# Ultimate Computer Desk - 2 Integrated Computers



## ultimatedesk (Nov 23, 2010)

Hello all, this is my first time posting at techPowerUp, but I've been a long time browser, especially in the project log section - there's some really amazing work being done here!

I've been contemplating for a few years what the ultimate computer desk for me would be like, and as technology has changed, so have the requirements, but I think that recently, I've finally stumbled upon a design I would actually like to pursue!

I'd like to take you all along for the ride, and I hope that I can elicit some constructive feedback, ideas, and criticism from all of you bright apples out there 

So here we go! The official project log of the Ultimate Computer Desk!

I'd like to thank Crucial, Kingston and Danger Den for sponsoring this project and helping to make it a reality!


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## ultimatedesk (Nov 23, 2010)

*The 1st Draft*

Here it is, the 1st draft of the Ultimate Computer Desk.

I wanted the desk to be capable of having 2 integrated desktop systems. 1 for high-powered gaming, and the other, a low-powered system with lots of hard-drive space that will be on 24/7 for sharing media across the network and playing videos locally.

It needs to be quiet, have dust control, have manual fan control, and it also needs to look great in an office - sorry ahead of time to all you bling lovers! 

I used Google Sketchup for all of my drafts.

I started first by sketching on paper how I would like the components to be laid out, and then started working on the left-hand module.

After determining the minimum width, I started to build up the left-hand module, taking into consideration that I would be using 3/4" plywood for the construction.







I then decided that the air intake will be on the same board that the motherboard will lie, air will come from the bottom. It will be covered with a furnace air filter material that should eliminate most of the dust, and also provide good air circulation.






Next up was to add some to-scale components. A big thanks to B@gy, who created the model for the Noctua NH-U12P CPU Heatsink, as well as the Noctua fans, Alexander who created the model for the Asus Ares video card, Nightsoul who created the model of the Western Digital Hard-Drives, and Fubar East for the very nice power supply model. Your talent saved me a lot of time when it came to placing the items to scale.






Another view, from the back






I then took the same requirements and applied them to the right-hand module. This will be the "server-type" system. I also wanted to add drawers to this particular module, so this is what I came up with. It has the same air-intake system, which will be covered by a furnace air filter.






And, finally, putting it all together, I figured 2 monitors is a reasonable thing these days. In the upper left, there will be the DVD drive, plus power and fan controls for the gaming rig. There is a glass cover over the gaming rig that can be removed to perform upgrades and maintenance.






And a picture of the back - the boxes aren't exactly what they'll turn out as - they are for cable management, ideally I will setup little boxes so you will see almost NO cables in the back. They will have some foam stuffed in the top to keep dust out of the boxes as well.






And that's it for this post! The 1st draft! I'll have to ponder on it for a little while to make sure everything is A-OK for building, and determine how much lumber I'll need.

As always, comments, feedback and ideas are ALWAYS WELCOME! This is going to be a long build, I figure it'll take me a couple months at least, and that's not including some of the custom electronic trickery I'm going to have to learn


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## ultimatedesk (Nov 23, 2010)

*The 2nd Draft!*

After spending some time reviewing my 1st draft I realized a few things very quickly:

1. All my joints are butt joints! This is going to result in a lot of screw holes on the visible surfaces that I will have to cover up, and it will not be as strong as it could be.

2. The edges of plywood are nasty - I did not account for using 1/4" solid wood trim on all of the visible edges of the plywood. This will seriously throw off all my measurements.

3. The right-hand module, with the so called drawers, don't actually have drawers sketched in - just drawer faces!

So, it was time start from scratch (Sorta). Here's the end result, and ultimately, the final plan. The dark coloured wood is the solid trim, and the light coloured wood are 1x1's so that I can screw the panels together from the inside, avoiding any screw holes on the outside. I also added a few dado joints that I believe will be ultra strong with just a generous application of wood glue.











So, while I was redoing all of this, I figured: this desk is going to be a beast. A big, heavy, super-duty truck kind of beast. This means I will likely be able to keep it for quite some time, and with technology going the way it is....






Yup, planning for 3 monitors, external fan / dvd / power controls for both of the systems, and going the full 8 foot length for the desk. The dvd / controls will be in the cubby holes you see in the upper left and right-hand sides of the desk.

It'll be able to be disassembled into 4 pieces - the desk surface, the desk shelf, and the left and right modules.

Much better. I think from here I can make my cut sheets and actually get to work!


