Project: Stargate Atlantis

After about a week of designing on sketchup, my plans for the StarGate Atlantis case are almost complete. I’ll be using wooden slats to build a frame and sheets of polystyrene to skin the thing. Thicker layers of styrene will be used to make the accents and hull panels. I’m thinking that I’ll need to use bondo on the visable pieces of wood to make them look more like metal. Or at the very least, make them look like something that isn’t wood. I was going to wait till I was completely done with the design before posting the project, but I just can’t wait to begin construction. Besides, It could be months before I got every single aspect just right. :)

Here’s a close up on the front window. I’ve gone ahead and assumed that I can get blue colored acrylic. The white squares up on the top are going to be frosted and lighted with white LEDs.

It’s kinda funny, but I never planned on making the front window a window at all. It was originally opaque but I accidentally painted it with the blue clear color when making the side windows.

I like the placement of the side windows, but the components are a little low. I thought about moving the power supply to just below the motherboard, but it would interfere with the airflow. Airflow should move upward from the vents on the bottom towards the two exhaust fans on top. I’m not really sure what would happen if I put the power supply below the motherboard.

Here’s the other side. I still need to finish up on the small hull panels. I’m not sure what to call those blue things, so from this point I think I’ll call them “the blue things”. Great name huh? Anyway, the white lines will be the same frosted white acrylic with LEDs behind them.

The ancient writing will be lighted. I’ll cut out the letters in very thin pieces of styrene and place it on top of frosted acrylic to get the effect. I can only guess at the level of fun cutting out all those letters will bring! The round thing is supposed to be a stargate. I only added it to the design a few hours ago, but I think I really like it. I didn’t have much time to add details. Behind the gate, I’m going to put a small clear box filled with blue dyed mineral oil. I may put a fan inside it to stir up the liquid. It could look really cool, or it could make a really big mess.

Above that are the hidden optical drives. I’m still thinking about having a rolling door over both drives like the one on CrimsonSky's “Doom 3”. It might even be neat to put a motion sensor in. Then all I have to do is stick my hand down there and have the door open automatically. The problem with a motion sensor is that I can think of about a dozen ways it which it might malfunction. It might get annoying to have a small door on your computer randomly opening and closing when all you want to do is walk across the room.

I’ve been changing these side panels since I first put them on and I just can’t seem to make them work for me. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to discard them so there’s really no need to say anything about them. In fact, there’s really no need for this picture…

The top still needs the small details, but I think it looks good. I don’t know if I can make that small silver Pegasus-chevron logo above the front window. I’d like to have it cut out of aluminum with a water jet, but if I can’t find someone to do it I may resort to using a sticker. Does anyone have any recommendations for a cool looking blue 80mm fan? Something that might go with my theme.


Well, that’s my project. I’ll probably start working on it on Monday when I get the time.

wow! i like the design!

cant wait to see where this one goes!

That is something that will take a long time and a lot of very detailed work to complete. +Rep for even considering it!

Goodluck!!!

DUDE! This is going to be sweet if you can pull it off. Very cool design +Reps And welcome to TBCS

have any idea on how tall and wide its going to be? u might need a forklift for the lan parties!! :D

Thanks for the rep TGS and rendermandan. I’m glad everyone likes the design.

The case should stand around four feet tall. I’ll have to move some furniture out of my bedroom just to find a place for it!

Three words come to mind:

OH. MY. GOD.

This this is gonna be sweet if you pull it off. /subscribe and a +rep as well!

No way man.. For this I may have to drive the 10 hours to see in person. I love the show and the show that started it all, SG-1.

Off topic: Shame SG-1 is going to be over soon.

Back on topic: I think this is going to look awesome. I've been trying to think of a good Stargate themed mod and ya beat me to it.

Bopher, he pulls this off, and I'll stop by Cheyenne and pick ya up. This too is something I'd have to see in person!

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Originally Posted by Visionary

Does anyone have any recommendations for a cool looking blue 80mm fan? Something that might go with my theme.

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Would this work?

Sweet...

Now I would just have to explain to the wife where I'm going for at least a day. To bad WOM doesn't have any stores in Minnesota... Hmm, might be time for some suggestions to the office now, lol

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Originally Posted by Bopher

Sweet...

Now I would just have to explain to the wife where I'm going for at least a day. To bad WOM doesn't have any stores in Minnesota... Hmm, might be time for some suggestions to the office now, lol

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Bring her along, and I'll talk my very soon to be Mrs into coming along for the ride as well!

