Project - Air Cube v2

[Waynio]

Lol, didn't even get around to do any dremel work, but did cut pieces to size, masked up & drawn the pattern on, the thin lines are what will be staying the rest is what I'll cut out.

Sides

Top pieces

This new keyboard is ultra sensitive, only bad thing about it is the small backspace which I should soon get used to, other than that it's perfect .

[Waynio]

A little step closer to finished .

Refined part of 1 of the panels design (was a little off, fixed).

Cut the most difficult incisions to keep it all accurate to the drawing so the rest will be easier to do.

First piece out .

Some more.

All out, now time for a little filing & then a good sanding session, the sanding will be the most time consuming.

Messy

Clean

Ready for filing then sanding .

Started late today so only got this far, took just over an hour to get the dremel work done on 1 of them don't want to be making much noise past 6pm, I'll try to start at 10am tomorrow & get the other 3 done, the side panels are done with 0.7mm sheet so were nice & easy but run out of 0.7mm so the top panels will be done with 1mm.

Colour wise, I'm thinking ice blue for these panels .

[Waynio]

This would have been posted earlier but the forum was down for me so here it is, glad it's back up .

Well, got up bright & early with full intent to get the new panels done, just smoothing the edges of 1 of them took near 3 hours , then I went to work on the next panel, made a couple of incisions then the cutting disc got stuck & when I freed it the mandrel screw top snapped off & have no spares arrrrrgh delayed by a mandrel typical lol , bit gutted but these things happen.

But I did a test fit of the one I made, still needs a little work on it as noted in the picture & the surface needs a good sanding but I'll save surface finishing till last .

[Waynio]

My dad bought a couple of new air tools just before the gasket blew & he reminded me about them & suggested to try it out on some scrap so I did & wow I'm very impressed, bye bye dremel days lol no more metal dust in my face & no need for steaming up hard to see through glasses .

I don't know the name of the tool but it's cross between a jigsaw & small hacksaw & prooved relatively easy to cut out complex shapes, the 0.7mm sheet didn't go to well though so I might re-do the side panel.
I had to learn how to use it, it's like a dremel but you need to lean way over the piece your working with so you can clearly see where your cutting but cuts far far easier, after the side panel I had it sussed, I mostly needed to clamp the work piece down better to minimise vibrations, this new tool will be absolutely awesome for thick materials as the 1mm sheet came out very nice & will need minimal cleaning up, also the blade is still good & sharp after doing these 3 panels, on with the pics .

This was the 0.7mm one which came out quite badly before I had the technique & clamping sussed.

The wavey strip above the workpiece was my practice to see if I could follow the lines & could fairly easily .

On with the 1mm sheet which went quite perfectly .

I think I'll have to throw the 0.7mm sheet, it needs a lot of cleaning up & is bent all over the place, tried whacking it into shape with a mallet but it's still not so good, I'll try a couple more things to fix it but not worried about having to do a new one now I know how to do this .

[Waynio]

I love the steel series keyboards. Also, the blue and green lighting on the fans looks nice.

Thanks Luthien, I am very impressed with the keyboard, best I ever had well worth the money.

When I said no more dremel I was a bit hasty, sitting here looking at the front grills I highly doubt I could do that with the saw but the saw will replace quite a bit of what I do with a dremel especially for simplish cuts like what I just done.

I have a couple of new pictures showing the new grills overlapped, my bro says I should do it, but I'm not so sure about it especially the double the work bit lol takes a fair bit of effort to make all edges really smooth.

Standard intended piece which still needs smoothing out

Double overlapped piece

The thought of the effort is making me cringe already , possibly 3 hours to smooth each piece about 25min to cut each piece, so possibly a couple of days solid cutting & sanding , suppose I could spread it out over a week, dunno what do you all think?.

[Waynio]

Finished doing the rough cuts of the side panels yesterday, today I started at about 3pm but smoothed off all 4 of the panels edges, finished at 11pm, had about 4 little smoke breaks, thought it would have taken days to do them but got really stuck in on them .

Pictures showing original simple plan of how I might have them & doubled up, I must admit the doubled up ones do look good but I only have a little 1mm & 1.5mm sheet spare now so it'll be a mix of the 2 thicknesses, anyway if I was to double them all up I now know I could do it within 2 days if I don't slack .

I'll get some temp installed pics up tomorrow .

[Waynio]

Does a bit eh , thanks slaveofconventention.

Some night & day shots with the new panels temporarily installed 1 layer type. I think I will give the double layered style a shot so plan for today is cut the sheets to size, trace the already made panels instead of draw them, cut them out, tomorrow tons of filing & sanding lol.

Pic time just to show what it'd look like as single layer, I will do the double layer .

I likle this nightshot best .

To be honest though I was quite impressed with how these looked when I installed them so should look even better when doubled up .

[Waynio]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention I painted the fan bolt heads ice blue , I got a strip of blue tack, pushed them through in a line, masked the threads, scuffed the heads, cleaned, primed, coloured, cleared.

Rather than make the extra panels, I just took the ones I made & stuck them together with mounting tape & stuck them in, here are the daylight shots, I'll do night ones later .

Also replaced my old & tatty alarm clock.

With this beaut, tells time, temperature & date, I'm going to make an angled platform for it, until then I'll use stacks of 2p's lol.

[Waynio]

Thanks billygoat, each panel takes about an hour to do the actual cutting, then a tiny bit of filing here & there. Drawing the patterns on took longer lol, then 2 to 4 hours sanding the edges with 2 different grits 60 & 240 60 takes the longest, I cut thin longish strips of sandpaper, clamp the piece between 2 pieces of wood in a vice & clamp the top end to keep it steady & work from 1 end to the other bit by bit pulling back & forth with a little pressure with the strips of sandpaper until smooth so took 2 days altogether to do all 4 pieces.

Day 1 cut sheets to size, then mask it up, match up where the hole on the panel is & draw around it, then draw the designs on, then drill in key spots so the saw can get in, carefully clamp pieces of wood over the gap of the workbench then cut the shapes out adjusting the clamp as I go along.
Day 2 a full day of sanding, just what mp3 players were made for, well that & exercising .

I'll be having the rest of the day off, take the night shots, then decide if I do the doubled up version.

[Waynio]

Ok, just taken the night shots but I'm unsure if I like them or not whereas the single I thought it looked fine straight away, wow I just don't know .