Wooden Media Center

[jdbnsn]

This is actually my first computer mod, I started this months ago before I had even heard of modding. I wanted a Media center computer to sit in my entertainment center that kind of fits in with stereo equipment. Unfortunately, I didn't start taking pics until halfway done, so bear with me. All I can really do at this point is show you what is done a describe it.
I took a very old computer (like a pentium 1 or something) and gutted it, leaving only the metal frame.

I then used some scrap red oak plywood to cover the sides and I was lucky enough to have a scrap solid oak plank for the front. These were sanded, screwed to the frame and painted.

I removed the CD rack and turned it sideways, then re-riveted it to the frame.

This is the under-side which is still footless, but I made a bevelled edge.

I had to cut some metal away for the power supply to fit.

Also had to cut the back panel off to orient the motherboard to fit, not much left of the original frame...

[jdbnsn]

That's it for now, I'll try to get some more pics this weekend to show you more of what is going on here. Hope you like it!
Jon

[dgrmkrp]

Looks good I really wanted to make one of these as it seemed easy I know it's not, cause i ended up with doing nothing So i turned to other things metal Just don't forget about cooling

[public_eyesore]

looking nice hope it turns out how you want it.

[DaveW]

VERY nice. Reminds my of my Dad's old soundsystem, in the swinging days before plastic was cheap. Heh, my dad's not that old, he'd kill me if he saw that. Nice effects.

I don't know if the vintage soundsystem look is what you were going for, but if it is, i'd get some old parts from ebay or something, to make it look just right. I really think you could be onto something here.

-Dave

[jdbnsn]

Thank you! I think working with wood and metal are easier than working with acrylics and styrene plastics and such, my hat's off to all you pro's that can do it. What I'm doing is pretty much the same thing we did in shop class in the old days. You are right about cooling too, this thing will be a sweat box, I intend to mount some larger fans in the lid which is still pending design. And about the vintage thing, I was kind of shooting for a mix of modern (which isn't apparent this early in the photos), and old McIntosh Amp look, we'll see if it works.
Jon

[DaveW]

It being a modern computer, you're going to have to try and find some sort of middle-point. I just think you've managed to get that look bang-on. Keep up the good work, i want to see how this turns out.

-Dave

[jdbnsn]

You know what I would love to do? If I could get an old blown reciever from McInTosh or something that had those great big analog meters on the front and somehow use them to display system properties like temp and such. I know it's possible because I have seen people do similar, but a little out of my scope for now I believe.

[jdbnsn]

Well, I've had a chance to do some more work on the box. I cut and filed on the last scrap of stainless steel that I have paying around to make the rear panel.

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Then drilled some holes and tapped them. Next I needed to figure out where to cut the hole for the PCI cards and the I/O ports. This actually turned out to be harder than I thought because there were three levels to consider, the motherboard's distance from the floor of the box (which I had to adjust with a lift-plate), the distance of the I/O ports to the panel, and the distance of the PCI cards to what would later house the rack-mounting whatchamacallit from the old chassis. Finally lined it up and made the cut, worked out fine but I have some gaps to fill in later.

[jdbnsn]

Here is my stage for the motherboard:

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fine tuning the rear panel:

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Holes are cut:

Whatchamacallit:

Riveted this to the frame:

before:

after:

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