Sparhawk

The color will definitely look better with the Varathane on it, unfortunately even with a really expensive camera I still need sunlight to show the color properly, and that is hard to do at 23:00 The red color is much more prominent when viewed in person and oddly enough on the table itself, it seems when applied to a larger area the color comes out more(or maybe I'm just hallucinating).
I'm hoping that the Varathane will darken the color a bit or I might have to add another coat of stain. I'll have to test it with that piece.


lol, I was going to crop that out... too lazy... too lazy. It's one of those free notepads random companies send in the mail. It just happens to have various forms of footwear on it.

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Raptors06

Nice color man. I like it. What color did you pick up - I'm interested for a project I've got going for my mom...

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Crucial Ballistix Club

duffsr

Dude, this is a sweet project. The execution looks nice so far although I had no idea you could chop parts of motherboards out!

(mentally notes to ensure he will actually have room for all his stuff on next build)

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Sparhawk

Cabernet is what the Varathane brand calls the color. It is a water-based stain, and it doesn't smell very much. Odd, but I can't seem to find the exact stain I used on the Varathane(RustOleum) website, it might be discontinued, i'm not sure. I bought mine from Rona.

You can't chop them off of working motherboards unfortunately, the motherboard I used was killed by a bad BIOS Flash. I just needed some pins that would work and the motherboard pins seemed to be a handy solution.

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Swiftes

nice work!
Rep+

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Sparhawk

Thanks, if all goes well over the next few days I might have an update by the end of the week of the finished product.

I've still got the following to do:
-Cut the leg pieces and pre-drill quick release screw holes.
-Finish staining the interior of the box and the leg pieces.
-Apply two or three coats of Diamond gloss finish Varathane to the entire project.
-Wait
-Assemble final unit.


Here are some pics of the quick connect screw and insert nut and the back of the table before staining it. The quick connect screws are going to be used to hold the legs, motherboard, HD rack, and PSU in the case. The middle pic is of where I fudged up some drilling and it had to be filled.

Attached Thumbnails

     

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Sparhawk

Staining is continuing to go well, the legs are now at the same stage as the rest of the unit. (stained and awaiting gloss coats)

The lid/surface of the table is almost ready for staining and I should get to that tonight. I used some red-oak filler to fill cracks between the half-round edging and the plywood. I just need to sand it down and its ready to go.

Tonight I will also apply the first coat of the Diamond Gloss Varathane, so wish me luck.

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blupupher

Looking good. I like the stain color. I like the side table idea. I have thought of somehow making mine into my entertainment center.
How are you mounting the CD/DVD drive? are you going to have access to the open button on the drive, or just use the OS/ Program to open it?
Kind of late now, but I would have looked into compartmentalizing the case, setting the PSU, HDD and MoBo in their own little sections, with just a cutout for wiring.
One of these days I will do something like that myself...

Sparhawk

Actually it might be used as the main table for the entertainment unit, with the screen sitting on top of it. I've built this thing to be pretty damn sturdy. I'm going to do some weight testing once it is all put together.

Yeah, I did think about putting compartments in but it would have been a pain to wire and I wanted unrestricted airflow.

The CD drive is going to be mounted using either a metal frame I pulled out of another old PC or I'll rig something up out of wood. I'm either going to rewire the CD drive with a button on the back of the unit or I will make the front panel a gigantic button. The button on the back would be a fail-safe for when the OS one doesn't work.

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blupupher

Yea, I can understand the airflow. 2 different solutions to the same problem.
I was also thinking of setting the PSU with the intake fan down over a hole in the bottom for a fresh air intake and exhaust out the back, being totally independent of case temps (aside from the minimal radiant heat).