Project : Far Cry

[Zero_Limits]

MDF, if I remember correctly, stands for Multi-Density Fiberboard, which is basically a dense chipboard type of plywood. You should be able to walk into any hardware store and ask for it.

At my work, we use MDO, which is Multi-Density Overlay, basically a very dense and durable laminate board. I get scraps and such from time to time, which is great because it is quite expensive wood, and very useful.

What he said :p

Sub boxes are normally made out of the 18mm thickness though.

[RangerDanger]

awesome thanxs guys.

[Zero_Limits]

Well I finally got to do some more work on the actual case. At the moment I am pretty happy as I finally know pretty much exactly how it’s all going to go together. Did a couple of sketches at work today buy the a bit small and not the best so I wont bother posting them.

Luckily for me my brother works at an aluminum joinery place so I managed to get some little bits of angle aluminum cut. More specifically 20 of them, all 25x25x1.6mm angle and 20mm wide. What took them probably 10 minutes would have been a minimum of an hours work for me.

Didn’t take to many photos of this process as its all fairly basic. I used a tap to make a thread in the aluminum so I didn’t have to fiddle around with nuts.

This is the proper T handle for the M4 tap I was using.

And this is what I used

Now I don’t recommend using the battery drill, I only used it because I’m lazy and it was only 1.6mm aluminum, if it was any thicker I would have used the proper tools.

These are the bolts I plan to use. They were all left over from my last mod (Blue Flame) after I took it apart. I didn’t realize I had used so many while I was building it.

Here are a couple of pictures of the joints with angle. I am not worried about the outside looking bad at this stage as most of it will be covered in the end.

Here is a photo of the whole case all bolted together so far.

That’s all for now but there should be more in the next couple of days. 86 days left till the event now… time to get moving :p

[Zero_Limits]

Small update, but quiet a lot of progress.

Didn’t get too much done on the case over the long weekend, only got to work on it tonight for a few hours.

Did some work on the side panels so the case is no longer just a cube. I didn’t take to many pictures as I went for this stage as there is not a whole lot to show.

Here is a pic of the bits I cut for each panel

I then used some thick CA to glue them to the side panel and some thin CA in each corner to hold it quickly so I didn’t have to hold it for to long. The thin also soaks into the wood and adds a bit of strength.

I was a little worried about the strength but thanks to a foolish mistake I got to see just how strong the glue was. Took quiet a bit to break the join again and now I just remembered I actually have some CA debonder, would have been handy to remember that at the time :p

Here are a few pics of what it currently looks like.

And just for fun a pic of one of my mistakes I blame the New Zealand educational system for not teaching us to add without calculators. Hmmm maybe not, it was just a stupid mistake caused by me not thinking properly before I cut. Just proves the old measure twice cut once.

That’s all for now. 80 days left but with that small amount done I am much happier and am pretty confident I will have it ready on time

comments.....

[Zero_Limits]

Update time…. Finally

After days of doing absolutely nothing to the case which can be blamed on nothing apart from me bring lazy I have finally made some more progress.

Started By modifying the side panels. As you can see from this pic they are solid in the little triangle area. I wanted that to be cut out for a side window. So I did this….

Roughly marked out the wood underneath.

Drilled holes in the corners for the jigsaw blade.

As you can see I didn’t take my time with the jigsaw at all. The results of that are rough edges and un-straight lines.

That’s ok though because the next step was to spend a bit of time with the router to neaten things up and make them all straight.

I also started gluing all parts from my previous post together. I was a little worried about strength where the side panels joined the front curved part so I added some fiber glass. I was to lazy to mix up resin so I just used some thick CA and then thin to wet that parts that weren’t quiet covered with the thick. The result was a much stronger but very ugly join. That doesn’t matter though as this part will be covered by something else later.

Added a layer of finer 2oz cloth to try make it look a little prettier. Turns out that didn’t help at all, it did make it a little smoother though. As I said though it will be covered later anyway.

Add some CA

What it looked like after that from a distance.

Next I cut out some more bits for the side panel

Then stuck them on.

That’s the progress so far. Here are a few pics of where it is at currently.

More updates soon!

[Zero_Limits]

Very small update which is not really an update because I haven’t actually done any work on the case. Some of my water cooling gear arrived yesterday

Now I know everyone has probably seen the gear before, but I’m going to post pics anyway because its my first lot of water cooling gear and I’m excited lol I got this first lot off a member of some forums over here in NZ (Thanks hobogoblin!!!), Paid $130 NZ for the lot. Should have a Pump coming soon again thanks to hobogoblin for the deal! Also in the next few days I should be getting a 5inch bay res… but that’s not really for this case. All the gear will just be going in my normal everyday case until this one is complete.

Photo time

One Copper TDX Block for Athlon64 754/939/940

When I got the block it was a bit dull and not pretty on the bottom, I didn’t take pics as I was to excited to get the gear and went straight out to the garage to make it shiny lol Here are the results. (so I did sort of do a little work)

One Xflo 2 bip radiator. Didn’t quiet get the idea of how massive this things was even though ive seen them before :p Wont be easy fitting it into my normal case but that’s noting a jigsaw and dremel wont fix!

Finally, all the gear together, you can also see a fillport, t line and a couple of elbows. Once again thanks to hobogoblin, real great guy, he thought he took a little long to get it sent out to me (which I wasn’t worried about… and I told him) but he still decided to throw in the fill port and t line for free! Will be buying him some Redbulls at the LAN

All for now, must get moving on the rest of the case though. Only 71days till the event.

[Blandclock]

So far this looks excelent, the only bit that I don't like is the fact that the ramps (I'm asuming that, thats what the "side panels" are meant to be) don't plateau. Unfortunately it's probably a bit to late to fix that but it still looks excelent.

[jdbnsn]

Looking great, that shape the box has taken on is very interesting. I can't wait to see the results.

[Zero_Limits]

Thanks Guys appreciate the comments

Blandclock...

There is a reason for the ramp bits. They will be there in the end but you wont see them and wont look much like they currently do. This should be pretty clear with the next update, I just have to get some more blue foam.

Yeah the side panels aren’t exactly side panels anymore. It’s sort of like a desktop case where the whole top and sides and in the case front are one.


Nothing on TV tonight so I should get some more work done

[Blandclock]

Aha, so i was to fast to think that they were just a decorative detail.