WIP Creating the Ultimate Computer Desk - 2 Built-In Computers

[ultimatedesk]

Originally Posted by ZZLEE

dusty but fun me thinks .

Thanks ZZLEE ;) You should see the amount of dust I kick up when I take out the sander!

Originally Posted by xhrrcollector

OH wow! Simply WOW! Speechless!

Thanks xhrrcollector, I'll keep the updates flowin!

Originally Posted by mo' power

This is going to be on very nice desk! Will you be going with a light, medium or dark stain?

Thanks mo' power - I'm thinking of going with a dark stain. I've got a dark red/black cherry mahogany-type stain in mind currently, with a nice polished / gloss finish. Not exactly sure how I'm going to do it yet - there'll be lots of pre-testing on scrap!

It's been a little while since my last update, so here are a few snapshots. As some of you might know, I've been a little held back in the project due to not having selected my motherboard I/O plates and motherboard trays. Without having the actual items, I couldn't make the appropriate measurements to make cut-outs in the back of the cabinets, and therefore, was unable to make the dado cuts due to worry about everything not fitting properly.

So I scrounged through some old desktop systems I had lying around, emptied their components into my bins, and decided to take apart their chassis in search of some good motherboard tray and I/O parts.

So - off to the spooky basement with a pair of chassis, my trusty drill and dremel.





Having never drilled rivets out of a case before, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. At first, I started with a bit that was a little bit small, so the rivets came up onto the drill bit itself and got stuck on there pretty good. Eventually, I moved to a bigger bit, and all it took was one good squeeze of the trigger and the rivet would come right out nice and cleanly.





Starting to rack up some parts here



You can see in the image above that the I/O and PCI Plate is built right into the back of the desktop chassis - this is unfortunate, as you'll see in some future photos, my other case actually had a modular I/O plate. I'll have to take the dremel to that part to get what I need.

Time to grab the pliers...



Here is the shot of the back plate of the other desktop chassis - see how the I/O plate was actually riveted in, and not pressed as a whole back sheet like the other one? Soo much easier to deal with.



That was a pretty fun experience taking apart the cases. I've got a bunch of scrap sheet metal now too - wonder what interesting projects I can come up with to use them...

On to that first I/O plate - I need to dremel out the section that I need



Huh.. that actually didn't work out too well, at least, not the way I would like. I'm going to take these parts to the shop to see if there are any better tools for getting nice clean lines.

Until next time!

[aviduser]

I can see how it would be difficult to gauge the cut of the router with that dust extraction piece on. I find those bilingual tapes a bit annoying.

All in all lookin good! nice work

[ultimatedesk]

Originally Posted by aviduser

I can see how it would be difficult to gauge the cut of the router with that dust extraction piece on. I find those bilingual tapes a bit annoying.

All in all lookin good! nice work

I always wonder why routers don't have better visibility designed into them. Wonder what the major holdback is. Thanks for the comment, I'll try to keep the updates coming ;)

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, things have been overly busy lately with the Christmas season getting into top gear.

I had some time to take those motherboard tray and I/O Plates to the shop to try out a few tools / techniques for shaping them into something I actually like.

First off, yes, Mike and I tried using the nice Dewalt Jigsaw, but the Mastercraft metal blades we were trying to use just wouldn't stay in the darn clamp. It would cut like butter for maybe 10 seconds and then bam, the blade would fall out of the bottom of the jigsaw onto the ground. Not sure what was going on there.



Next up, we tried this neat little Mastercraft oscillating tool with a metal blade as well, but no such luck. Couldn't figure out a good way to clamp down the metal tray, so it just vibrated it like crazy instead of actually cutting.





Our next contestant was an air compressor powered cutting wheel, which, was ultimately less accurate than the dremel, and just as slow.



So we took out the big gun, the sawzall.



Ha, no, just kidding. It wouldn't work even a tiny bit for a piece like this.

In the end, you know what ultimately worked the best?



Yeah, a hacksaw. Go figure.

Anyways, here you can see my mangled I/O plate for the motherboard. It's not a pretty sight at all in my opinion.



This is the nice I/O plate that I didn't even have to do anything except drill out a few rivets.



I think I'm going to have to come up with a better solution for this. We'll see shortly ;)

Hope everyone who is getting snow is enjoying it, I know here in Ottawa, it's been a pretty crazy few days!

Stay tuned for more updates, will be spending some time in the shop this week and working with WOOD!

[Behemoth-]

Wow... this is awesome work you're doing there... really nice !

[Keltron 3030]

I was gonna suggest you get a Mountain Mods mobo tray, but for the price and visual enjoyment, this seems to suffice :P

[ultimatedesk]

Originally Posted by Behemoth-

Wow... this is awesome work you're doing there... really nice !

Originally Posted by Keltron 3030

I was gonna suggest you get a Mountain Mods mobo tray, but for the price and visual enjoyment, this seems to suffice :P

Thanks Behemoth :) I am considering going with an aftermarket I/O Plate and Motherboard tray... we will see, as I'm not totally satisfied with the results of my hacking away at an old desktop case...

I had a bit of time in the shop this week to work on getting my drawers up to speed. I decided to take the advice of a fellow forum member and add "false fronts" to my drawers so that I can attach the "real fronts" using screws by screwing from the inside of the drawer, so I wouldn't have any screw heads to cover up on the outside.

Here they are, with my roughed out false fronts - I happened to have 3 pieces of wood almost exactly the size I needed.



Time to take out 'ol trusty



A quick test fit, and all 3 fit perfectly





Add a bit of glue, and some trusty clamps, and we've got ourselves the beginnings of some false fronts!







All 3 of them fit rather nicely. I think they helped square out the drawers overall as well (Even though they were only out of square by around 1/16th of an inch).

So, I've got some time for the glue to dry. I'm not sure if anyone can remember this, but in my original cut sheets, I had planned on cutting out a specific piece of wood using the wood that I jigsawed out of the desk surface.

Here's that piece:



Not, exactly.... square..

So I take this nice little protractor attached to a table saw slide - it's set at 90, so here we go!



I do 2 sides, and then use the actual table saw fence to square out the other 2, but something just doesn't seem right..





It's not really square. What's going on here?



Aha! Looks like the protractor was a little bit off, resulting in a shape one step closer to a diamond as opposed to a square. After a bit of readjustment, I redid that bit and cut it to size - it's the drawer face for the large drawer.



Now that the glue is settled, I decided to throw a few screws into the false fronts.





Awesome. And solid too!



Now, this is kind of embarrassing, but I had to go back and fix a mistake I made in my initial cuts. This piece of wood was supposed to be 20" x 28", but it ended up being more like 19.8" x 28". It may not seem like much, but this is the back piece to the left-hand cabinet. I would have to adjust the width of all 3 shelves if I were to continue using this, and I've got the space already pretty tightly packed with computer components on the top shelf.

So... don't do this at home, just cut a new piece of wood (I didn't want to cut into a new sheet of 4x8 just for this one piece...)

This piece looks like a good fit...







No one will see it, because it'll be in the back, but you will all know. So... let's just forget that ever happened, ok? ;)

[Toyoracer]

Coming along nicely ultimatedesk, ...now what were we suppose to remember .

[jibz]

I can't wait to see the finished product. Its going to be epic.

[Ash]

Ultimatedesk awesome job I love following this project.

The truth is mistakes happen, just they get glorized by tv to make it look like they never make mistakes lol.
So you showing us your mistakes proves your not a robot lol.

Great job coming together nicely!

[DrJohnFever]

What are the specs on the gaming half of this desk? It looks like 2 Asus Ares? If that is true... Freaking wow. <3