This is the 4th wooden case I have built and by far the best looking so far.. overall the whole project took roughly 40 hours from start to finish.
I started with a cougar steel case that i had previously painted camouflage.. looked cool for awhile but i got bored of it after a few months.
first I sanded the majority of the paint off and painted it black to prevent flash rust.
Then i got the grinder out with a metal cutoff wheel (no dremel since I'm not 12) (jk)
i cut out the drive bays since i wanted to be able to mount two front 120mm fans without much air restriction and also cut out the metal mesh around the rear fan since all it's doing is restricting airflow. I also cut a hole in the top panel for a window too.
once i was at this stage i began to start cutting wood for the top and front panel (i used red oak if anyone is wondering).
i dont have a lot of pictures from this unfortunately, but i used a 120mm hole saw ($11 online vs $30+ at the local hardware store) and i also used a jig saw to cut out the top window of the wood too.
to get all of the pieces to stick together i used a craig's jig (pocket holes).. you can just free hand them if you want to be cheap, but when using really hard wood then id recommend a jig. and i also used 3/8" screws with 2 part epoxy to hold the wood to the metal.
above is a picture of what pocket holes look like.. i usually just use them to secure wood without being able to see anything from the outside.
next i began to make the main side panel (the left one if you're looking at the front)
this was by far the hardest part since i was working with the wood going in different directions, and my table saw wasn't working properly so when screwing in the wood then it would pull upwards due to an uneven cut (the only real limitation to the Craig's jig.
from this point after making two different side panels, then i decided to use 3/4" overlay European cabinet hinges. This simply means that 3/4" of the material behind where the hinge is mounted will be covered by the door when its in the closed position.
excuse the mess in all of these pictures.. im currently working on 4-5 projects at the same time.. including a test bench and another pc case (full wood no metal)
one example of a project i was working on was a set of grips for an airsoft 1911
"FUN" FACT.. i used a piece of $.75 walnut scrap wood encase anyone was wondering.
once the hinges were fit and i was happy with the gap between the door and frame then i decided to pick out a stain. In this case (pun intended) i decided to use a mix of a dye and water based stain 50/50 mix one was Merlot and i forgot the name of the other.. ask if youre interested.
this is a picture of the stain after two coats and also two coats of water based polyurethane (didnt feel like waiting for oil based) and i moved it to a different room since i didnt want to get dust all over it... i also painted the inside black (i love the way oak looks painted black.. i used 2x painters touch spray paint incase anyone was wondering.. and i also made a switch box (pictured below) to be able to shut off the two front case fans and soon to be seen leds
after this all dried then mounting hardware began..
for this build i used...
sapphire 280x vapor x
fx 6300
970 gaming mobo
1 tb hard drive
8gb 1600 mhz ram
725 watt psu
hyper 212 cooler
antec f12 fans (ive been surprisingly happy with them (and i also like how they look)
ignore the residue on random stuff as i had just been hot gluing fans/plexiglass in
that furry is my new gpu for my next build..
these parts were overall decently intermediate, but i just wanted some parts to get a friend a starter pc. let me know if anyone had questions ect.. below are pictures of the finished product and ignore the mess in the room i was soldering and we had a lan party lolz.
its hard to take pictures that do it justice, but it looks way better in person... let me know if anyone has questions.
