GP Forums - My xLAN case mod entry - the steampunk "Jules Verne".

Hrm well a few people keep hassling me to put up some information about the "Jules Verne", my winning entry in the xLAN case mod competition, so I figured I'll do a summary here. It started off innocently enough with this case I picked up from Ascent. I can't remember what it is and I can't be bothered finding out, so you'll just have to use your imagination

It quickly became apparent that the front had to go, there's just not enough room in there to fit in a decent collection of steampunkery (yes, it's a word. Well, it is now..)

You just can't beat a disk grinder. Anywho, now comes the really complicated bit. In order to achieve the necessary look, you need a lot of wood, brass and copper. Attaching said materials to a relatively flimsy pressed steel case isn't the easiest of tasks at the best of time, so you need to be patient and measure everything twice before you cut it. Note recessed counter-sunk wood to maintain flush surface.. The brass strapping is 19x2mm and costs roughly $45 per metre.

I like this shot because you can start to see what I had in mind;

You can see with this shot that the tolerances are extremely close. Too close to really achieve with any accuracy on the first build. Unfortunately I wasn't planning on making a production run of these cases, so I only really got one shot at it.

Spinning the case around now, and starting to carefully attach the copper plate. I bought a square metre of 0.5mm thick copper. That doesn't sound like much, but you try fitting it in the back of a passenger car (hint: possible, but not reccommended). Machine screws to date courtesy of trademe, and are part of a custom run for some job that obviously had a lot left over. I didn't know this at the time I bought them.

Easy to get carried away with copper sheet. In order to bend it and get a nice crisp edge, it's best to use a bench vice and two pieces of wood each side the sheet. Once you've bent it (carefully) you then get another bit of wood and a hammer and beat the hell out of the edge. The mechanism at this point is just sitting there, it's two modified movements from a hundred year old clock I found in my Grandfathers shed shortly after he passed away. The clock was knackered, but with a bit of attention the movements spin quite freely.

Two movements are inverted and welded together with my trusty arc welder on very low amperage...

Right, now the electric motors driving the movements have to be concealed. Enter the copper sheet again. This time, it's bent around the outside of a pipe to get a constant radius, and attached to the wooden movement enclosure with some brass screws. At this point I'd like to say a big "screw you" (pun intended) to Mitre 10 for charging $6 for 25 tiny brass screws. That's highway robbery, you should be wearing a mask, and you know it.

In the below shot, you can see the small electric motor used to power the mechanism. Not sure what it's out of, I had a couple of them lying around. It's connected to the back of the brass cogs with a plastic sleeve out of the drive mechanism on a hand-held engraving machine that broke after being disloyal (don't ask)

Wires pushed through the motherboard tray, safe in the knowledge that it will all get covered up eventually.

Evolution here, just more copper and a plywood tray for the two water pumps at the top of the case.

One tank in place, just sizing everything up to make sure it all fits ok.

Bit of a jump forward here. Due to a bit of a snafu with my hard drive, I lost a few pictures. Anyway, you can see pretty much the finished result here - the front panel and side panel are attached, and the brass and copper detailing around the water tanks is complete.

You can see the walnut veneer here. This has been applied over a thin later of plywood, and polished using Shellac. Shellac is a kind of secretion made by the Lac beetle, and is mixed with meths and liberally applied in a polishing motion. If done correctly, it will shine for quite a long time. The veneer I used was pretty old and rather cracked, as to give the look I wanted (old and cracked, strangely enough).

Side view of the copper water pipes. The plastic tubing doesn't run the full length of the copper pipe, it's actually glued with araldite each end. Note to self: next time don't try silicone first. Not worth it. Leaks aren't fun.

Side view of the water cooling. Another note to self - imperial 3/8" ID tube is not compatible with metric 9mm ID tube. It's only half a milimetre, but it will leak. This tubing was intended to be clear with red/green coolant - yeah right, you try finding red coolant one week out from xLAN.

Copper pipe is wonderful stuff. You bend it by filling it up with sand and applying a gentle heat. I used a steel wheel off an old trolly jack to get the radius right.

The alloy fins on the factory Thermaltake radiators (yeah, they look a lot better without that cheap-ass black enclosure box, eh?) are incredibly fragile, so I bored about a million holes in some copper sheet and attached it.

Er yeah, final shot!

Specs:

Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.5Ghz
2GB DDR2-1066 RAM
ASUS Striker II 780i motherboard
2x 8800GT 512MB cards in SLI
Enermax Liberty 500w PSU
What's left of two Thermaltake Big Water kits

Seven metres of brass strap
One square metre each of walnut veneer and 0.5mm copper plate
Over three hundred machine screws
Four metres of 20x20mm pine, two metres of 10x10mm pine.
About eighty hours solid work over a period of three months.

GP Forums / Computers & Technology / Modding and Overclocking
My xLAN case mod entry - the steampunk "Jules Verne".
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