Custom Wood Watercooling Case III

[voigts]

I have been building this computer case now for about a month, and have been posting a piece by piece build log on OCforums. I have decided to reword and post the log here on XS also as there are a lot of build logs posted here, but not many that involve a made from scratch case. Maybe in some way this will be a help to others here who would endeavor to undertake a project like this. This is the third wood case that I have made. The entire background and discussion of developing the model for this case can be found HERE, as well as the log for the second wood case which I am currently still using.

As anyone knows who watercools, cases designed for air take a lot of messing with to try to adequately adapt to water. This initially is what made me want to build my own case so that I could make the case to fit my setup, and to fit the desk compartment where it calls home. I have been very pleased with the second case I have built. It has served me well. However, there are a several improvements I have wanted to make to its design, and also, I am ready for a change.

Although wiring is well hidden and managed, I want a way to be much more easily accommodate wiring as with my current case, it just barely fits in the space I allotted for it. This makes adding anything a bit cumbersome. I also wanted to get away from a top mounted radiator, and make the setup very easy to fill and bleed. In the appearance department, I want to get away from the current more “boxy” look and go for a more furniture, curved, fancy look.

I got a lot of great input while planning this build from a number of people on OCforums, several of which are also here on XS. I have spent probably 50+ hours working in Google Sketchup modeling this build. Being able to 3D model really allows you to fine tune your ideas and fit them together. Spending the time planning makes building much, much easier, and the end result much better. Also, modeling allows you to also incorporate how to actually construct the case and plan how to fit things together.

I started out with the base design that I used on my current case.






The problem I had is that I wanted to get away from the top mounted radiator, but a PA120.3 is so large that it is hard to position. I modeled several ideas for a bottom mounted setup, but each one of these presented problems that just didn’t work for me.






So then I played around with ideas still with a top mounted rad, but nothing really resolved my issues any better than the current setup. I came across a Magicool quad rad by accident on the performance-pcs website while looking at other stuff, and the shape of the rad gave me an idea. I saw that if I moved the motherboard over, the rad could be mounted behind it. I read reviews on the Magicool quad here on XS, and none of them were very good. So I next looked at Swiftech MCR rads. They are very thin and yet perform well, and are much smaller than the PA rads. I looked at going with 2x220 rads, but with there only being a $6 difference between the dual and triple, I opted for designing a way to incorporate 2xMCR320 rads.

After looking around online for design ideas, I came up with this columns and clover idea, having seen the clover in some 1920s furniture and architecture.



However, the clover would block some of the front of the new 4” dia res I planned on making. I used a 5” res in the current build, but wanted to go down to 4” so as to not make things quite so tight on the face. Blocking the front of the res wouldn’t really matter if the face was just plain clear, but after a thread I posted on OC to see if anyone did any laser cutting so that I could get the front and back for the res cut, Dennis from Danger Den contacted me and not only cut the pieces for me, but also had the laser etch a custom graphic which I emailed him.

[voigts]

As I posted my ideas in the previous posts and got ideas from several folks on OC, this migrated into a bit of an old radio look, and after much tweaking, finally morphed into the current model (specific thanks to Clocker2-also on XS, Jas, and Quietice among others).





I spent some time (finally) organizing my workshop so that building this, and anything else for that matter, would be much easier. We have a 16’ x 18’ shed that we bought from a guy and tore apart and moved to our yard some time ago. I still have work to finish on it (mainly siding), and I hadn’t really taken the time to setup my work space. So I just built a 4’x2’ wall fold down table to give me room to use my power tools without clogging up my workbench space. The right side of the shed is being used for storage.



I recently added a large shelf, and got a shelf cabinet from a neighbor moving out. I added peg board, and put all my tools up. I am thrilled to finally get stuff organized. I can’t say how much time I have wasted looking for stupid stuff like my tape measure while trying to build something. This drove me nuts when I made my current case. I also had the problem of trying to keep the area clean enough to work as I had everything on the workbench while trying to use power tools because there was no place else to put them. This will greatly streamline the building process.

