Custom Made Water Cooled Desk Build Log - Pic Heavy

[PBaines]

*This is a build that I started a few months back, but after hearing about the Linus Tech Tips Forums, I decided that I must share my build here as I have been subscribed to Linus for years now! And no, this build isn't complete yet, still heaps to do :) **

So it begins!!

Conceptual design

Here is what the timber looks like. Is native NZ Rimu. Please excuse the end one with the bird poo, that will be sanded off in due course. bloody sparrows in the shed >.<

Cut some of the pieces to length of 650, after everything has been glued together will refine the length to 600 :)

Tools for the job. PVA glue, biscuits. annnd a... Biscuit cutter? (who cares about its real name biscuit cutter sounds cool)

As you can see, there is some light inbetween the boards, so a nice plane on areas will help close those gaps up

Some fellow putting the biscuits into their grooves after a nice layers of PVA Glue.

These pics are all related to the draw unit

Had to take the pieces to school and use the planer to make the edges all smooth, and to take any imperfections out

Here are the two horizontal supports for the desk, which the one on the left will be at the front as it has the toe bit on it. Sanded down with lovely wet and dry sandpaper to give it a baby smooth finish :D

This is what happens once you get a nice plane

drilling out the holes for the dowels to go in, 1mm larger then the dowel so that the glue sets better

Once all holes drilled its time to start gluing them in place, and setting everything up to be cramped together

Now she is cramped, the draw body is setting, and now it is time to make the draws them selves :D

All clamped up, with some weights on the timber to stop it from setting wonky :)

This here is ONE side to the draw unit

will get the next one done on Sunday, after I let this one set over a day or so!

So a brief update :)

Been busy on the farm lately so haven't had much time to work on the desk! But am working as fast as I can :)

Here are the draw fronts cut a little oversize just to be safe, not sanded or thicknessed or anything yet

My small wee thicknesser working its magic on the draw fronts, boy does this puppy make a mess!!

currently have two racks installed at the moment, start from the bottom and work your way up. Doing one at a time to make sure everything fits perfectly on the first time!

These are the draw sides, just some MDF which I will be painting matte black. Think it is somewhere around 12-13mm thick.

The box of which the draws will be just sitting there for a test fit, have to make sure that it sits on the sliders properly :D

And here are the sides and front/back for the two bottom draws going to school to get everything cut to length properly and use that lovely big planner :D (note to self, buy one of those big planners as they make life so much easier)

Bruce one of the pet lambs thought he would come up and see what's up. Was more interested in sticking his head in boxes around the shed though lol

Since the thicknesser I used at school had a few chips in the blade (GRRR) spent about an hour belt sanding the sides to make all the imperfections go away, belt was a 'used' 120 grit piece

Time to smoothen the sides up and then further make sure there are no ridges because you can certainly feel if there is anything wrong with a certain spot if the rest is smooth! This was I think around a 80 grit on a circular sander

After happy with the piece of timber, it was time to move to the 240 grit wet/dry. After 5 minutes of nice, slow and steady sanding. I can assure you that there was much pleasure in rubbing my hand around the timber... my GOD it is smooth.

So this is what it looked like before sanding

And this is what a few minutes of 240 grit wet/dry does :D

All the pieces have now been sanded down to get rid of all imperfections that I could

Sam and I discussing what to do next.

GOOD MAN SAM! That's right, have to have the aluminium rods for the 'files' to sit on

All cut to length and the ends filed down

All is well

both ends in, and the file fits. Looks like my measuring was correct :D

Sam now bored and reflecting on life as it is :p

Predrilling holes for the sides to be nailed to the Side of the FRONT/BACK

Both sides done

Add a line of glue for extra support

Straightened it up and nailed em all in!

Now to do the next side :)

Can't forget to add the rails in when putting the other side on!!

Predrilled the holes and put the nails in ready to smack em along the bottom.

Will get the front and handle put on tomorrow and put some pics up, got too dark to take a good pic of the box assembled! But here is the "dark pic" in the link

[url=http://imageshack.us/a/img255/6959/20121019202147.jpg]http://imageshack.us/a/img255/6959/20121019202147.jpg[/url=http://imageshack.us/a/img255/6959/20121019202147.jpg]

Until the next draw :)

Here is the draw unit in some decent light :) Still have to get the draw front on too.

Time to screw the rail sliders for the draw on. Firstly I pre drilled the hole with a very small drill bit, just to prevent any cracking of the MDF then in the screw goes!