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## ultimatedesk (Nov 23, 2010)

*Cut Sheets!*

Yes, I love Google Sketchup, I am not ashamed of it either, it is so incredibly useful and it's so incredibly free.

I've used it for a few years now, mostly for planning aquarium setups and building aquarium stands. Here is the most awesome part of Sketchup - pulling dimensions, and creating your cut sheets (Someone needs to automate this).





















And that's it! 4 Sheets!

Now I have to figure out where I'm going to build this darn thing. I've got a low-ceiling basement with a circular saw, router, and a drill...

I think I might need some new tools... 

Stay tuned! I'll be cutting up some wood next!


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## IINexusII (Nov 23, 2010)

this looks amazing!


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## ultimatedesk (Nov 23, 2010)

*Time for Wood*

Purely coincidentally, while talking over the idea with a few  at the local pub, a good girlfriend of mine piped up stating:

"Oh, didn't you know? My dad has a full wood shop in his backyard, he'd love to help I'm sure!"

By golly.

A meeting was arranged, and poof, we got along great and he's looking forward to a nice big project being started in his shop.

It's a free standing building in his backyard with an attic for wood storage, lots of tools - stationary and portable, and yeah, lots of tools - did I mention that?  Table saw, band saw, drill press, planar, horizontal planar, belt sander, jointer, grinders, air compressor, just about everything a guy could ask for.






So we set about to pick up the initial bits of lumber. 4 Sheets of 3/4" Plywood, 2-sided Maple Veneer - was a steal too, such a good deal that Mike, the owner of the wood shop, picked up a pair of sheets for himself for a future project as well!











Time to hit up the table saw to do the initial lengthwise cuts
















Thankfully I had a helper - she was eventually covered in sawdust and abandoned me in the shop after the big cuts were done. It still left me with several 8' long sheets to manage on my own, as you can see in the left hand side of the shop in the back.






So I set about my merry way, and thankfully, did not lose any of my fingers (This time).











All of the initial cuts were done, except for one particular strip of 8' that needed to be cut into 3 28" lengths - beyond what the table saw was capable of doing. I decided that it was enough for the day.






Made quite a nice little mess!!











All in all a good start to a long project











Stay tuned! Lots of work still to go


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## ultimatedesk (Nov 23, 2010)

IINexusII said:


> this looks amazing!



Thanks IINexusII! I hope it turns out as well as it looks in my head right now!!!


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## WhiteLotus (Nov 23, 2010)

That's a lot of wood. I wanted to build my own desk over the summer but never got round to it. This is going to be bloody huge!


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## MoonPig (Nov 23, 2010)

Yey for my reference 

Good luck matey, and welcome to the club!

Gunna be watching this very closely.


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## Loosenut (Nov 23, 2010)

Love where this is going.


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## PopcornMachine (Nov 23, 2010)

ultimatedesk said:


> http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5129/5201407551_223500f13e.jpg



That is beautiful!


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## HammerON (Nov 23, 2010)

Looking good ~ subscribed


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## t_ski (Nov 23, 2010)

hammeron said:


> looking good ~ subscribed



+1


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## (FIH) The Don (Nov 23, 2010)

sub'alicious


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## AlienIsGOD (Nov 23, 2010)

Im in....


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## gumpty (Nov 24, 2010)

Deja fucking Vu.

Subscribing to this as I have a very similar idea brewing away in my head and in SketchUp as we speak. Mine's substantially smaller though, I'm not being greedy and am only looking at putting one computer in mine.

EDIT: BTW, your design is great, I might have to steal some ideas off you.


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## Lionheart (Nov 24, 2010)

I just came is dat normal

Awesome job bro


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## pantherx12 (Nov 24, 2010)

Sub'd love desk mods.

I might know one up if I ever clear my room out enough to have space to do it lol

( only with a very simple design! bolt mobo to inside of cupboard, make it so side of cupboard is hinged at bottom with some locking bolts going through top of desk when I want shut safely, meaning I fold down to a test bench/easy installation platform, hdds/dvd/psu will be in a draw underneath my cupboard.)

Mines a cheap version of a deskmod though XD


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## ultimatedesk (Nov 25, 2010)

WhiteLotus said:


> That's a lot of wood. I wanted to build my own desk over the summer but never got round to it. This is going to be bloody huge!



Damn right! I'll post up some pics of the space I'm putting it in sometime soon  I hope it fits!!



MoonPig said:


> Yey for my reference
> 
> Good luck matey, and welcome to the club!
> 
> Gunna be watching this very closely.



