Finished: [Professional] Project Quad Cube-2ND PLACE!! - Overclock.net

Timlander · 05-30-09

Won 2nd Place in the 2009 OCN Case mod Competition in the Professional Division.

Ok, I would like to start this thing off by saying its been a blast to do this custom case build! There have been some fun times...and some not so fun and very aggravating times =). But all in all my case has finally come together and is looking rather spectacular. I did take a TON of pics, around 150 or more plus a short video clip, so you will not be short on that. And now, onto my case and the PICS!!!

The 1st of many deliveries!!! What's inside the boxes???

I assembled the motherboard tray:

Some stuff I got from Home Depot for my original case design, but ended up not needing to use the hinges on the left:

The Plexiglas has arrived!!!

The 2 x 4' sheets of wood that will be used for the body of the case:

Cutting them to size:

Cutting some strips of poplar that will be used to hold the case together:

Pieces are cut and ready to be pieced together:

Adding the poplar strips:

Piecing the whole thing together:

ITS A BOX!!!

Design flaw encountered...=*( So after a long time pondering what I should do, I finally fixed this first big design flaw and moved on, this caused a few more bumps in the road but wasn't too bad. As you can see I had to rip out 1 side of the case, gotta love how well that wood glue holds!!!

Now onto the back of the case:

Test fitting of the motherboard tray:

And now for a little patchwork from the previous design flaw, BONDO!!!:

After lots of sanding and some coats of sanding sealer:

Another test fit, this time deciding how I want the drawer slides to be held on:

How about some solid mahogany?

These slides are rated for 150 lbs and are the perfect length for my purpose, as you will see later on:

Screwing the mahogany to the (what will be) bottom of the case:

test fit:

Give you a little idea for what I am going for here:

Time for sanding and sealing of the rest of the wood:

A little more bondo:

Time to mark for some windows!!!

Timlander · 05-30-09

Front fan hole:

Went by Home Depot to pick up some paint!!!

Time to paint!
This will be the piece that will support the motherboard tray:

The back of the case:

The Back, motherboard tray support and bottom of the case all painted:

Jigsaw cutting:

Test Fitting the 250mm fan:

More supplies have made it in!!!

Time for more test fitting, sanding and painting:

Notice i fit the back in there:

More coats on the blues:

Now for the red!!!

Some more boxes have come in!

Good ol' UPS, doesn't everybody just love UPS?

They ended up paying me for a new radiator, took them 3 weeks but they did do it, so that's good.

Now it is time to take apart my old water cooled sig rig, clean some stuff up, and get ready for the move into my new case!!!

oooo, cpu block looks a little nasty:

Lets clean that up shall we?

Better?

Well, I was surprised at how much stuff was kept inside my little ol Antec 900:

HEHE, now here is the box I have been waiting for:

Out with the old, and in with the new!!!

Now back to the case!
Measuring and marking for the next set of holes to be cut in the back:

After cutting the holes out with the jigsaw, I then began piecing the motherboard tray holder and back together:

Test Fit of 1 power supply:

More paint, the final coats:

Now its time for the elegant part!!!
Working with the cherry veneer, which will be the finish for the exterior of the case:

Timlander · 05-30-09

The following is a pic of the above 2 pieces pressed together:

Now it is time to retire the good old Antec 900. But not to worry, it will be reborn into my new custom case!!!
So...lets start punching out rivets:

The fan assembly in the top must be taken out:

Now this is what I wanted:

Now we can go back to the case.
Applied some of the contact cement to stick the veneer to:

And after lots of sticking, and some router work, this is what I got:

Now lets go back to the inside of the case.
lets get this baby assembled!!!

After some test fitting, I re-riveted some parts of the rack to make it more stable:

This is the power supply holder, had to cut a hole in there for 1 of the power supplies:

Test fitting of both power supplies:

How it looks from the rear, notice the slot on the left is for 3 exterior molex power connectors, which will be powering my external Black Ice GTX480 radiator:

How it looks with the Antec rack and power supplies mounted in there:

Where is the water cooling?!?!?! Oh here it is:

My next major design mistake, I hate to even admit to doing such a noobish thing, but I wasn't even thinking and was in such a hurry to get this thing together, I was so excited. Many may not know why the following was an extremely bad idea, but for those who water cool, you will know.

Anyways, let us continue on.
Fitting in the motherboard tray and bolting it down:

Oh, look what has arrived, and just in time too!!!

lets get some yate loons on that thing and get it bolted on!!!

And now, for the moment we have all been waiting for!!!

Timlander · 05-30-09

You will have to excuse me for not taking more pictures in between the last one and this one, but I was to excited to get it together to stop every 10 seconds to take a picture. =)

Now I realized the major mistake I had made on the GPU loop set-up. So...after much thought, I finally come up with an actually very good solution to the problem, without having to buy more tube or make any major changes. I didnt take a pic of it in the shop, so the next pic is after the change, but also after I moved the case into my room to do A LOT of cable management and to make sure all the lights and everything worked ok.

Lights off please:

And the temporary location of my GTX 480 radiator, inside of its nicely hand crafted radbox. If anyone would like to see the radbox build log, the link is in my sig!

Cable management, working on it:

Back to work with the outside:

Had to make a seat for the windows to sit into:

A few glamor shots:

1st coat of varnish on:

While that was drying it was time to cut out the windows:

The 3rd coat of varnish has dried, and the window sills have been painted black, and windows have been put in: