Cjoflorida

I made a build on the old Linus Tech Tips Form. when it got switched over it was lost. i haven't been able to remake it since i have been busy with school. I created the topic on January 23,2013.
 
I am building a wooden computer case from scratch.
​I'm planning on using it as a media PC in my living room. I know it's over kill for a media pc but i eventually want it to have a
 
 
ASUS Maximus V Formula
i5 3570k
660
a couple terabytes of storage
 
the top and front have two types of wood that are glued together. I used wooden dowels to keep the boards in-place and to keep them even.




 

the front of the cause will be on a hinge to open and close (i'm thinking of using a piano hinge) to allow access to the optical drive. I will be using threaded rods and metal plate to hold the optical drive. the threaded rod is attached to the top of the inside of the case by welding a nut to a washer and putting epoxying the washer to the top. the reason i did this is so that i can unscrew the rod to use it to hold something else up. i'm thinking i will use it to hold my hard drive too and yes i will use some kind of rubber damper so the hard drive wont vibrate the whole case.






 





 


 

 
the side of the case has three holes that were routed into it. the holes will be used for air inlets once i put fans in behind the holes. the side panel has a big hole in it because i cut out part of it so i could make a door using invisible hinges. the door will have a Plexi-glass door.i sill have to plan out where to put the glass and what shape it will be.

 


 
For the motherboard tray i built it out of metal and wood. i bent the metal down so it formed an open box than i screwed wood in to the metal. i used the wood because it will be easy to cut for cable management and i mounted the bracket to the wood and the case. I am using a pvc tube to make the motherboard standoffs.



 



 
In order to mount the rear I/O ports bought a danger den 7 slot I/O Shield. In order to mount it i routed out the hole in the back and went down to hardware store and bought some black wood screws to mount it.


 

I have finished setting up all the tubes and i filled it with water. Right now i am leak checking all the fittings but so far so good and it has been running for about an hour with and no leaks so far. I am watercooling the mother board since i have the maximus Vformula with a built in copper pipe that runs through the heat sink. I have also put the top of the desk back on.
 
Here is the completed pictue of the desk and of course Woody is the background.

 
These Are just more glamour shots
 












 
If you have made it this far through all of the pictures here is my cat investigating the finished desk (well finished for now).



 
Here she is pawing at the tubing behind the glass

 
This is my headphones.

It is more noticeable in person and it mostly only happens on softer wood like pine there wasn't really a problem with the red oak being blotchy. Which was the other three strips on the front and top.

The Desk and top is pine. For the desk i used Minwax Polyshades Bombay Mahogany Satin number 380. I really like the color of it but it is a pain to use since you have to clean you brush after each time you stain with mineral spirits and you can only use certain types of brushes since it is stain and polyurethane. For the top that hold the glass i used Minwax Wood finish Ebony number 2718 and i did not use polyurethane on it.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE PRE STAIN WOOD CONDITIONER ON PINE or else it will cause your stain to become blotchy. Which is what happened to Woody.

I have finished setting up all the tubes and i filled it with water. Right now i am leak checking all the fittings but so far so good and it has been running for about an hour with and no leaks so far. I am watercooling the mother board since i have the maximus Vformula with a built in copper pipe that runs through the heat sink. I have also put the top of the desk back on.
 
Here is the completed pictue of the desk and of course Woody is the background.

 
These Are just more glamour shots
 












 
If you have made it this far through all of the pictures here is my cat investigating the finished desk (well finished for now).



 
Here she is pawing at the tubing behind the glass

 
This is my headphones.

I have finished setting up all the tubes and i filled it with water. Right now i am leak checking all the fittings but so far so good and it has been running for about an hour with and no leaks so far. I am watercooling the mother board since i have the maximus Vformula with a built in copper pipe that runs through the heat sink. I have also put the top of the desk back on.
 
Here is the completed pictue of the desk and of course Woody is the background.

 
These Are just more glamour shots
 












 
If you have made it this far through all of the pictures here is my cat investigating the finished desk (well finished for now).



 
Here she is pawing at the tubing behind the glass

 
This is my headphones.

I have finished setting up all the tubes and i filled it with water. Right now i am leak checking all the fittings but so far so good and it has been running for about an hour with and no leaks so far. I am watercooling the mother board since i have the maximus Vformula with a built in copper pipe that runs through the heat sink. I have also put the top of the desk back on.
 
Here is the completed pictue of the desk and of course Woody is the background.