Thanks MoonPig, I love this place, glad to part of the posting gang now 



gumpty said:


> Deja fucking Vu.
> 
> Subscribing to this as I have a very similar idea brewing away in my head and in SketchUp as we speak. Mine's substantially smaller though, I'm not being greedy and am only looking at putting one computer in mine.
> 
> EDIT: BTW, your design is great, I might have to steal some ideas off you.



Thanks gumpty, feel free to grab anything and everything from my designs! Pipe up if you've got any neat ideas to add to mine as well  I'll be posting the Sketchup files sometime in a future update as well.



CHAOS_KILLA said:


> I just came is dat normal
> 
> Awesome job bro



Hah, well, it IS a lot of wood  



pantherx12 said:


> Sub'd love desk mods.
> 
> I might know one up if I ever clear my room out enough to have space to do it lol
> 
> ...



Sounds like a great idea, it didn't even occur to me to have a section setup to do some workbenching, that's fantastic!

Loosenut, PopcornMachine, HammerON, t_ski, The Don, AlienIsGOD. thanks a bunch for the support everyone, I'm hoping to have this project done by Christmas, at least, the desk portion. Getting the hardware all setup and paid for is another question!

I've got some new updates for you coming soon!


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## Soylent Joe (Nov 25, 2010)

Oh man this is going to be awesome. I'll be sticking around for a while.


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## theonedub (Nov 25, 2010)

Your workmanship is looking great, and so are your pics  

SUBd


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## ultimatedesk (Nov 25, 2010)

*Hole Time*

Had time to cut that last 8' sheet into the 28" sections, and cut a hole in the surface portion of the desk. The surface portion, fyi, will be composed of two 8' pieces of 3/4" plywood, so its total thickness will be 1.5" thick.

The upper plywood will have a hole that is .5" wider all around than the board beneath it.

Only had time to do one hole tonight - the lower portion, thankfully, because I made a few small mistakes!











I started off with a carpenters angle, measured off my lines with a pencil and then made a rough cut with a jigsaw. I then clamped a straight-edge lined up with the edges (measured) and ran a router across it to create the smooth finish.

I messed up a bit, going a bit too far with the router on one end, and then not far enough on the other end - I'll have to sand and file to square it off.

Sorry I didn't take too many pictures - the next hole will have more!
















Thankfully the shop is heated, here's one of the heaters - it went down to -8*C that evening!






Here's the mess for the night!











And, the hero of the night! Mastercraft Plunge Router!!


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## gumpty (Nov 25, 2010)

ultimatedesk said:


> Thanks gumpty, feel free to grab anything and everything from my designs! Pipe up if you've got any neat ideas to add to mine as well  I'll be posting the Sketchup files sometime in a future update as well.



Looking good there ult.desk.

I do have one idea: unless you have the parts already, have you considered getting a mini-itx board for the 'non-gaming' computer? Throwing in even an Atom+Ion based mobo could save you LOADS of room (or even an H55 mini-ITX board). Only thing is they generally don't have many sata ports but a cheap raid card could solve that.

In saying that though, I don't know how you'd incorporate those space savings into your model. Just a thought anyway.


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## pantherx12 (Nov 25, 2010)

ultimatedesk said:


> Sounds like a great idea, it didn't even occur to me to have a section setup to do some workbenching, that's fantastic!





Feel free to add it to your own design if you want. 

Also how did I manage to make so many typos in my last post! 

Sounded like a spam bot trying to write a generic fitting in message followed by an ad.


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## ultimatedesk (Nov 26, 2010)

theonedub, Soylent Joe thanks for the encouraging words 

gumpty, the idea of doing an itx / atom based system has indeed crossed my mind. To me at least, the only up is size, and since there is plenty of room for a full size atx, I figure there are ultimately no savings in the end.

In the end, there is a good chance that the "server system" will see some game use - it is inevitable that someone will want to come by for some side-by-side multiplayer gaming, so keeping upgrade options open for the future I think would be a good idea.

pantherx12, I was thinking about the whole incorporating a workbench idea, and I haven't come up with a neat, stealthed implementation yet. Not sure if I'll pursue it, but oh you've got my brain gears turning, it would be too cool to have something like that!

 Cheers everyone, I'll be posting an update either later tonight, or tomorrow morning, and I'm going to be spending a day in the shop this weekend, so there'll be another big update early next week!


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## (FIH) The Don (Nov 26, 2010)

lookin forward to it


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## ultimatedesk (Dec 1, 2010)

*Drawer Time*



(FIH) The Don said:


> lookin forward to it



Thanks for your support The Don!