And I really can't see WOM opening stores that far away--to be honest, I was surprised that you told me they had stores in Wyoming. I figured it would just be Montana.

Enough thread hijacking, I've got work to do.

Ok, I finally got a chance to begin working on my case. I started last night with the tray that’s going to hold the motherboard and power supply. Here’s a rough sketchup of the layout. It’s designed to be slid out the back of the case for easy access.

To make the frame I used a couple metal strips that are used to hold up ceiling panels. They’re not the ideal material for the job, but they were free. I’m helping my brother remodel his house and this was some of the trash that got thrown out. I wanted to make the motherboard tray out of metal because I thought that wood might come loose and fall apart after years of being pushed and pulled on.

The first thing I did was make a paper template from my sketchup drawing. I used it to figure out where to make the corners then I cut out 90 degree wedges with my dremel. I think these strips are made out of tin. They’re pretty flimsy, easy to cut and bend.

I used bondo on the backside to hold the corners in shape. Then I cut out a separate piece for the top.

I used bondo to attach that piece. After it dried, I filled in the entire back side with bondo. This really stiffened up the frame and made it look nicer. I’ll glue a sheet of styrene onto the front when I get a piece. The cardboard box taped onto the front is a placeholder for my heat sink and fan. I’ll need to make sure that it will fit inside the case as I begin building it.

To finish the motherboard/PSU frame I'll need some styrene and the back off an old computer. But I should be able to move on to framing the rest of the case. Hopefully I won’t have to resize my sketchup model to make everything fit. I guess I’ll find out tonight.



On a slightly unrelated note:

What the F! All I did was take my computer apart so I could make sure the motherboard would fit onto the frame. Then I put it all back together. It’s exactly the same as it was before I took it apart this morning. Grrrrrrr……Annoying! Maybe my atlantis machine should run linux.

You didn't happen to leave out an optical drive did you? Or switch the position(s) of the hdd/opticals from slave to master or vice versa?

Cause that can cause you to get the annoying activation screen.

Looks good so far, have a +rep from me!

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Originally Posted by DrumThumper

You didn't happen to leave out an optical drive did you? Or switch the position(s) of the hdd/opticals from slave to master or vice versa?

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Well I didn't leave out an optical drive, and I had the jumpers on the back of one optical set for master and the other one set for slave. I guess it could have been the harddrives. I don't remember how I set them up. Still it could explain how I've gotten this message now when I've taken apart my computer so many other times without getting it. Thanks for the information.

Good work & good luck with your mod. I cant wait to see how this turns out.

Here’s the updated plan. The side panels are gone and a larger base has been added. I could probably use all the extra room in the base for a reservoir. It only seems right that atlantis should be water cooled. I also increased the scale of the entire case. Now it stands 4’8” instead of 4’. The bigger the better. It'll compensate for the outdated hardware that I'm going to put inside.

This is what I’ve gotten done so far. It took a little longer than I expected. For some reason I though this was going to be really easy. Getting all the vertical pieces to go straight up without leaning over was a bit of a challenge. Anyway, the wood is lath from plaster walls. I got a massive pile of it while fixing up my brothers’ house. The lath is held together with wood glue and staples. It turned out to be quite sturdy. There’s nothing really interesting about assembly so I’ll skip all that.

Now that I can physically see how large this thing is going to be, its occurred to me how much styrene I’m going to need. It could cost hundreds of dollars to get enough styrene to cover the thing and to make all the little panels. I’ll spend the money if I have to but I’d rather try a few alternatives first. I'm thinking about using cardboard painted with urethane resin instead of styrene. It'll be awsome if it works. I'll test it out and let everyone know how it goes.

I’m not really sure how much detail I should put into a work log. I’ve never done one before. I'd like to put up alot of pics, but that could take hours on a 56k connection. If I need to post more pics or go into more detail just let me know.

This is the base. It’s not quite finished. It still needs the bottom hexagon.

Here I’ve propped the main part of the case up on top of the base. It doesn’t fit quite right. The top part wants to fall forward because there’s nothing holding up the front.

I didn’t think wood glue would be able to support all the weight so I put in a wood strip between the upper frame and the base.

I used bolts to secure the two pieces of the case together. Wood glue would have probably done fine but I didn’t want to take the chance. This is probably one of the weaker points in the case.

Onto the base. I cut 12 pieces of lath and stapled the ends together to make two hexagons.

Then I glued shorter pieces on top leaving gaps at the edges.

The gaps are just big enough for a lath strip to fit into. This will strengthen up the vertical pieces of lath and keep the ends from moving around after they’re glued.