[voigts]

So after doing all of this organizing, I finally started cutting wood. I had to recut the bottom piece. I was going to use a 1/4" slot cutting bit on my router to cut out the 1/8" side panel grooves. I tested it out on a scrap piece of wood and it worked fine. However, when I went to groove the edge of the poplar, it chipped off a long chunk of the edge. So I bought another 2', recut the piece, and used my table saw instead.





I also made a fancy little return to take water from one rad to the next. I wanted a barbed fitting, so I took two 3/8”NPTx1/2” barbs, ground down the threads and wrench hex, cut the barbs shorter, and soldered them into a ½” copper elbow and street elbow. I then painted the thing black. This provides me with a compact, minimally restrictive return piece.

[voigts]

In the design of this, I decided to use dowel rods to joint the butt ends so that they would be hidden but strong connections. However, when using dowel rods, the problem presents itself of how to get the holes drilled for the rods in exactly the same positions on both joining pieces. I brainstormed a bit and decided to simply use a scrap piece of 1/8" acrylic, measure evenly spaced hole locations, drilled small 1/16" pilot holes in the piece, and then lined it up the same way on both the face and end to be joined. I used a forstner bit (since it has a very sharp tip) to line up on the small pilot holes I drilled in the wood from the template and drilled the holes on one of the ends. Even though I have a syringe, I had to come up with a good way to make sure I can get the Tap Plastics solvent where I needed it once I joined the pieces. I needed to find some kind of long, very thin tube (probably metal) that I could feed solvent through and yet easily reach the end being glued.





I mentioned that Dennis from DangerDen responded to a thread I wrote to see if anyone on OC did any laser cutting. He said he would be glad to help me out with this. I wanted to get the end pieces for the new res laser cut as it is nearly impossible to cut round ends well by hand. But everyplace online I could find only does large quantity projects. I emailed Dennis the dimensions from where I modeled it in Sketchup. Dennis also offered to laser etch any design that I wanted into the end. So I came up with a globe graphic, and emailed it to him. I was eagerly anticipating getting this in.

I was like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar when I opened up his package. The design looks so sweet. I ordered 1' of 4" dia 1/4"walled cast acrylic for this res from Mcmaster. Here are the pieces just held together out of the box.





The picture doesn't really do it justice as Dennis inverted the image and laser etched it onto the inside of the acrylic so that the smooth side is on the outside, and the image is slightly recessed with the edges being beveled. It gives it a real 3d look to it. I am so floored at how this looks.

I cut the 4" dia acrylic tubing with my table saw for a 4" long piece, and sanded the edges nice and flat. BTW, if you ever plan on making a res, don't machine sand any edge that you are going to glue. If you heat up the edge while sanding, it will craze (crack) when you solvent weld it. Some people use power sanders at very low rpms, but I have found that sanding by hand works best. You want to make sure that the tube ends have no sawblade marks or blemishes AT ALL, otherwise you will get bubbles in those spots when you solvent weld it. I also used a 3/8"NPT tap to make the threads for the barbs in the back and the top. I hate tapping holes. It took me about an hour just to tap those three holes.

[voigts]

I got the res welded together. I used Tap plastics solvent, which is just like Weld-On #3. I cut the acrylic tubing with a table saw, and then sanded the edges smooth by hand.

I use blue painters tape to seal the joint to be glued to both hold it together and to keep the solvent from leaking everywhere. BEFORE you weld anything, drill and tap your barbs holes. Otherwise, the shavings are impossible to get out of the res.



I have found that when you solvent weld, you want to use a syringe as it gives you very exact control of the solvent flow without dripping. It doesn't take much of this stuff to do the job. I was looking for a good way to get the solvent down into the other end once one end was on. I had this idea, and got this small brass tubing from ACE hardware. It worked perfectly.





I am very pleased with the result. This is the best res I have ever made, and the seams came out much better than any other res I have made and have no bubbles.

[voigts]

I got all of the sides cut out, and drilled the holes for the dowel rods. On the long pieces, I used a drill attachment to help keep the holes straight.







I got the hole in the top cut out, and cut out the filter insert for the top. It took me a while to sand the pieces to get them to fit. I needed to get a detail sander though as using a Dremel to try to sand the pieces is problematic, and of course my regular sander won't fit in there.





