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Re: [OCLUG-Tech] Building a New System -- starting with the case ??

  • Subject: Re: [OCLUG-Tech] Building a New System -- starting with the case ??
  • From: Rod Giffin <rbgiffin [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com>
  • Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:48:03 -0400
William Case wrote:
Hi;

I am thinking of building a new computer myself.  I am waiting on my
income tax return -- which I expect will be a nice hunk of change -- but
I filed late so I won't see it for at least another month.  But the
prospect got me thinking.

Starting with the case, I would like to do one of a couple of things;

     1. Build the case with fine wood finish (mahogany, dark oak, dark
        walnut or Quebec Maple) .  Has anyone heard of this being done
        before?  I haven't googled for HOWTO sites yet, but am trying to
        collect my thoughts, and yours, about pit-falls and/or
        suggestions on how this might be down. And, how I might trim my
        monitor, keyboard etc. to match? Or,
     2. Re-paint (colourize) a vanilla case and trim, in a non-standard
        colour scheme with some kind of paint or whatever that would be
        durable.  I had in mind, what I call 'mustang yellow' like the
        mustardy yellow used on sporty cars.

Any thoughts, suggestions or additions?

There are quite a few good computer case designs based on wood. If you're a good carpenter, you can actually make them look like a piece of furniture. There are two things to keep in mind though - ventilation, and shielding. Wood is a good insulator, and can make an otherwise noisy computer fairly quiet in comparison. But it also does not provide any shielding. (Even plastic computers are coated with a metalic film inside.) What you can do though, is laminate a metalic film to the inside of the case to provide that shielding. Aluminum foil is often a choice, but in fact brass foil would be better, a lightweight (24 guage or thinner) steel lining would be even better. Home Depot or Rona might have some metalic melamine, but make sure it's actually metalic. Other than that, you can also go to Cohen's on Merivale and pick up some relatively thin brass sheeting. The nicest simple designs I've seen replaced the metal case cover with a maple door skin veneer. Thin wood, but exotics are possible, and it's usually knot free so even if it isn't an exotic, it can be stained to look that way. On the front of the computer, the guy replaced the plastic bezel with one made of wood and plastic, in order to have the shaping in places where it was required. Stained in cherry and varnished, it looked like an expensive piece of furniture. He actually used the metal frame of the original computer case to mount the motherboard, power supply, drives etc. Another guy I know made a beautiful full sized desk/computer, that looked like a mahogany bankers desk. I think the wood was actually poplar or birch. The lower left hand drawer was actually the computer case. The monitor was embedded in the surface of the desk, under non-reflective glass, and he'd made a flip top sort of cover for the front drawer for the keyboard. That desk was a work of art. All of the wires were routed through a plastic conduit inside of the desk,so that all you could see sticking out was one power cable and the ethernet cable. Everything else was internal - but accessible through removing the glass covering the monitor. When he switched to a LCD display, I think a small modification was required in order to mount the monitor at the front of the glass instead of way down in the bowles of the desk.

Enjoy yourself!

If you're just going to paint an existing chassis, you can use an air-brush or find some kid who's good with an airbrush and do some incredible designs. Use an enamel paint, and this can also look really cool. I had a couple of photos of one of the fighters my Dad used to fly painted on the sides of a case of a computer that was in my living room. (friend of my son is really good with an airbrush, but he lives in Calgary now.) It got lots of comments, and looked really good. Something I just thought of something that can add to the "look" of a wood computer case. Neon or argon light bulbs, the ones with a soft orange glow... They'd give the computer a sort of 50's look of having tubes inside. I'd personally avoid ultra-violet... unless you're going for an ultra-modern look (in which case just buy an all black chassis and go with that.)

Rod.