Page 6 - Cherry wood Case with water cooling

The button for reset and power presented a little problem when it came to 3/4" cherry. The button was shorter then the thickness of the board.


So I measured the nut to see how big of hole it would take to allow me to mount the button. I used a 1" forstner drill bit to drill down to allow the shaft of the button to protrude through.


Above you can see a test drilling on a scrap board to see what it would take to mount this switch. Note that this board was only 5/8" but it still would give me valuable practice prior to drilling the cherry.



Using my drill press for accuracy I set up to drill the first half of the hole.



Make the first drill pass.



All the measurements were drawn on the board to set up the drilling.
Once I had the drill for the nut it was time to drill the rest of the hole.
Note the indentation in the center of the hole. I would use this to drill the same exact center for the smaller hole holding the shaft of the button.


Here I am drilling the second half of the hole. This is a 3/4" forstner drill bit. There is a small piece of wood under the face plate to prevent tear out.


Here are the holes with a shoulder to allow the button to attached to the face plate.



All that was left to do was to mount the button to the face plate and attach the nuts to test the design.





The next step will be to recess the drive cage into the face plate.

Very nice. Just don't wait so long for the next update

I will have some extra time this week, I'm on vacation. The basement is about 70% finished and all the cabinets are on the walls. The counter top will be installed on Thursday so I'm way ahead of my schedule. That means time to get some work in on the computer case. It will be standing next to one of the cabinets. It has to show off all the details or its a bust.
Eh besides I'm slow (LOL).

Off topic but I've been quite busy with all the work in the basement. Started out I had to remove all the old paneling. Once I got rid of that I had to remove all the old furring strips. They were anchored with the old iron nails. So I had to pull everyone out of the concrete. Then my wife and I set out to make a layout of the room. Using my cad software I completed the design that my wife had envisioned. Then it was out to the hardware store to purchase the cabinets. Ya I could have made them but time was more of a factor here. While that took place I ran 2X4 pine along the concrete every 16 inches. I anchored them with 5 tapcons on each board. Then I ran a horizontal 2X4s between the vertical 2X4's 10" down from the ceiling and each of them were anchored with 2 tapcons each. I drilled and ran new electrical in the 2X4's along with phone and cat6 network. I covered the 2X4's with bead board and when the cabinets arrived I installed them. The end result is this.



I have a ways to go but doing it all myself has saved us over $8000 labor.

Nice looking cabinets. I'm sure the mrs. appreciates it

Today I had some extra time so it was to the wood shop for me. I started out to attach the motherboard tray to the rear of the case.


I used my router table to remove some of the wood to allow my tray to recess into the back. I needed to be careful as not to prevent access to the screws to hold my video cards, sound card and any peripheral cards.

Next I had to devise a way to lock the motherboard in place and allow for the Plexiglas side cover. This was a challenge. After several prototypes I came up with this one.


It was routed to allow the different moldings on the tray to sit flush. It also allowed me to have the 1/4" Plexiglas side cover without causing problems. Cutting that board was a little challenging and the blade scorched the board a slight bit but I can sand it clean.

Now I had to attach the tray to the back board so I used brass inserts to hold my motherboard tray. I drilled 2 holes in the rear board on the lip I created earlier.

I used the tool to insert the brass "nut" into the wood.







This allows me to use a machine screw to hold the motherboard tray in place with 8-32 screws.



On the back side where the screws show through I will be putting trim, so I wasn't worried about looks yet. But I did not want the screws to extend beyond the wood.


Next I adjusted the router bit to only cut 1/16" of wood 5/16" wide to route for the drive cage. I needed to make the card cage flush.




Got to do some more work to keep this project moving.

Before I can consider assembly of the case I have to make sure that all penetrations are finished. The fan in the front panel is one. To cut a hole 3" you can either cut it with a hole saw and drill or you can use a drill press and a hole cutter like I did.



Its adjustable and can cut a very clean hole. I will need to locate and punch a starter location on the front panel.



Then its time to cut the hole. Because of the danger while the bit is spinning I could not take any photos. I made 2 passes with the hole cutter, one from the front and one from the rear. This device is so accurate that its difficult to see where they connected (other then the color difference).



Then its just drill 4 mounting holes and mount the fan.



The grill on the fan will be replaced with a custom grill made from .....Wood!