Throwing a few ideas together for new case

[steamboatbob]

Hi just a little background atm

I am a furniture maker (Fine carpentry) and over the last few months i have been toying with the idea of building the case out of timber. mainly i want function to be the main aspect. But asthetics is also a major sticking point. I love my gaming. and i love my timber so i would love to combine the 2.

basics of my plan include full Jarrah Burl front panel with sheoak highlights. 2 removable side panels with acrylic sections, mounting the MB on clear acrylic.it will be coated in Resin (west system) to stop warping and moisture getting into the timber. i am going for a dark red timber with light red timber and blue lighting to make it a little snappier

I already have the components as follows
MB SAbertooth Z77
CPU - I5 3770K
WC(cpu) - H80 Corsair
GPU - Sapphire 7970 OC 3gb possibly 2 further down the track
PSU - Corsair HX650W Modular
Ram - 8 GB Vengance Ram
HDD - OCZ agility 3 120gb SSD
- WD 640gb black caviar

Current case Antec 600

I do not wish to trash my current case for the bits i need so here are my questions

- is there a good case back plate MB mount that i can purchase so i can get my dimensions from it my basic i dea would be to use the back plate and remake the MB panel in acrylic
-is there a plan on the web for a basic acrylic case that i can improve on i have been looking on the web for 2 months and cannot find one
-can you purchase good HDD/SSD cages and if so where
- what could i use for a case front panel (USB3, headset jacks)

this is just in planning stages atm i will let you guys know when i have enough info and money to start it all up

Cheers

BoB

[phanbuey]

hey bob - check out mountainmods.com - they may have the parts you're looking for - i.e. the mono tray/backplane and the HDD and USB front panels.

Dangerden.com also sells a front panel, as does lian li.

i.e. - here is your back panel

http://www.mountainmods.com/modular-...nel-p-547.html

Here is a removable one:
http://www.mountainmods.com/mountain...reviews_id=116

check out the site- they have tons of stuff, I don't know about the plan for the MOBO tray - but if you have the back, the motherboard, a ruler, a pencil, and a huge piece of acrylic, then you should have no problem crafting one (especially since you work with wood).

EDIT:

here are some drive bays/cages:
http://www.mountainmods.com/parts-dr...-21_34_65.html

I don't know how difficult to get these parts into perth - the front panel and drive cages are not a big deal you can buy that locally - you can actually email the mountainmods guys or the danger den guys, and they will be able to send you the prints for the other stuff.

Drive bays are super easy to make, just take two pieces of wood ... drill some holes and put a fan in front -

like so:

[steamboatbob]

Thanks Phanbuey

this is perfect
http://www.mountainmods.com/modular-...atx-p-533.html

[phanbuey]

Originally Posted by steamboatbob

Thanks Phanbuey

this is perfect
http://www.mountainmods.com/modular-...atx-p-533.html

good stuff!

you will have some luck finding various frontpanel gadgets on www.frozencpu.com

there is enough stuff there to build a mini rocketship.

[steamboatbob]

srry but still continuing with this project now it is getting to be in full swing

just a few more questions
1- is there a dvd player/burner that only requires a very narrow slot to be in the front panel as I think that having a full disk drive cut into the front panel would look quite bad

2- also i was wondering if anyone has or knows how to lengthen the water pipes on a corsair H80 cpu cooler as what i am trying to do requires the leads to be around 5 cm longer than they are atm. and i would like them to be a different colour as my computer internals are very BLACK atm with no colour.

[illli]

you can get slot load optical drives. the kind that are used in laptops. or were you looking for a normal sized optical drive with a slot?

as far as the h80.. i've seen a lot of mods where people have replaced the tubes with something else. here is one example http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showpost...3&postcount=13