I want the top piece to be removable to allow easy access to the wiring area.

[voigts]

I broke my last scroll saw bit the other day while cutting out the top, so I started working on the motherboard tray. I must say that it is well worth the $25 to use a Lian Li removable tray from Performance-pcs. The way this tray is put together makes it very easy to make. I don't want to use the metal back as it isn't that strong by itself, and with this case, the MB tray has to support itself since the tray isn't bolted to the case, only the back is. I used some 3/16" polycarbonate for this as it is very strong and doesn't readily flex. I cut a piece to fit under the metal tray, drilled the holes in the poly to match the metal tray, and drilled out the rivets holding on the rear PCI and ports bracket and matched the holes. I'll rivet the PCI backplate to the poly, and then cut a rear poly piece to rivet to the PCI backplate and then to the rear of the case.



I also started on the radiator mount.

[voigts]

I managed to get the inset and the piece for the front cut. I took it nice and slow so that the cuts would be as on my lines as possible. I mentioned that I realized that I needed to get a detail sander as there is just no way to sand the insides of these pieces well with just a dremel.



I went to Harbor Freight tools, and then to Walmart. I remembered seeing something in Walmart before. I looked at their sanders, and I bought a Black and Decker Zone Mouse sander. I had a $50 gift card that I had been hanging on to in my wallet, so I figured that $40 for this was a good use for it.



I kind of debated as to whether this would really work, and I must report that it works far better than I anticipated. I was able to sand smooth and straight every little edge with this thing. The finger attachments are what make this worth it. With them, you can get into all but the tiniest cracks and curves. I also was able to sand the pieces so that they fit together very well, but have a gap so that once stain is applied, the pieces can still be put together. If you sand them so that they just fit before finishing, you won't be able to put them together once finished.

I am going to take the DVD drive out of my current rig and trace the wood faceplate I am using onto the wood so that I can cut a very close hole for the DVD that will match the wood faceplate. I still have to drill the holes for the switches and LED lights also.

I also got my 3/8"NPT x 1/2" black fittings in from Petras, and I got my 1/4" round nose router bit for the flutes on the columns. I cut the threads of the plastic barbs to 1/4" so that they just go through the acrylic which makes draining on bottom and bleeding on top much easier.

[voigts]

I got the USB port mounted. This little bugger took me quite a while to get mounted. I used a small USB/firewire card I got from Directron a while back, and I dremeled off the firewire port since I never use it.





I had to make the holes for the power switches and power and HD leds. For the switch, I had to drill a 1" hole about 3/8" deep from the back and then drill another hole inside of it 3/4" dia. This way the switch will fit through and I can get on the nut to hold it since the threads are only about 1/2" deep. I got these switches from MNPCTECH.com, and they are the only place online that I have found these kind of switches reasonably priced.



I measured and did the same 2 hole trick for the fillport. And while I am at this point, let me mention that forstner bits are much better to work with for these kinds of holes. I have used spade bits before, and although they work, the forstner bits center much better and leave a perfectly clean hole. I am pleased as the fillport and res lined up perfectly.



I also got the vent and fan holes cut out in the bottom.

[voigts]

I made a fan mount. The fan is of course 1" thick, while the wood is 3/4" thick, leaving 1/4" of fan either sticking out of the bottom or top. It took me 3 tries to get this finally right. I used 1/2" wood, cut out the fan hole, and very carefully used a router with table to ream out the underside 1/4" deep to accommodate the fan. This way the fan doesn't stick out of the bottom of the case, and it has a nice mount. I probably spent 1 1/2 hours or more just on this fan mount.





I started routing the face and edges. I used my table saw to clamp everything to, and made a kind of jig to route with. After trying the Roman Ogee and the 1/4" roundover, I settled on the roundover down about 1/16" to make a nice rounded edge and line. It only cuts 1/4" deep, which is perfect given that the front insert and top insert are 1/2" thick and allow for 1/4" to be showing on the front and top.

[voigts]

I drilled dowel holes to join the two front pieces together.





I had to however ream one side out as the front didn't line up the way I wanted it to. It worked out though, and I will use 3/8" tapered plugs for the dowel holes on the inside of the front piece.