 
These Are just more glamour shots
 












 
If you have made it this far through all of the pictures here is my cat investigating the finished desk (well finished for now).



 
Here she is pawing at the tubing behind the glass

 
This is my headphones.

I have finished setting up all the tubes and i filled it with water. Right now i am leak checking all the fittings but so far so good and it has been running for about an hour with and no leaks so far. I am watercooling the mother board since i have the maximus Vformula with a built in copper pipe that runs through the heat sink. I have also put the top of the desk back on.
 
Here is the completed pictue of the desk and of course Woody is the background.

 
These Are just more glamour shots
 












 
If you have made it this far through all of the pictures here is my cat investigating the finished desk (well finished for now).



 
Here she is pawing at the tubing behind the glass

 
This is my headphones.

I have installed the pump to my desk by drilling holes and using bolts that are a lot longer than the ones that came with the pump. I also used the piece of foam with tape on both sides so it would not vibrate.

 
For the rad i did not mount it to the desk the screws would not be long enough and i did not have screws that had the same thread. So i screwed the extra fan scres that i got from the rad into the bottom of the rad.

Later today i will finish the water cooling i already have most of the tubes connected i just have to do the rad and pump which is a pain in the butt because I'm using 3/8" tube and the pump barbs are 1/2" 

I have installed the pump to my desk by drilling holes and using bolts that are a lot longer than the ones that came with the pump. I also used the piece of foam with tape on both sides so it would not vibrate.

 
For the rad i did not mount it to the desk the screws would not be long enough and i did not have screws that had the same thread. So i screwed the extra fan scres that i got from the rad into the bottom of the rad.

Later today i will finish the water cooling i already have most of the tubes connected i just have to do the rad and pump which is a pain in the butt because I'm using 3/8" tube and the pump barbs are 1/2" 

Thanks I'm glad you like them.

I made a build on the old Linus Tech Tips Form. when it got switched over it was lost. i haven't been able to remake it since i have been busy with school. I created the topic on January 23,2013.
 
I am building a wooden computer case from scratch.
​I'm planning on using it as a media PC in my living room. I know it's over kill for a media pc but i eventually want it to have a
 
 
ASUS Maximus V Formula
i5 3570k
660
a couple terabytes of storage
 
the top and front have two types of wood that are glued together. I used wooden dowels to keep the boards in-place and to keep them even.




 

the front of the cause will be on a hinge to open and close (i'm thinking of using a piano hinge) to allow access to the optical drive. I will be using threaded rods and metal plate to hold the optical drive. the threaded rod is attached to the top of the inside of the case by welding a nut to a washer and putting epoxying the washer to the top. the reason i did this is so that i can unscrew the rod to use it to hold something else up. i'm thinking i will use it to hold my hard drive too and yes i will use some kind of rubber damper so the hard drive wont vibrate the whole case.






 





 


 

 
the side of the case has three holes that were routed into it. the holes will be used for air inlets once i put fans in behind the holes. the side panel has a big hole in it because i cut out part of it so i could make a door using invisible hinges. the door will have a Plexi-glass door.i sill have to plan out where to put the glass and what shape it will be.

 


 
For the motherboard tray i built it out of metal and wood. i bent the metal down so it formed an open box than i screwed wood in to the metal. i used the wood because it will be easy to cut for cable management and i mounted the bracket to the wood and the case. I am using a pvc tube to make the motherboard standoffs.



 



 
In order to mount the rear I/O ports bought a danger den 7 slot I/O Shield. In order to mount it i routed out the hole in the back and went down to hardware store and bought some black wood screws to mount it.


 

I got the Swifttech apogee hd and res Yesterday and all i have to do is finish tubig up my rig, fill it up and test for leaks. Then I'm going to overclock it.


 
This is the 250 ml res It was a lot bigger than i expected it to be.





I Flushed the rad a couple of times with distilled water and nothing came out so i was satisfied.





 

The first box its from performance pc's and it has the
Swifttech mcp 655 Blood red Primochill Primoflex Advanced LRT Alphacool NexXxos xt45 360mm radiator.



I am expecting to get another box later today that will have the Bitspower Water Tank Z multi 250 res

I have gotten used to it since the desk i had before this was was a work bench meant for standing. the height of my arms don't really bother me but when i play xbox (ya i know xbox but what ever its only for gta 5) I put my hands between the desk and the desk top that is the only time that the height really bothers me. I think its also good because it makes me sit up straighter which means less slouching, which is better for my back. But i could care less about that, but who knows maybe in 20 years i will be thank full that i slouched less. Who knows.

