MusFuzZ

what we first start off with is making some guideline holes so that we are able to do better cuts with the jigsaw allowing us to change angles easily.

 
 
Mid way cutting.

 
 
now time to lay it on, and all is good.

 
 
a wild cat appears! "hmmmm, can i fit through here?"

 
 
"Why yes! of course I can!"

 
 
marking out the other side, and repeating the process

 

 
 
both sides have been completed and look very nice. they are BOTH yet to be routered so that the grill sits in flush. but that is next days off job.

 
 
I quickly decided that I would do my 5.25" holes, one for a Blu Ray drive (basically just incase i need it for whatever case. And no, I couldn't be bothered getting a USB one), and also will be fitted with a Fan Controller too.
Here is the plan...

 
 
Holes done

 
 
all cut out

 
with a bit of extra little rasping (wood equivalent of a file) they fit nice and snug! Though like the rad grills. Will router a recess for them to sit flush in. If some may notice, the drives are sitting lower then centre, this is because I will probably put my power/reset buttons above the 5.25" area. 
and ps, yes I know the middle piece between each 5.25" slot is weak as hell, and I understand that. If it breaks it breaks, if it doesn't it doesn't! it looks nicer with it though 

 
 
Oh, and this is the glass installed 
easy to remove to, simply put fingers between the two glass sheets and lift the top one up! the front bit is siliconed in place

 
Next update will be Wednesday of everything routered
and then theres only two holes left to do (PSU, I/O shield) and its time to d-d-d-d-d-drop the hardware in!!
 
 
Here is how I will be spacing my UP7 to the desk itself. just a few rubber spacers, that will be screwed into the desk, will have to go find some nice long thin srews while I think about it!

 
We start with the routering of the 480 grill rebate, so that the grill can sit nice and flush

 
 
The middle bits had to be done also, and were very difficult too as after a few cm's the router wasn't sitting flush anymore so would 'dip' as you can see in the picture where it dipped a little bit. but that's okay! it's not seen 

 
 
Thinking about how I could find a packer to use that allowed an extra bit of width... duh, why not use the template to rest the router on!

 
 

 
Now, this is what it looked like! the rebate for the grill was done, and also i further rebated in a rectangle for the actual little hex-hole grills to sit in too

 
 
Then there was about a 2 week period where I did nothing in life but work/sleep. UNTIL my parts arrived! and I will also be getting another GTX 680 4GB too 
 

 
After thinking and googling, I figured a way that I could mount my power supply tidily, by making a metal template I guess you'd call it. where you would screw the thin sheet steel to the desk so you could then be able to screw the psu in! 

 

 

 
And then there she was. the template to cut out the... template :B

 
Mid way cutting it out, realised I shouldn't have cut the paper up so much as it was so hard to get the small rectangle square again! 

 

 
And there it is. Not the tidiest and 100% most beautiful, but it will be painted, not seen. It will serve the purpose it was made to do _b

 
Time to mark out where the IO shield will be put, and also where my PSU hole will be too.

 
Time to do my preliminary guide holes for the jigsaw

 
And there it is, all nice and square!

 
The PSU Template works well too

 
Now, the one thing that bugged me the most... The PCI holes. How do do them? Do I rebate them? Do I cut out one big hole instead? I will do it individually instead and rebate me thinks..

 
I then proceeded to use the smallest router bit I had and rebate the groove for the PCI brackets to sit in.
Also, the top L piece of the bracket needed somewhere to sit in, so I marked the lowest point the bracket could sit, otherwise the card when in the motherboard will be on a lean and could have a dodgy connection to the PCI/E Lane

 
Making sure my depth was correct, I used a test bit of wood to make sure that when it came to the final piece, it was done properly.

 
A Perfect fit!

 

 
 
Just a FYI, to prevent any scratching this is how I lay the top down to do any cutting/routering etc

 
Now that the first PCI slots had been cut, it was time to finish the rest off

 
Here is how I measured the spacings for where the slots went, just an old case I chopped up!

 
All cuts done

 
Next, to square all the holes out I figured, what better way to do that, than with a Router! Least that's what I thought. The insertion of the bit went well, as soon as I itched it to the right BOOM. the middle piece of the PCI slots just snapped off.. I said a naughty word beginning with F. the next one began with C. hehe

 
It was time to resort to Plan B. Cut the whole damn thing out and chop the PCI bracket bit out of that old case that was in the pic above

 
it looks a lot tidier this way anyway, so while I am not happy the slot snapped out, I am happy with the result I guess!

 
So after cutting the PCI Bracket out, i gave it a quick sand and a quick paint with orange and will continue to polish it up over the next week but just wanted to test it out for the time being to make sure all was well... Guess I was just impatient and wanted to see if when everything was laid out in the desk it would all look pretty is more appropriate
 
PS- Hello Vita! (sheep)

 

 

 
After the day, I moved everything to it's little box. and covered it. Until tomorrow 