This is what the front pieces together look like.



And I went ahead and glued the front pieces together.



I made my first real goof however. Not thinking about how it is assembled, I routed the front edge of the top piece instead of the front edge of the arched front most piece. I had to cut off 1/4" in the length of the top and bottom pieces (which is no problem). I also had to adjust the res fillport position to get it to line up which took a bit of work. However, I also had to take 1/4" off the height as well because I routed the back edge of the front piece to match so that at least the mistake would be symmetrical without thinking that I could just cut the 1/4" off and be done with it
I hate mistakes. They cost so much time.

[voigts]

Here is a pic of the mistake. I routed the top piece instead of the front of the arched front piece without taking the time to think about how it all fits together. My wife thought it might work to just route the backside of the front piece to match, but I just couldn't live with the result.





So after looking at everything, what I decided to do was to cut down the all pieces by 1/4" and elongate the dowel holes on the corners. It makes the dowels less secure, but it allowed me to cut out the mistake and re-route just the front edge. It took me about 2 hours to do this.



This did however throw off the fillport placement by 1/4". So what I am going to do is to drill a 1 1/2" dia hole 1/4" deep centered 1/4" back from the current hole (which will encompass the current 3/4" dia fillport hole), and just insert a 1 1/2" circle cut out of 1/4" thick trim stock, and mount the fillport in the trim stock circle.

Here is what I have now:



And here is what I am going to do:

[voigts]

I finished putting together the radiators mount.



I got this done so that I could dry fit the radiators mount and the MB tray so that I can mark where to cut in the back piece.

[voigts]

I also fixed the issue with the fillport being 1/4" off due to shortening the top. I used a small piece of wood wedged into the existing hole so that I could put a compass there and draw the new 1 3/4" hole 1/4" back from the center of the current hole. I clamped it down, drilled the 1 3/4" hole down 3/8", then changed bits and drilled the needed 1" hole for the threads. Per a suggestion, I recessed it a bit to match the other items on the case.



I then started a 1 3/4" hole with a circle cutter, stopped in mid cut and drilled the 1" hole for the middle, and then put back in the circle cutter to finish cutting the "doughnut" for the fillport.

[voigts]

I got the back piece cut out for the MB tray. I decided to attach the PCI backplate directly to the wood instead of making a rear acrylic panel. I did this because by mounting it onto the wood directly, the screws for the PCI cards are clear to get to. If I made an acrylic back panel as in my current setup, the screws would have been hard to get to since the MB is much closer to the side of the case.

Anyway, I glued the case together. I'm glad I bought some more clamps at Harbor Freight while they were on sale. I used 4-3’ clamps, 4-12" clamps, and 4-8" clamps.





I used an L square while clamping to help with squareness. It isn't perfectly square, but the front side is only about 1/16” out while the back is right on the money. It isn’t enough to be noticeable.

I spent a few hours today tweaking and doing final edge sanding. I also worked on the most noticeable of the router marks. I think it looks a lot better.



At Clocker2's suggestion so as to match the grain of the front, I remade the DVD face. I used a piece from the same panel I cut the front out of and matched it as best as I could. It isn't perfect, but with part of the grain slanted, I did the best I could. I think it matches much better however than the plain cover I had made.



I saw a thread on Slickdeals for a Corsair 650-tx PSU for $77AR. It has extra long cables which I will need. I could use my current Antec Trio 650w, but I did a lot of splicing and cable lengthening, and so I think it will be better to sell the PSU along with my current case so that it will be a plug-and-play deal.

After reading the fans fans fans thread here on XS thoroughly, I bought 4 more Yates from Petras to go with the 4 I had already ordered. I didn't know that there is such a difference between the Yates that Petras sell and those that everyone else sells. This way I will be using all Petras yates on the rads.

[voigts]

I made a new "V" this morning as the old "V" was 3/4" thick, while this case needs one 3/8" thick.





I bought this polyester mesh at a fabric place. I am going to try to dye it either a brown or tan of some sort to use for the fabric. I would like to use speaker cloth, but I looked at stuff like that and it doesn't breathe.

