Project: The Ultimate Computer Desk

ultimatedesk said:

vierasniper said:

those sketches look good, hope it comes out great. make sure to post the final product. im exited to see what it gonna look like.

Thanks for the confidence vote there vierasniper, I hope it turns out as good as the sketches!

Ivan the SoSo said:

Try and find a old atx case to get the motherboard tray/ back plane....

Roger that Ivan the SoSo! I ~actually~ may have a little surprise coming in from Danger Den soon... we'll see!


Hey there Lordbob75, thanks for the comments! Just to let you know, I'll be cutting out a section of a high-quality air filter for a furnace to put over the intake, and with 4 120mmx38mm fans sucking in air, I'm hoping there will be PLENTY of airflow.

I like the idea of putting the monitors on an articulated do-hickey as well, however, my second design compared to the first design adds that little shelf that they rest on, so that I have the ability to use the space beneath the monitors, which was the whole point of the rack in the first design. I may very well design something in the future to accommodate for some nice speakers - great idea!

Golden said:

Thats very impressive. Will you be using some sort of dampining/cushioning between the various fans and the wooden sides of the desk to help mimimise vibration?

Regards,
Golden

Ohhhh yes, this will be a very interesting part of the project actually. I will most likely spend just as much time building little tunnels to hide the wires, dampen the vibrations of the fans and hard-drives, as building the desk itself! I plan on experimenting with various packing foams and such from past deliveries as well as the local hardware stores. Thanks for the comments, and stay tuned for more updates!

Fatezoom said:

looks cool

Thanks Fatezoom! I really appreciate it!

Had time to cut that last 8' sheet into the 28" sections, and cut a hole in the surface portion of the desk. The surface portion, fyi, will be composed of two 8' pieces of 3/4" plywood, so its total thickness will be 1.5" thick.

The upper plywood will have a hole that is .5" wider all around than the board beneath it.

Only had time to do one hole tonight - the lower portion, thankfully, because I made a few small mistakes!

Sorry about the photos folks, I had already uploaded these to imageshack and forgot to resize them, so here are the thumbnails since I don't have the original stock photos on me right now. From now on, they'll be properly sized at 800x600, which I feel is a fair compromise for detail and bandwidth.





I started off with a carpenters angle, measured off my lines with a pencil and then made a rough cut with a jigsaw. I then clamped a straight-edge lined up with the edges (measured) and ran a router across it to create the smooth finish.

I messed up a bit, going a bit too far with the router on one end, and then not far enough on the other end - I'll have to sand and file to square it off.

Sorry I didn't take too many pictures - the next hole will have more!







Thankfully the shop is heated, here's one of the heaters - it went down to -8*C that evening!



Here's the mess for the night!





And, the hero of the night! Mastercraft Plunge Router!!

Your welcomed, looking forward to it :)

very impressive, looking forward to seeing finished model

Awesome project, I can't wait to see that when it's finished.

Lordbob75 said:

Looks like its coming together well.

I would still encourage you to think about liquid cooling your gaming rig, but you probably will have a fair bit of airflow with a fan bank

Also, now I really want to build something like this, even though it wouldn't fit in my dorm room.

~Lordbob

Thanks Lordbob75 :) You know, a place is never too small to make a custom desk! That's where the whole CUSTOM part comes from

thefabe said:

I was going to recommend a tool seen on late night TV that is a jig ( Kreg Joints) that counter sinks and angle drills holes for butting edges flawlessly but of course I can't remember the name of it.

Anyways it looks as if you are fortunate to have a girlfriend with access to all the wood working tools you should need and help. Looks like it should be a very impressive case/desk when your done.
Nice illustrations as well
KregJoint.com Avalible at Sears
Fabe

Looks super trick - I'll have to see if I can grab it at my local Sears - thanks for the link :)

Mercurial said:

holy shit.

Hehe, two words is all it takes sometimes, eh? Thanks :)

Six9siX said:

Nice project.

Here are some of solutions /replacement on my project if it helps.

pic 1-5 motherboard plate & back pannel
pic 6 - fan connector plate
pic 7-8 hdd ( 8 black in between hdd's is rubber pipe screws only on top/bottom)
pic 9-13 new stronger motherboard plate
pic 14 filter
pic 15 finished empty case

Just make sure every component is grounded with each other.

Thanks for the pics, gave me some good ideas. I plan on running exposed copper wiring around the inside of the cabinets where the components are - it'll be decorative (I will try to make it look like circuit boards on the inside) but it will also join all the components together and eventually to an external ground.

Lebon14 said:

Holy Sh--. That's all I have to say.

Thanks Lebon14 :)

Devilz said:

very impressive, looking forward to seeing finished model

Thanks Devilz!

derekimo said:

Awesome project, I can't wait to see that when it's finished.

Thanks derekimo :)


Thanks everyone for the support! This is a huge project for me, and it will take a couple months I'm sure to finish up. I appreciate all the feedback and comments :)

I was able to spend some time in the shop this weekend, and didn't get as much done as I would have liked to.

One of the main things holding me back right now is the fact that I have not selected the motherboard tray, and template for the motherboard input and outputs, as well as PCI slots. This prevents me from cutting the holes accurately in the back of both of the modules, which prevents me from assembling the actual modules.

I have some "spare" desktop chassis lying around, and will be working to find a solution to that soon.

In the meantime, I started working on the drawers for the right-hand module.

I first took them through the table saw again, trimming off the last 16th or two from some of the boards.



Then went to work sanding all of the pieces down with 150 grit. I will likely go up to a 180 grit before the final stain goes on. I clamped a straight-edge on to the table saw so that it was easier to sand with the grain (Thanks Mike)







Slowly, but surely, I went through all the pieces for the drawers, except for the faces. Yes, bad things happen when I don't have my sketchup drawings. I start drawing with markers.





Mike was doing some work in the shop at the same time as me that day, so there was quite the mess.





I put together my tools of the trade



And here are the gluing steps I went through







A few somewhat artistic clamp shots







Everything looks pretty straight







Glued and clamped together the largest of the drawers, will likely put some hanging folders in there.









Then I screwed everything together with #8 1.5" screws, all holes pre-drilled and countersunk. Most of the holes will be covered by the actual drawer sliding mechanisms, but the exposed ones will get some wood putty.

It's funny being in someone else's wood shop - I couldn't find the countersink bit anywhere - I tried looking through all the drill bit boxes (There were several) and nothing, so I had been using a small bit, then switching to the big bit to countersink, and then switching to the screw bit to screw in the holes.

Mike walks in half-way through the holes and you could tell he was rather amused - he goes to the back of the shop, pulls out a box, pulls out a box from the box, and then a small medicine container out from the box in a box - "Geez, didn't I tell ya to just look around? Oh. Wait. I guess this one was sorta hard to find eh?".

At that point, he also points out that there are several drills in the shop - silly me. So one drill with the countersink bit, one drill with the screw bit. It's been very interesting working in a shop dedicated to this type of work - very, very different from working in the basement with just basic hand tools.



I haven't attached the faces of the drawers yet as I haven't determined how I would like to attach them. I would also like to attach the trim to the outer edges of the faces before attaching them to the drawers, since it'll be much easier to clamp all the faces together at once.



And that's it for todays update - a bit short, yes, a lot of pictures of clamps, sorry, I got carried away

I'm spending some time in the shop tonight, so hopefully I'll have another update for all of you tomorrow or the day after!

Nice work, you should put this all together in a book when you're done.

Lots of good pics too.