Fun with hardware
Now most of the main case bits were assembled I started to look at getting in the mounts for the TARDIS hardware. I started with the motherboard as that really couldn't go in many places other than up the side. I cut 2 pieces that would sit snugly between 2 column posts with an L shaped overlap onto the posts. Marked up the mobo holes and drilled them out for the motherboard risers to go in.
Once the motherboard was positioned I set out the other components to check it would work. I had hoped to make access easy to things like the hard drive, without having to take the entire case apart. That means I need access to both side of the drive to get access to the screws or I hook the hard drive bracket onto the side to make it removable. At the time of writing I haven't decided fully, but I'm likely to mount the hard drive horizontally above the motherboard rather than have a removeable bracket, as I think a bracket may cause some serious vibrational noise. I also had to make sure that the leads I had would connect up neatly. The power supply lead can be tucked under the mother board, but I will need to cut into the motherboard brackets in order to do this.
Ohhh, shut that door
The last bit of external building for the case that needs to be done was for the door for the TARDIS telephone box bit. I got some small hinges from B&Q, and attached the hinge to the door. Then I realised that I wouldn't be able to nail the other bit of the hinge to the case as hole for the door is quite small and doesn't fit a hammer. So, I very carefully cut away behind the door to create a recess, and made a small "beam" to nail the other hinge to. Once done I glued the beam into place. I got a bit over excited with my cutting away the wood and had to stick in a massive amount of filler to hide the gap. I taped a straight edge down one side to make it, err, straight. If I'd have thought about this a bit more I'm sure I could have came up with a better way of having the door opening, and my rushing has caused me some problems. Firstly, working with filler on such a small scale isn't easy, and it won't be straight forward to get sand paper in where I have filled. Secondly, the 2 sides of the hinge hit together meaning it doesn't shut as well as I'd hoped. As the door is on the front of the case it really could ruin the look of the whole thing. As I write this I'm waiting for the filler to dry. I may well have to rip out the door tomorrow and start again.