Project: Cursed Treasure

Hello all. After much soul searching and advice seeking, I have finally decided to start with my first major case build. The parts inside are pretty run of the mill, but the concept is a fairly new one(I hope).

Thanks go out ahead of time to Captain Slug who has been quite kind and helpful in answering some questions I had about gluing acrylic and polycarb.

I have never been a fan of windows, but I love to see the glow of a cold cathode. How to reconcile these differences? It took a lot of thought and planning to come up with a crazy scheme. Make an acrylic/polycarb case that wasn't clear. My batteries are dead at the moment but starting tommorrow I'll put up pics as I go.

The case is going to be made from panels of Polycarb(Lexan) covered in birch veneer. It will be made in the shape of a treasure chest. The main box dimensions are going to end up roughly 16" W x 12" d x 8" h. The lid will be another 2 inches on top, with case feet bringing the total height to around 12"
The completed "treasure chest" section will be topped off by a pile of 3/4" diameter acrylic circles misted with gold paint to create a top panel with integrated fan covers for twin 120 mm green lit fans.
Inside will be a set of 4 4" green cold cathodes, one vertically placed at each corner. The effect I am going for is a "ghost" look. During the day the effect should be hidden by ambient light, with lower light revealing the curse's glow.

Sorry about my lack of foresight with the camera, I promise some pics in the morning.

Ok Pics and explanations....


This is the front panel...pretty simple just some birch veneer applied over Lexan sheet with a spot for an optical drive and some ventilation holes.


The side panels....more of the same


The golden front pieces. The center one is going to stealth the optical drive. There will be more done to this piece yet. The side pieces need to have"rivets" added to them yet. They will actually be glued in place, but I want them to look like the riveted reinforcement bands common to treasure chests in the old days. All of these were painted in a manner to allow them to pass light.


A shot of the front panel with a light behind it...imagine if that was a green cathode. I think it will work out nicely.


and a shot of the drive stealthing plate with a light behind it. As usual, the digital camera does parts like this no justice. The light gives the whole piece a nice glow in person.

Looking good so far, I like the plexi idea.

Keep it up.

Argggg!!!!!! Should have remembered the old 5 P's(Proper Planning Prevents **** Poor Performance). Screwed up on all of my measurements. Now I gotta start all over with new sheets(that stuff ain't exactly cheap). Arggg!!!!!

Deadbot1_1973 said:

Argggg!!!!!! Should have remembered the old 5 P's(Proper Planning Prevents **** Poor Performance). Screwed up on all of my measurements. Now I gotta start all over with new sheets(that stuff ain't exactly cheap). Arggg!!!!!

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Nice keeping up with the pirate theme.

Sorry to hear the bad news, hopefully you can get it all done, the idea is great.

7

This sounds pretty cool, cant wait to see it finished. Subscribed

sounds good to me!
good luck with it, great theme.
btw, looks like you know what you're doing! exellent for a first timer !

Arr...Davey Jones be kickin me nads this week. First a bad measurement, then a cursed camera. My digital went on the fritz and took all my pictures(and a 512 mb CF card ) with it. So I'm down to my V400 camera phone which is being a pain and not wanting to stay connected. Sorry for the horrid pics and lots of skipped steps. I'll try to explain what I've done and what remains to be done. The pics I managed to save.







getting to this point.....

Well I managed to totally screw up and not take the thickness of the panels into account. So I restarted by cutting new panels and affixing the birch veneer to the side panels. I cut out and attached the bottom panel using Tap plastics acrylic glue. I then had to get the motherboard tray from my donor. After drilling out all the rivets, I freed the tray and back panel support for the pci cards. I had to make a new panel to complete the back, basically a polycarb copy of the steel that made up the back of the donor. I spent about half of the day figuring out how to attach the tray to the bottom and back panels. Rivets were used for the back and a custom acrylic mount was made for the bottom. The power supply cutout was made and the motherboard and psu were placed. I then made a set of supports and a mount plate for the optical and hard drives. It's meant as a small portable system, so only one spot for hard disks. After this was placed, I made a front panel and attached it. Then it was time for the top panel, which is being made to house the fans and to look like a pile of "treasure" inside the case. I still have to finish the treasure look off and give it a misting of gold paint. The misting will make it appear gold under normal light and allow the green cathodes to shine thru in the dark. You can see the effect a bit in the pics that I managed to save. I don't even have the cathodes hooked up yet, those are just the LED's from the fans doing that.

I still have a lot to do. nect will be finishing the look of the top "treasure" panel. Once that is done, i need to figure out and mount switches for power and reset. Then LED placement for HDD and power. After that I need to make the cover of the chest and figure out a way to hold it open while in use. Finally I will need to finish the wood veneer to protect it from spills and such.

More pics will be on the way as soon as I can find a better cam than my phone. I'll make sur to show as much of the internals as I can and good shots of all angles.

Looks great so far!

I am starting to see a treasure chest there =)

You gotta put an old skeleton key lock on the front of it somehow.

btw: pirates are cooler than ninjas.

Yarg! Ninjas be wee children in black pajamas i say.

Aye, the project. Looking good she is!

hibner said:

You gotta put an old skeleton key lock on the front of it somehow.

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I agree you need to put some kinda of lock on the front.

That stealth cover over the optical would technically be the lock plate. Haven't figured out if I should try to drill and cut an actual keyway(various problems involved) or just paint one on.

If I wasn't worried about the potential pain of losing the key, I would make it the power switch. Might do for the reset.

Could just use half an old sketons key (no need for it to be really long) Just have it sticking out of what looks like a lock and turning the key hits a power switch to start. (then any key would work that is similar shape)


Just have a small tab on the key that actually touches the switch.

hibner said:

You gotta put an old skeleton key lock on the front of it somehow.

btw: pirates are cooler than ninjas.

Click to expand...

Ninjas are teh suk.

Anyway, looking great so far! Creative idea I am looking forward to seeing this completed. Good luck with the build

And, yes you do need a lock on the front, it would satisfy the pirateyness yeargh!

I'm working on it as we speak. Kinda slow going with my eye injury.

I'm going to rework the stealth plate that I made for the optical. I think that I'm going to make the key be a remote activator for the eject. Still tossing ideas around for it. I'm more than likely going to redo the top panel as well. Just not happy with the way that things are sitting and I really want to change it so that I can fit 2 hard drives in. Anybody know of a spot to get aprox 1/2 to 3/4 inch acrylic disks for cheap?

Very nice, and a really original idea.

Can you get a better picture of the stealth front?

7

sorry Seven, not ATM. My good camera took a dive...all I have is my phone cam(and it sucks). My surgery is on the 29th and I'm holding off on any major purchases until after it's done. Once i get a new camera I'll post a series of pics. I plan on doing a teardown and rebuild so you can get a good look at what all I have done.

An update for any that had started following this thread...Sorry but this project has been scrapped for the time being. Personal issues(girlfriend becoming ex-girlfriend) have caused my financial concerns to skyrocket.

Have no fear, the idea is not dead....look for version 2 late this summer.

edit: Mods if you wish to close this thread...feel free.