This is a picture of me sitting at the desk because people thought it was to big or to small I am 6'2" tall.

The desk that i striped the paint of and stained had three shallow draws so i decided that it would be nice to have a file draw to store stuff in so i combined two draws with glue and dowels and  cut some slots in the side of the draw to put a piece of metal. they are stained the same color as the desk.


This is the piece of metal 





The one on the top is what original drawer looked like


This is a picture of them both in the desk.

Another thing i did was attached wooden dowels to the desk so that the top of the desk would not rock back and fourth as much.

 

First up are the SSD brakets. They are made of bent metal bar that is and inch wide or 25mm ish for you metric people. i bent the bar to angle that i thought would let me see the ssd from looking down frome the top of the desk and looking at it from the front.


and this is what it will look like once the ssd is mounted

This is the finished product the only thing left to do is to mount it to the desk and for that i need to go buy so nutserts.



I have already mounted the hard drives and i was test fitting them to see how big i need to make the hole to hide the cables so i decided to take a couple pictures.

I have added what i want the top of the desk to look like the the google sketch up model. The poles are made of metal and the distances away from the edge and the position is not exact and will change in the final design.

 
the middle of the top will be glass and the top is only supported by the post hence the open design.

Resurrection
Thank you everyone for 1,200 views in four days it makes me very happy that so many people are interested in my desk!
Yes there are a growing amount of desk builds on the forum but they are all different but mine will be the most different.
Since the main building of the desk is done i will turn my attchen to water cooling this beast Bellow are my plans that i have for the water cooling parts fell free to suggest other parts and give reasons why the part is better.
Plans for water cooling
 
Cpu Xspc Raystorm or Swiftech APOGEE HD ultimate exterme preformance in black (i think they could have used a longer name for it) Gpu EK-FC670 GTX DCII-Nickel Mother board i will be using the built in water cooling I have a maximus 5 formula witch i believe has a copper pipe in it. Ram I am not planing to water cool the ram but i may change my mind.  Rads 2 Alpha cool NexXxos xt 45 full copper 306mm pump Mcp655 Res Bitspower Water Tank z 250 clear acrylic Tubing Primo flex advanced lrt bloodshed red or some kind of ridged tubing. Fittings what ever as long as they look nice Fans Bit Fenix spectre pro fans black i want them to be almost silent well quiet enough that i dont hear them with open style headphones on. i think I will to undervolt them to 7v if anyone has experience with these fans or any other fan like the noise blocker black silent pros please tell me how they are and if you like them. i would like the fans to be at most $20 each i would prefer $10-$15 Fluid i will probably just go with distilled of de ionized water with a silver coil in it. I have never made a water cooled system before so im not 100% sure on the parts I will not buy all the parts at once i will probally get enough for cooling the cpu first then the gpu later since the gpu is quiet its an asus direct CUII 660ti.
   
I have made some designs on Google sketch up and i think i have came up with a version that i like.

 
 
CAUTION Pictures not taken with super fancy DSLR camera. OH NO!!!
So far i have some of the parts i still have to a couple things before i start building the desk but i got most of the computer stuff from a giant new egg, amazon and NCIX shipment a couple days ago.
 

 
 
Here is everything out of the box I got a 660ti,i5 3570k, and a corsair tx750.

 
 
Everthing works great.

 
 
The 660ti dcuII is huge well its not huge but its pretty big

I got the Swifttech apogee hd and res Yesterday and all i have to do is finish tubig up my rig, fill it up and test for leaks. Then I'm going to overclock it.


 
This is the 250 ml res It was a lot bigger than i expected it to be.





I Flushed the rad a couple of times with distilled water and nothing came out so i was satisfied.





 

The first box its from performance pc's and it has the
Swifttech mcp 655 Blood red Primochill Primoflex Advanced LRT Alphacool NexXxos xt45 360mm radiator.



I am expecting to get another box later today that will have the Bitspower Water Tank Z multi 250 res

I have added what i want the top of the desk to look like the the google sketch up model. The poles are made of metal and the distances away from the edge and the position is not exact and will change in the final design.

 
the middle of the top will be glass and the top is only supported by the post hence the open design.

OH FUCK, NO VIDEO CARD

I HAVE FINISHED.









Cant wait to get rid of the stock cooler