I was able to spend some time in the shop this weekend, and didn't get as much done as I would have liked to.

One of the main things holding me back right now is the fact that I have not selected the motherboard tray, and template for the motherboard input and outputs, as well as PCI slots. This prevents me from cutting the holes accurately in the back of both of the modules, which prevents me from assembling the actual modules.

I have some "spare" desktop chassis lying around, and will be working to find a solution to that soon.

In the meantime, I started working on the drawers for the right-hand module.

I first took them through the table saw again, trimming off the last 16th or two from some of the boards.







Then went to work sanding all of the pieces down with 150 grit. I will likely go up to a 180 grit before the final stain goes on. I clamped a straight-edge on to the table saw so that it was easier to sand with the grain (Thanks Mike)
















Slowly, but surely, I went through all the pieces for the drawers, except for the faces. Yes, bad things happen when I don't have my sketchup drawings. I start drawing with markers.











Mike was doing some work in the shop at the same time as me that day, so there was quite the mess.











I put together my tools of the trade






And here are the gluing steps I went through
















A few somewhat artistic clamp shots 
















Everything looks pretty straight
















Glued and clamped together the largest of the drawers, I will likely put some hanging folders in here.





















Then I screwed everything together with #8 1.5" screws, all holes pre-drilled and countersunk. Most of the holes will be covered by the actual drawer sliding mechanisms, but the exposed ones will get some wood putty.

It's funny being in someone else's wood shop - I couldn't find the countersink bit anywhere - I tried looking through all the drill bit boxes (There were several) and nothing, so I had been using a small bit, then switching to the big bit to countersink, and then switching to the screw bit to screw in the holes.

Mike walks in half-way through the holes and you could tell he was rather amused - he goes to the back of the shop, pulls out a box, pulls out a box from the box, and then a small medicine container out from the box in a box - "Geez, didn't I tell ya to just look around? Oh. Wait. I guess this one was sorta hard to find eh?".

At that point, he also points out that there are several drills in the shop - silly me. So one drill with the countersink bit, one drill with the screw bit. It's been very interesting working in a shop dedicated to this type of work - very, very different from working in the basement with just basic hand tools.






I haven't attached the faces of the drawers yet as I haven't determined how I would like to attach them. I would also like to attach the trim to the outer edges of the faces before attaching them to the drawers, since it'll be much easier to clamp all the faces together at once.






And that's it for todays update - a bit short, yes, a lot of pictures of clamps, sorry, I got carried away 

I'm spending some time in the shop tonight, so hopefully I'll have another update for all of you tomorrow or the day after!


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## majestic12 (Dec 1, 2010)

This looks like a fun (although time consuming) project.  I can't wait to see the finished results!


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## Ross211 (Dec 1, 2010)

sub'd ;-)


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## Velvet Wafer (Dec 1, 2010)

subbed


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## NAVI_Z (Dec 1, 2010)

will be watching with great anticipation!! subed.


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## ObSo-1337 (Dec 1, 2010)

Subscribed 

I will be watching this with a keen eye. I have always wanted to design and build my own integrated desk and have 2 pc's in it was a great idea. I will be picking up hints and tips from your thread and using them in my own design, when i finally get around to it 

Good luck and i hope this turns out great!


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## ultimatedesk (Dec 6, 2010)

*2nd Hole*



majestic12 said:


> This looks like a fun (although time consuming) project.  I can't wait to see the finished results!





Ross211 said:


> sub'd ;-)





Velvet Wafer said:


> subbed





NAVI_Z said:


> will be watching with great anticipation!! subed.





ObSo-1337 said:


> Subscribed
> 
> I will be watching this with a keen eye. I have always wanted to design and build my own integrated desk and have 2 pc's in it was a great idea. I will be picking up hints and tips from your thread and using them in my own design, when i finally get around to it
> 
> Good luck and i hope this turns out great!



Thanks for all the comments everyone - it is indeed extremely time consuming. I just came back from the shop, I spent a whole afternoon doing trim on just the drawers, and I didn't even get to finish completely!! Hopefully I'll get lots of time to spend in the shop this week, since I don't have too many other plans so far 

Here's a quick, small update for those of you ~waiting in anticipation~ oooooohhh!  

I finally got around to putting the second hole in the desk surface area (Since the desk is composed of two sheets of plywood, there are two holes needed, with the "top surface" needing a hole that is .5" larger all the way around, so the "bottom surface" supports the piece of glass which covers the gaming computer).