Here is the bottom draw front, and after some 360 wet/dry. You can see the shiny'ness, it is so smooth :D

Since I cannot do any more draws till I get some more custom wood, thought I would be useful and get the other sides legs sorted. So found some nice pieces of more Rimu, which will be thicknessed down a bit, and will router the edges too

Ran them through the thicknesser, got hit in the face by a few flying chips. Lucky my safety glasses protected my eyes ;)

So now both pieces are lovely and square/flat/straight

Time to clean up the mess made by thicknessing...

A small update!

Clamping a bead across the front piece and the draw, to make sure that everything is lined up :)

All lined up, happy with it. Now let us screw it on!

The final result

Time to sort out the spacing between each draw, found the right packers.

Everything has been cut up to length and sanded down for the middle draw unit.

Let us commence the building!

Time to get the runners aligned and sorted too...

Getting the spacing sorted with the new packer, and then clamping and screwing again

So, One draw left which I shall finish tomorrow. That will be the main nitty gritty part over, then the rest of the build should be able to fly together in a very short period of time!

Will update again tomorrow night depending on the work achieved tomorrow :)

A smallish update, but they are progressively getting more major.

Same as before of how to do the attach the front piece to the box

Only one left to do!

Here is my beast and the box of bits

Time to router the edges of the legs! Here are the two bits that I will be using (note: the big one is for the legs, the small one is for a bevel around the outside of the draws)

I hadn't used a router before, so got mum to show me how to do it,

We were left with a good result, nice smooth. lovely.

Now time to sand the edges down so that there isn't a "step" from the flat piece to the curve (above pic)

Routered the edge of the LEFT and RIGHT side of all the draws and the BOTTOM of the bottom draw.

Once I finished sanding the saw marks, the curve had kinda disappeared, no problems. Will re-router it again :)

The timber I am using is recycled stuff, so there are a few nail holes here and there. Clever trick, use the saw dust of the rimu that has been collected in the table saw bin and mix with PVA glue to make a nice formula that will fill in the holes, dry hard. and then be the most unnoticeable filler!

After the pva had dried, this is what we were left with

The chisel then got it off to a nice smooth finish that will get sanded down, it might not look perfect, but you can notice a hole in a timber from a mile away

Now it's time to get a piece of wood sorted for the side rail connecting the two legs together

Might as well get the back runner cut while I am here!

Thats it for now, time to do some sanding and finishing touches to the draw unit ( - oil'd) so that we can move onto the lid!

All right then, small updates seem to be tickling along.

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 :)

All right,

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!

Sorry for the lack of updates! 12 hours of work 6 days a week is killing me!

But let the small update begin :)

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!

[url=http://imageshack.us/a/img692/5983/img5566z.jpg]http://imageshack.us/a/img692/5983/img5566z.jpg[/url=http://imageshack.us/a/img692/5983/img5566z.jpg]

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 :P

YUSS 3 days off from work!

Will get as much done as I can, but thought I would give you guys a quick we update :)

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!

Next update should be: The construction of the lid itself

Then it is all about the small things from then on and all very straight forward..

So been a busy series of weeks and haven't been able to do as much as I would have liked but an update is still an update!

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 :p

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 q-

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.

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!!

Right, so yes I apologise for how long it has taken me to get an update out, but roll on the pictures!

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

[Serbian_Souljah]

Wow, I Don't even know what to say. This is Awesome! I can't wait to see the finished product.

[Duffman]

This is absolutely fantastic, a true craftsman! I take my hat off to you sir.

[mvitkun]

this looks awesome,can't wait to see how it looks finished.

keep the updates coming.

[EChondo]

Damn. I have no words to describe my amazement with this project.

[PBaines]

Thanks guys :)

There is also a video I did yesterday too!

[bradscoolio]

Errmageerd! This is frick'n amazing!

subbed

[fsx1997]

Awesome build. Got a few advice:

- use bitspower crystal link for all the turbing so it would look awesome

- maybe you can consider vinyl wrapping your pcie bracket and the powersupply it look more like "wood"

- any chance of changing your platform to a x79 and use a X79 Sabertooth since i think it would be a better match

- Add a wood cover for the DVD drives

- add a couple of USB ports to make it more convenient

[PBaines]

Awesome build. Got a few advice: - use bitspower crystal link for all the turbing so it would look awesome - maybe you can consider vinyl wrapping your pcie bracket and the powersupply it look more like "wood" - any chance of changing your platform to a x79 and use a X79 Sabertooth since i think it would be a better match - Add a wood cover for the DVD drives - add a couple of USB ports to make it more convenient

There is no way I can use bitspower crystal link... It is too short. I however have got 4 meters worth of *crystal link* plastic that I will be using along side the bitspower link adapter fittings. So yes, I will be using crystal link ;)

I don't like carbon fiber to be honest, I am happy with how things look though I will remove the stickers off of the PSU

X79? not enough performance in gaming to worry about, the UP7 is in a league of it's own of the 1155 platform so I will stick with it

I will have some front USB 3.0 ports yes ;)

[Nit3Rid3R]

This build log is epic, even has cats and dogs in it...YOU MUST UPDATE

Also, I love your dog, more pics of dog pls.