[voigts]

I got the columns done. I was going to do 3 - 1/4" flutes, but after I did the side ones, there just isn't enough room for a middle one, so I just went with 2 flutes on each side. These buggers were a lot of work. They aren't perfect, but they turned out very good.

Here is gluing down one side.



A few pics.







I started working on the top area wiring box.

[voigts]

I got the side panels made and the threaded inserts drilled and placed in the insets for the side panels. Cutting the back piece was a real pain. Fortunately, I found some special plastic/alu jig saw blades that worked great. I would never have been able to cut the area out for the rads without it as the acrylic would have shattered. I had to go nice and slow making the cuts. I will screw the rads on the four corners to the side panel.



I got the top wiring box made and the front side box also. I had to join two 1/4" pieces together to go across the top. I used 3/8" square poplar rod to make pieces to screw the box panels into so that there are no mounts showing. The PSU in the pics is just my elcheapo so that I could get dimensions. It doesn't look like much, but just that top box took several hours to make.



The side panels of the box screw into the small 3/8" square pieces in the top and also to the bottom panel with #4 wood screws.



I cut out and glued the DVD/HD mount. I used 3/16" polycarbonate which is much slower to glue than plain acrylic, so I cut two 5 3/4" pieces of wood with my compound mitre saw and used them to clamp to so that the box is square.



I also got the case feet cut out and screwed on. I just recessed and used 1 1/4" drywall screws to mount them to the bottom.



I got my Corsair PSU in, and it is sweet. I'll have to do some cable lengthening though, particularly on one SATA power cable and probably also the PCI-E cable. I also got a set of Iandh’s 8800GT black ram sinks in from Petras, and I have to say that they are sweet. I'm glad I grabbed a set. No more thermal tape!

[voigts]

I got the DVD and HDs mount finished. I went back and forth as to whether to make it out of acrylic or wood. I wanted to go with acrylic for its strength, and that being clear it is a lot easier to drill the HD mounting holes. So what I did was made the box out of acrylic and made a wooden top for it.

This wood top for the HD/DVD box was a real pain to make. I tried just gluing it together but it simply wouldn't hold. So I had to drill holes and use screws to hold it together.

Here is the acylic box with HD holes and intake fan mount. It comes in handy having a messed up fan and a dead hard drive. I got the chrome HD mounts from Ebay, and they are very nice. I want to have metal on the sides of the drives to help with heat dissipation, and since the DVD is in the same mount, I decided that I may as well make it all one width anyway.



Here is a pic of the entire thing before I added the column.



I'll probably paint the acrylic HD/DVD mount black so that is doesn't show.

I got everything done including a final sanding, and got the first coat of stain on it. I ended up changing stains to an ACE hardware fruitwood color with the dark red oak for the insets. My two color experts (wife and daughter) liked that combination the best. The original stain I picked out ended up looking like a light cherry, so I am taking that back. It is exciting to actually be able to put stain on the thing.

Here is the HD/DVD acrylic box with the wooden top. I cut dados in the sides where the HD screws go so that the screws won't hit the wood and bow it out.





I cut a piece using the table saw to hide the acrylic edges.

[voigts]

I got a second coat of stain on this yesterday, and plan on trying to put some urethane on it today. Moregooder had highly recommended some General Finishes Urethane and Oil to use for the topcoat, so I am going to give it a try. Only one place here locally carries it. He says however that it doesn’t drip easily like poly and that it works very well.

I went ahead and ordered some SATA power connectors from performance-pcs so that I can make a clean looking power wire for the HDs. I was going to just mod the power line on the PSU itself, but I like the idea of having connectors that sit at 90 degrees so that there is no U loop between drives in the power feed.

[safan80]

very nice! looking good!

[welshtom]

Excellent, amazing build quality - that res looks outstanding too.

Tom

[junkun13]

now that's what you call a pc-carpenter

OT:

Hi Tom

[nick2crete]

The best project i have seen...very very nice!..wish to have the tools and the talent! to make the same..

[clokker]

V., this looks as good here as it does over on OCF.

Now you've got twice as many people who can't wait to see how the finish turned out.