The top and bottom pieces glued together without any trouble.

I think I need a work bench…

For the outside of the case, my first plan was to brush fiberglass resin onto cardboard. But I read somewhere that fiberglass resin shrinks when it hardens. I was worried the shrinking would cause the edges of the cardboard to bend or shrivel up. The site, wherever it was, recommended polyurethane resin. Well I don’t know what polyurethane resin is, but I did have some polyurethane so I tried it.

I tried a thin layer of polyurethane on some cardboard first. It's on the left in the pic. It left a thin hard surface, but the cardboard was still easy to bend. If something were laid up against the case the cardboard would easily bend. I needed something thicker and harder. For my second attempt I tried polycrylic, the stuff on the right. When I opened up the can, I saw that it had about the same consistency as the polyurethane. I doubted it would work any better than the polyurethane, so I decided to put it on really thick. That was a mistake. The outside layer of cardboard got so soaked that the ridges on the corragated middle started to show through.

The cardboard was still not strong enough, so I went to wal-mart to get some fiberglass resin. And I thought bondo smelled bad…

The fiberglass resin really strengthened up the cardboard and left a smooth sandable surface. Unfortunately it left brush marks, as you can see in the pics. I could smooth it out with high-fill primer or something, but it would be costly and time consuming. It might make more sense to use 1/8 inch styrene.

My next idea was to use paper. Actually I knew the paper wouldn't be strong enough, I just wanted to see what would happen.

I brushed the fiberglass resin onto one side of the paper allowing it to soak through leaving the opposite side free of brush strokes. The whole thing looks and feels like a very thin piece of plastic. It’s hard to believe that it’s actually a piece of paper. I could us it for the white lighted surfaces on my case but I'll need to put more resin onto the backside. It isn't very strong and still tears like paper with only one coat of resin.

I figured out what I'm going to use on the outside of the case. I'll brush fiberglass resin onto thick cardboard and then glue a thin sheet of styrene on top. It'll give the sides the strength of 1/8 inch styrene but without the cost. I'm ordering all my styrene from US Plastics. The problem with ordering 1/8 inch styrene from them is that it has to be shipped motor freight. And with motor freight shipping you won't know how much it costs until it arrives at your door. My guess would be that it's fairly expensive.

If its not too late have you looked into thin (3mm?) plywood. It would be strong enough and its probably cheaper than styrene though it would need a layer of someting to stop it looking like wood (primer would do it you put it on thick).

Or you could try metal, thin sheet steel is very cheap.

Still I like the look of this project. Nice Sketchup work :)

This looks interesting. I love working with wood. If you need some help on the wood drop me a line.

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Originally Posted by Olen

If its not too late have you looked into thin (3mm?) plywood. It would be strong enough and its probably cheaper than styrene though it would need a layer of someting to stop it looking like wood (primer would do it you put it on thick).

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Actually I already ordered a ton of styrene 4 days ago. Plywood would have been a good idea though. I've found that the larger pieces of cardboard require a lot of fiberglass resin to get hard. When I first tested fiberglass resin, it was only on small pieces. I think I'll continue with the cardboard and styrene plan for now.

I hadn't even considered metal. I'm using my dads tools and he doesn't have much for metal working. I did use some steel plates on my first mod, it took forever to cut them with a dremel.


Thanks Talegunner, I wasn't sure if anyone was a fan of wood on this site. It seems like everyone wants to build their next mod out of aluminum.

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Originally Posted by Visionary

Actually I already ordered a ton of styrene 4 days ago. Plywood would have been a good idea though. I've found that the larger pieces of cardboard require a lot of fiberglass resin to get hard. When I first tested fiberglass resin, it was only on small pieces. I think I'll continue with the cardboard and styrene plan for now.

I hadn't even considered metal. I'm using my dads tools and he doesn't have much for metal working. I did use some steel plates on my first mod, it took forever to cut them with a dremel.


Thanks Talegunner, I wasn't sure if anyone was a fan of wood on this site. It seems like everyone wants to build their next mod out of aluminum.

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Check out my log. Cherry wood case with water cooling.

http://thebestcasescenario.com/forum...ead.php?t=6712

Do consider metal. You can get an angle grinder (great for steel NOT for aluminium) for about a tenner here so its not like the tools cost much. For aluminium get a hand saw its that soft.

But for something this complex wood/ plastic may well be better. Plywood is cheap though so if you need more think about it... Oh and use the right primer... not all of them harden totally as I found to my detriment on trying to sand some...

