Ok, for those just tuning in, this is a new worklog for a build I’ve been working on for several months now. I got some work done recently and was going to post the progress when I realized what a bewildering mess the worklog had become. I had changed the design of the thing several times, done things that weren’t even in the project any more, and just generally made a muddle of the whole thing. So, to make it easier on everyone (and to calm the OCD) I’ve decided to start a new worklog, call it Clockwork vII. (Notice I did not call it Clockwork 2.0? God I hate that.) If anyone wants to slog through the quagmire of my old worklog, feel free.
----- Let's Try This Again -----
Ok, it’s time for another build. This one will be a lot different than my last sleek smooth glowing plexiglass construct. It’s another scratch build, because no matter how I try I seem to be incapable of simply modifying an existing case. In contrast to that last build, this one will be made primarily of wood, with some brass and copper accents. Here is the first inspiration for the case:
The gears from five clock movements I scavenged from various sources. I love gears and cogs, and thought it would be a cool contrast to the machine itself.
This is the initial construction of the case itself. I had originally planned to install the drives as usual, two optical drives stacked horizontally above two hard drives, so I built a wooden “tower” to house them. This has since been phased out, but I think it looks very good in the pic.
I’m using a motherboard tray from an Apevia case that I dissected, with some wooden circles cut to fit the depressions and screwed into brass inserts to hold it in place. (Does that count as a mod, since it’s a major part from an existing case?)
Shortly after I had the drive tower finished I had a turn of mind and decided to mount my hard drives externally on the side of the case. That gave me a lot more room to work, and I didn’t need the wooden drive tower. I also decided to turn the optical drives on their sides, just because they look cool that way. The lens in the center is the cover for the analog temperature gauge that will eventually fit there (also scavenged from the Apevia case.)
Since I did away with the wooden drive tower I made a new cage for the optical drives out of copper pipe.
Turned out pretty well. For the front intake fan I’m using a motorcycle sprocket I picked up on Ebay. I got really lucky with this find, the measurement between the outermost edges of the outermost holes is exactly 120mm.
This build will be what I like to call pseudo-steampunk, mainly because I don’t want to be categorized, but also because I plan to have a couple of more modern elements than are normally found in steampunk work. I plan to get the look mostly from corrosion, making all the metal parts look old and neglected (most steampunk I’ve seen looks old but at least cared-for). Here is my first attempt at aging the front sprocket:
Not too bad, but not exactly what I wanted either. It’s too uniform, and actually looks more like leather than rust. It’s a start.
It took me a while to find hard drive enclosures that were in the plain simple industrial style that I wanted, but I finally came across these:
Perfect. I bored out countersunk holes in the bottoms and mounted them with screws into brass inserts on the right side of the case. Very solid.
Don't they look pretty there?