Had to do a quick check that everything was flush/square, and also the right length before proceeding     Had to mark some squared lines so I knew where to drill my holes for the dowels.   Also had to do some measuring for the legs dowel holes too     And shavings be flying everywhere!   Time to get Drilling dem leeeegs!!     After some glue, good to see everything lines up!     Now let us clamp it together, also making sure that it has still remained square!     The next day, I opened the shed up.. to find my cat  -_-     Anywho, after the cat had been vacated to somewhere else. I tacked on the back rimu sheet on. Though it looks a bit 'odd' After everything has been stained it'll look better, and besides. Who sees the back? Note; the other side of it is unstained      It is now time to plan everything out and make final adjustments, eg shortening the width of the desk by about 200mm because I will be using the Extended mouse mat by Razer, and want the mat to look "in place" when it is on the keyboard tray, also makes less "dead space" in the lid      Here is the big piece of recycled Rimu that will be used for the BOTTOM of the lid, as well as the FRONT too. Lots of room to work with      Checking to make sure that everything is the right sizing. Turned out I decided to take (Purposely done) 200mm of the length, so now the main compartment with all the PC goodness will have less 'dead' space in it, Which I guess is a good thing!     The next thing was to router the FRONT, and the two SIDES, leaving the back normal. Though the corner isn't perfect at the moment, it will be sanded in due course to make it look better  The 4 sides will sit on the INSIDE of the round.     after happy with the lid bottom, it is time to give the top and bottom of the sheet a nice sand with the belt sander to smoothen everything out. The worst thing though was... Just as I was about to finish it all up... I smelt something "odd" thinking nothing of it, CRACKLE AHFUHFA SCBASCB ADSA the bloody thing died on me ahh well, have to buy another one tomorrow, as I really need a belt sander to finish everything else! But here is what it looks like with the vanish off/on     Got the two rails sorted, unfortunately there was not another piece long enough for the back. However, if I have the join behind the middle compartment rail, it will be unseen!       So got all the rails cut to the right length, everything is lined up perfectly!           So I got my new mouse mat, the keyboard tray will be slightly larger then the mouse mat, just to make it look even better!     YAY new belt sander!! WOOOO, let's start using it!   Vanish and graffiti, gone       And it is out with the biscuiter again..   The lid will be biscuited together instead of dowel'd, mainly because I find it easier, and there is more play in what I can do with it   just right    Testing the join between the two back pieces since I couldn't find a single piece long enough for the back   Perfect!     Now it is time to get the Router and Jigsaw out and get the rad grill cut out sorted for the middle section piece (Note: there will be 2 rad grills on both sides, no fans on this piece). Let's start marking!     The initial hole for the jigsaw to begin its work!   The crappy work of a jigsaw, to be perfected with a router    Router time!       So now both sides of that piece of timber have been made 1.5mm larger in vertical and horizontal lengths, and a rebate of 1mm larger than the rad grills, so that they will sit just below flush of the timber    That is all for today, not sure what is next but will certainly find something        It is time to sort out the exhaust fans for the right side of the desk, and take into perspective the PSU size, as well as my front bits (fan controller, some switches and a Blu-Ray drive)     Happy with where it was sitting, I started to mark everything up, hoping it would allll be perfect! As you may tell from the next two pics. The two sides have different measurements. One side is to make the fans sit in a rebate in the wood, and the other is so that the Bitspower 240 Grill will sit FLUSH against the wood. This is where my router becomes very handy       Time to start the jigsawing here is the first pilot hole. This time wanting to be more precise then the last so will cut a bit slower to contain a straight line. The blade will never run PERFECT which is why again.. The router fixes everything!   All the pilot holes drilled, and some jig sawing commenced   Not 100% perfect, but after the router has done it's job it will be!     Time to start the rebating process. The wood is 20mm thick, so -4mm for the 3mm grill, and then -9mm for the rebate you will be left with 7mm of wood and the fan will be sticking out 18mm which then the fan will be able get screwed using taping 6-32 screws when the time comes   Going down in small steps at a time, as you can see from the different layers in the top right   All went perfectly! The fans all sit at the same height in each corner, and fit in there nice and snug, barely needing to use any screws! And no, the propellers do not hit the outside casing so a top result     And this is how she sits!      Note: Every single cable in the desk will be made to a custom length, EVERY SINGLE ONE!       So been a busy series of weeks and haven't been able to do as much as I would have liked    So here is the what I left the desk lid like for about a week, because I didn't have time to work on it    So now the lid is together, it is time to start laying things out and check that I have done the correct spacing for everything intended   The back side of the middle section was screwed together, as it is 10x easier then gluing the two sides together and gives some tolerence if say the side that got glued moved 3mm, to which I screwed the other side knowing that everything is square    After a lot of thinking completed of how everything will be done (40 mins worth), It is time to say goodbye for 3 weeks       After the a week or two, I ordered the first installment of items from an online store which is the Rad Grills, Rads, and the two 3-pin fan hubs that I will be using for each rad and its fans            Thank you so much for the reservoirs! They really do look amazing    Since I have the main components, gotta lay them out to see how we are for space. looks like we are dead perfect!
      (Yes the grills do have mesh, but took it out just while measuring everything up)   Unfortunately that is it for today, though coming soon is the glass top which then leaves me with the easy jobs left when I get it, all that is left to purchase is the amount of fittings which which there are about one hundred coming in... WOOOOOOOOO!   Right, it has  been a while. Basically been waiting for my glass to be done, taking it back, yelling at them for doing a shitty job and making them do it with a bit of class instead of giving me some glass that looks like someone has used a rock to sand the edges         so here we started the big cut out for the small glass front to sit in, followed by a router to make it all square and THEN a rebate so that the glass could be glued onto the recess        This was how I routered the rebate for the glass to sit in, aswell a very well put together professional looking base for the router to sit flush on.     We are left with a perfect recess!     Now, with my PPCS gear arriving it was time to get my 480 radiator holes sorted out. I got everything measured up and got some low adhesive tap and plopped the rad grill on and traced around it.   

Rambo approves of this build. It look really nice and clean