[fsx1997]

Awesome build. Got a few advice: - use bitspower crystal link for all the turbing so it would look awesome - maybe you can consider vinyl wrapping your pcie bracket and the powersupply it look more like "wood" - any chance of changing your platform to a x79 and use a X79 Sabertooth since i think it would be a better match - Add a wood cover for the DVD drives - add a couple of USB ports to make it more convenient

There is no way I can use bitspower crystal link... It is too short. I however have got 4 meters worth of *crystal link* plastic that I will be using along side the bitspower link adapter fittings. So yes, I will be using crystal link ;)

I don't like carbon fiber to be honest, I am happy with how things look though I will remove the stickers off of the PSU

X79? not enough performance in gaming to worry about, the UP7 is in a league of it's own of the 1155 platform so I will stick with it

I will have some front USB 3.0 ports yes ;)

Can you tell me where you get the "crystal link", also the vinyl doesn't have to be carbon fiber it can be wooden wrap http://solutions.3m.com.au/wps/portal/3M/en_AU/APACAMD/Home/Products/?PC_7_RJH9U52308HH60IUEGN0BN3S50000000_nid=ZX1TJPW8N9beGWVSW6F6D4gl

Also the X79 Sabertooth just looks better with your build because of the brown looks that matches up with your wooden table prefectly.

[PBaines]

I just went down to one of my local Plastics place and I got some tubing ordered in :)

​Ahh right, gotcha, sorry bout that just got a little confused... Tbh, I have to have some contrast. I wouldn't want my build to be only all wooden as it wouldn't be as 'eye catching'

Again about the motherboard, having the UP7 as a black and orange board will make the board stand out which is what I want really, I want the components to stand out to me :)

Nit3Rid3R - It has Cats, Dogs, AND Sheep ;)

[josh_05]

Beautiful job mate! Awesome design and great craftsmanship, I do some wood work myself, used to be a cabinet maker, I can see how much patience and effort would have went in to this. Absolutely stunning :) Subscribed!

[crunzaty]

Beautiful build mate! Nice Cat and Lamb bro! ^^

Are all your components gonna be liquid cooled?

GPU,CPU + ram? ^^

[dragoneis]

Excellent work but don't forget to ground it properly when you finish.

[Cieronph]

WOW great to see builds that are different but actually have a really neat purpose, Best of luck, hope nothing goes wrong

[DaftBehemoth]

Really impressive work. I'd love to have a desk like this :P

[Benbass]

My reaction to your build:

[Bupalooga]

U have no idea how frustrated i am, I wasnt far off posting my own desk build, ur even using the same Rads and Fan Grills as me Grrr! HaHa its k, U did a great job! Now thinking i will recess my rad grill flush tho, thanks for that =D

[PBaines]

My reaction to your build:

Haha, epic GIF. Glad you feel that way :)

U have no idea how frustrated i am' date=' I wasnt far off posting my own desk build, ur even using the same Rads and Fan Grills as me Grrr! HaHa its k, U did a great job! Now thinking i will recess my rad grill flush tho, thanks for that =D[/quote']

Awesome! Look forward to seeing your desk, but yeah, making everything sit flush is primo

[Santiel]

That is just epic. I so want have such desk, Sadly i dont have space for it. Enyways great job, love it.

[a.w.labadi]

Very good job - somethink different but very awesome ;)

[ryantechtips]

The psu is way under powered. For your set up, there should be at least a 1000w psu. The psu you have is great, but it is going to be at near full load when you are on the computer. I would highly recommend a psu above 850w. Great build, love the hardware!

[fishymamba]

EPIC Build!!! Can't wait for updates!!

[PBaines]

The psu is way under powered. For your set up' date=' there should be at least a 1000w psu. The psu you have is great, but it is going to be at near full load when you are on the computer. I would highly recommend a psu above 850w. Great build, love the hardware![/quote']

I will do some testing and get one of those things you plug into the wall to see how many W the computer is drawing, if it is quite high I will get an 850w. But a 760w should be more then enough