I took a few more detailed pictures compared to last time.

As with before, I started by cutting out a rough shape with the jigsaw. I was able to get within .5" comfortably of my marked lines. Sometimes if you rush the jigsaw, your cuts can get a little squirrely, so I was playing it safe. This is the top surface, so no screwing up here!!






I then took an extra dose of patience, and went in straight to the corners with the jigsaw. This is a step I did not take last time, and I made a mistake with the router because of this.





















I then took the router and pressed the bit right into the corner, and clamped a straight-edge on behind it. This is how I set the distance from the bit to the straight-edge. I repeated the same for the other side.

All it took was a good solid pass from right-to-left and I had a very clean straight edge without having to go all the way into the corners, where mistakes can be made, since it is quite difficult to see where the actual router bit is when the tool is running.
















Unclamp, reset router, reset clamps and straight edge, lather, rinse, and repeat:











This hole had a very small margin of error overall, and I am very pleased with the result. The jigsaw is an incredible versatile tool and can be very accurate, as long as you have patience. This one corner is the only one that will need a touch-up with a file and/or sandpaper, and you can see, it's only going to need less than a 16th of material removal!






And that's all I had time for in the shop that day  Enjoy some of my mess!











Until next time - I have some images in the queue, but I haven't quite gotten around to resizing them just yet


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## DrPepper (Dec 6, 2010)

s-s-s-subbed.


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## copenhagen69 (Dec 6, 2010)

looks great so far!


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## PopcornMachine (Dec 6, 2010)

Love the pic of the tape measure with sawdust on it.

You are working hard at the desk and at taking good photos.


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## MT Alex (Dec 6, 2010)

Off to a nice start.

I would recommend making your drawer fronts out of real wood, as running your edging is almost impossible to make perfect, unless your planning to paint the desk, not finish it.  Look how your kitchen drawers are made.  The entire inside of the box is ply (usually baltic birch or apple) and then an oversized front is screwed from the backside.  This makes it easy to adjust your drawer faces square to one another, and also gives the drawer something to stop on, when the front hits the carcass.
Also, use a scrap piece of wood as a stop and start point when routing, makes things flawless.  Just measure from the edge of the bit to the base, and add that to your total cut length.
I, too, have been building a desk mod in my head.  We are, however, different in our planning.  I will build it over and over in my head, and never draw anything up, maybe just a small cut list.


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## ultimatedesk (Dec 10, 2010)

*Desktop Chop Shop*



DrPepper said:


> s-s-s-subbed.





copenhagen69 said:


> looks great so far!





PopcornMachine said:


> Love the pic of the tape measure with sawdust on it.
> 
> You are working hard at the desk and at taking good photos.



Thanks guys, I really appreciate the encouragement. I love that pic with the tape measure as well  I'm thinking of bringing the macro lens to the shop especially for those cool dust-covered shots!



MT Alex said:


> Off to a nice start.
> 
> I would recommend making your drawer fronts out of real wood, as running your edging is almost impossible to make perfect, unless your planning to paint the desk, not finish it.  Look how your kitchen drawers are made.  The entire inside of the box is ply (usually baltic birch or apple) and then an oversized front is screwed from the backside.  This makes it easy to adjust your drawer faces square to one another, and also gives the drawer something to stop on, when the front hits the carcass.
> Also, use a scrap piece of wood as a stop and start point when routing, makes things flawless.  Just measure from the edge of the bit to the base, and add that to your total cut length.
> I, too, have been building a desk mod in my head.  We are, however, different in our planning.  I will build it over and over in my head, and never draw anything up, maybe just a small cut list.



Thanks MT Alex - after playing around with various trim, I've decided that I will most likely use solid wood for the drawer fronts. I just can't get the trim to look as good as I'd like, and using solid wood would allow me to route the edges as well.

When I go ahead and do the dado's, I may go ahead and do as you suggest - taking a scrap piece and measuring ahead of time instead of doing it "manually".

Thanks for the tips, stay tuned, sometime in the next week I may even begin putting it together!



It's been a little while since my last update, so here are a few snapshots. As some of you might know, I've been a little held back in the project due to not having selected my motherboard I/O plates and motherboard trays. Without having the actual items, I couldn't make the appropriate measurements to make cut-outs in the back of the cabinets, and therefore, was unable to make the dado cuts due to worry about everything not fitting properly.

So I scrounged through some old desktop systems I had lying around, emptied their components into my bins, and decided to take apart their chassis in search of some good motherboard tray and I/O parts.

