely new to woodworking. Now I'm just unemployed and bored. Which is kinda the reason for building a case. Thanks again.
 
Another short update.
My sacrificial case arrived today. It's a Xion 600. It's actually not a bad looking case and surprisingly well built and sturdy considering how thin the metal is. No sharp edges and a nice paint job. It's a real dust, fingerprint, and dog drool magnet though as you'll see in the photos. Here's a few photos of it before it went under the knife, or in this case, drill.

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And here it is after I stripped the parts I'm going to use for the wooden case build and another project.

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Now the fun starts. Hopefully the next few days will be spent laying out the framework, attaching some of this pile of parts to it, and finalizing the design for the wooden shell.
 
This wasn't part of the plan but I decided to look into the possibility of using some of the Xion case frame as part of the framework to build my wooden shell around. I don't have a lot of metal working experience so it was pretty much an experiment. I had to go buy metal cutting blades for my jig saw and a pop rivet gun before I even started. I started out by laying out my cuts with masking tape trying to figure things so I could reuse as many of the rivet holes as possible so the parts would line back up.

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I ended up cutting 4 inches from the height and 5 inches from the length which left me with a frame that was 12 7/8" square by 8" wide. The width is over an inch more than I was planning on but I couldn't figure a way to narrow it frame up without having to add a bunch of braces to keep in together. This is the result after putting everything back together. I sprayed some sandable primer on it so I could see the rough spots better.
Excuse the photo quality. I was rushing as the camera batteries were dying. I'll take some better ones once I finish the painting.

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I realized I might be getting ahead of myself painting the chopped up frame before I knew for sure that things were still going to line up properly so I threw a bunch of parts into it to check. Fortunately everything seems to line up great. Pretty tight between the PSU and the DVD but I'm replacing the PSU with a Sliverstone 450W which is a lot smaller and I also have a single 5.25 bay rack which holds a slim DVD and a 3.5 HD on order so space shouldn't be a problem.

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Namakan said:
I would suggest a filter on that fan if its going in, other than that looks great.
Click to expand...

Actually the box in that picture isn't going to be used for anything, except maybe firewood. I just built it to figure out how small I could make the case and still fit everything into it that I wanted to use. I have metal mesh that I plan on using for the fan openings in the real case.
 
Small update. Spent some time today making a panel to attach the radiator to. I used a scale drawing of a Feser 120 to verify that it was going to fit where I wanted it to go. The Feser was the largest of the radiators I looked at so I should be able to fit pretty much any single 120 in there.

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Since I originally planned to have the radiator in the front of the case and now it exhausting out the side, I've got to go back to the drawing board on the design of the front and sides. That's next, then I can go back to playing with wood.

Here's a couple of pictures of me trying to fix my amateurish metalworking mistakes. Liberal use of Bondo. Guess this now qualifies as a ghetto mod if it didn't already.

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Worked on some design ideas today. One idea I had was cutting louvers into the casesides for the fans instead of using grills or mesh. Did a little experimenting with my trim router with an angle base but since it only cuts a max of 45 degrees from vertical the slats didn't look right. So I designed myself a jig so I could use my Foredom tool with a router bit and cut at 60 degrees.
Just thrown together out of MDF and a piece of 1" ID plastic pipe with 1/8" oak strips as guides
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The handpiece of the Foredom slides in the plastic tube and I feed it a little at a time until I get to the depth I need. I did a test in some MDF scrap and it actually cuts pretty good. A little sanding and it should look fine. I need to adjust things a bit as it doesn't quite cut the slots 120mm. Math error on my part.

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Haven't had a lot of time to work on the project this week but I did receive a couple of goodies from FrozenCPU today.

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The Feser 120x1 fit great so I guess I scaled up the drawing right.

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The slim DVD/HD bracket will need a little work since its meant to be mounted with the face plate exposed and I plan on using a slot loader with nothing but the slot visible.

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The woodworking part of the case has evolved some more. Not surprising since the planning stage of the build never really got beyond "build a case" and I've been winging it ever since. I decided against going with the mahogany I used for the first mock-up since I really didn't have enough large pieces of scrap to do the whole case and getting more would be expensive. Instead I decided to use a combination of cherry and maple which I have a good supply of. This is the start of the buildup of the case front.

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I hopefully will have time to finish the face up and start on the top and sides this weekend. The inlay work takes forever doing it by hand but unfortunately I don't have access to a CNC anymore which could have knocked it out in a tenth of the time.
 
Gravitysucks said:
Actually the box in that picture isn't going to be used for anything, except maybe firewood.
Click to expand...

If you are just going to toss / burn / destroy that initial case, would you consider putting it up for sale? It just looks too pretty to not be used.
 
Very nice work so far. Wish I had that much woodworking skill...
 
Sorry for the lack of updates. Had a minor setback 10 days ago, dislocated a finger changing a tire of all things. Also discovered a broken coil spring on the car in the process so no new computer parts for a few weeks. My hand is almost back to normal size and I can bend my finger some now so hopefully I'll be able to get back to work on the case this weekend.
jedigeorge said:
If you are just going to toss / burn / destroy that initial case, would you consider putting it up for sale? It just looks too pretty to not be used.
Click to expand...
I had a friend tell me the same thing, says I'm too fussy, anyway I told him he could have it if I can fix the crack in the side panel. Sorry.
 
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