I’ll use cardboard to build the blue things and then glue pieces of styrene onto the surfaces. After I get them together I’ll cut the slots for the lighted strips with a dremel.

I cut out templates for the pieces in paper first, then used the templates to mark the cardboard.

Here are all the pieces for the two blue things. I numbered the pieces so that I’d know where they all go.

I put a thick layer of fiberglass resin on both sides of the pieces. Then I used contact cement to glue them together at the edges. That stuff is pretty messy and it took quite a while to dry. It didn’t seem very strong either. Next time I think I’ll use hot glue. It’ll probably be just as strong.

All glued together. But I wasn’t sure it was going to stay that way so I put on a few extra layers of resin. That seems to have strengthened it up. Maybe I should put some sort of bracing inside to keep them from falling apart.

You can probably notice the gap between the top and the front side. That happened because I forgot to take into account the thickness of the cardboard when I was making the templates. I took the measurements straight off of sketchup without considering how the pieces of cardboard would need to overlap at the corners. If the cardboard had been paper thin, everything would have fit together perfectly. oops…

Next I’ll make the steps. The top surfaces will be cardboard and styrene like the rest of the case. The front surfaces of the steps will be only styrene. I’ll cut the ancient letters out of the styrene and put some sort of semi-opaque white material behind them. Then I’ll use white LEDs to illuminate the letters from behind.

Paper templates for the two steps.

When I fitted the templates against the frame I noticed that it didn’t quite fit, so I taped some paper onto the templates until they fit perfectly.

I got done cutting the cardboard. Here’s how they’ll look when I put it all together.

The fiberglass resin works pretty well on the smaller two pieces of cardboard. The larger piece may need another layer or two to get hard.


Progress is starting to slow down now. I need to get a case. I need optical drive brackets and the motherboard holder before I get too far along. I can’t put the cardboard on the sides until those things are installed first. I’ve been looking for a case for about a week or so. I’m almost at the point where I’m ready to buy a new case from newegg.

Lookin good man. You stopping?

Wow! Great project and nice progress so far.
Subscripted and +Rep for the idea.

I really hope the cardboard is strong enough to withstand a practical usage of the case and does not buckle sooner or later...

GREAT idea! Really like it. Normally I don't like theme-cases but this one stands above them.

I personally would use metal to construct it. It fits better with the theme and it is much stronger. Also harder to treat. Maybe something for later ;)

Great job though :)

that's reeely good

Last activity: 07-27-2007
Last time he updated the thread: 06-19-2007

I dont see why people insist on finding several month old posts then commenting on it after the user left =/

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

No I haven’t given up. I’ve just put it on the back burner for a little while. I just got out of college and I decided it was time for me to stop screwing around and use my time to get a job. I’m not sure when I’ll start up the project again, but I intend to finish it. This wouldn't be the first project I put on hold and then came back a year or two later to finish.


I’m not sure if the cardboard is going to work anymore. The cardboard became incredible tough after the fiberglass resin dried for a week. But then I left a few pieces out where the moisture got to them and the cardboard became a little too soggy for my tastes. The cardboard didn’t come into contact with water, it was moisture in the air that caused the problem. It stiffened back up after it dried, but still… I can’t have the sides start to change shape just because the humidity is a little high. Metal might be the way to go.

woah, i never expected you to come back, now i feel like a jackass.
Do you have magical powers and sensed someone posted in your worklog or did you just subscribe to it..?

My spidy sense started tingling which can mean only 1 of 2 things. Either I left dinner cooking in the oven 2 hours ago and lost track of time playing computer games, or someone is looking at my atlantis worklog.

Or maybe I subscribed to it. :)

I haven't visited TBCS in quite a while. I felt too guilty about not doing any work on my project.

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Originally Posted by Visionary

I haven't visited TBCS in quite a while. I felt too guilty about not doing any work on my project.

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No need to feel guilty at all. I've got 3 mods going, one that I'm working on, and I work full time and am going to college myself. I know EXACTLY how you feel.

This is a great design, and I hope you get the chance to see it come to life!

Visionary, any word on that job? Still watching and waiting for some awesome update :D

Update, Update, Update!!

Well, I don't know if this is going to work out. The job I've got right now is taking up way too much of my life. Plus, I live in a really small apartment and don't the space or the tools that I had with my dads workshop. But on the plus side I've got money so I don't have to make do with cardboard.

The other week, I started to design an actual case mod, as opposed to a scratch build case, that would incorporate the atlantis theme. But I haven't had much time to on it since then.

I deff like this idea. You can save space but keep the theme. Honestly I like it better :D