So - off to the spooky basement with a pair of chassis, my trusty drill and dremel.











Having never drilled rivets out of a case before, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. At first, I started with a bit that was a little bit small, so the rivets came up onto the drill bit itself and got stuck on there pretty good. Eventually, I moved to a bigger bit, and all it took was one good squeeze of the trigger and the rivet would come right out nice and cleanly.











Starting to rack up some parts here






You can see in the image above that the I/O and PCI Plate is built right into the back of the desktop chassis - this is unfortunate, as you'll see in some future photos, my other case actually had a modular I/O plate. I'll have to take the dremel to that part to get what I need.

Time to grab the pliers...






Here is the shot of the back plate of the other desktop chassis - see how the I/O plate was actually riveted in, and not pressed as a whole back sheet like the other one? Soo much easier to deal with.






That was a pretty fun experience taking apart the cases. I've got a bunch of scrap sheet metal now too - wonder what interesting projects I can come up with to use them...

I need to dremel out the section that I need, as well as the power supply brackets.






Huh.. that actually didn't work out too well, at least, not the way I would like. I'm going to take these parts to the shop to see if there are any better tools for getting nice clean lines.

Until next time!


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## ultimatedesk (Dec 14, 2010)

*Chop Shop Old Desktops Part 2*

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, things have been overly busy lately with the Christmas season getting into top gear.

I had some time to take those motherboard tray and I/O Plates to the shop to try out a few tools / techniques for shaping them into something I actually like.

First off, yes, Mike and I tried using the nice Dewalt Jigsaw, but the Mastercraft metal blades we were trying to use just wouldn't stay in the darn clamp. It would cut like butter for maybe 10 seconds and then bam, the blade would fall out of the bottom of the jigsaw onto the ground. Not sure what was going on there.






Next up, we tried this neat little Mastercraft oscillating tool with a metal blade as well, but no such luck. Couldn't figure out a good way to clamp down the metal tray, so it just vibrated it like crazy instead of actually cutting.











Our next contestant was an air compressor powered cutting wheel, which, was ultimately less accurate than the dremel, and just as slow.






So we took out the big gun, the sawzall.






Ha, no, just kidding. It wouldn't work even a tiny bit for a piece like this.

In the end, you know what ultimately worked the best?






Yeah, a hacksaw. Go figure.

Anyways, here you can see my mangled I/O plate for the motherboard. It's not a pretty sight at all in my opinion.






This is the nice I/O plate that I didn't even have to do anything except drill out a few rivets.






I think I'm going to have to come up with a better solution for this. We'll see shortly 

Hope everyone who is getting snow is enjoying it, I know here in Ottawa, it's been a pretty crazy few days!

Stay tuned for more updates, will be spending some time in the shop this week and working with WOOD!


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## driver66 (Dec 14, 2010)

For the edges of your Plywood this is all you need

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?...leBase&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=Google


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## ultimatedesk (Dec 17, 2010)

*Setting up Drawers*



driver66 said:


> For the edges of your Plywood this is all you need
> 
> http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?...leBase&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=Google


Thanks for the link driver66 - at some point after I had cut the wood, I had discovered that this type of edge can be pretty easy to install, but since I had planned for 1/4" solid maple, a lot of my dimensions would be off. Maybe next time!

I had a bit of time in the shop this week to work on getting my drawers up to speed. I decided to take the advice of a fellow forum member and add "false fronts" to my drawers so that I can attach the "real fronts" using screws by screwing from the inside of the drawer, so I wouldn't have any screw heads to cover up on the outside.

Here they are, with my roughed out false fronts - I happened to have 3 pieces of wood almost exactly the size I needed.






Time to take out 'ol trusty






A quick test fit, and all 3 fit perfectly











Add a bit of glue, and some trusty clamps, and we've got ourselves the beginnings of some false fronts!
















All 3 of them fit rather nicely. I think they helped square out the drawers overall as well (Even though they were only out of square by around 1/16th of an inch).

So, I've got some time for the glue to dry. I'm not sure if anyone can remember this, but in my original cut sheets, I had planned on cutting out a specific piece of wood using the wood that I jigsawed out of the desk surface.

Here's that piece:






Not, exactly.... square..

So I take this nice little protractor attached to a table saw slide - it's set at 90, so here we go!






I do 2 sides, and then use the actual table saw fence to square out the other 2, but something just doesn't seem right..











It's not really square. What's going on here?






Aha! Looks like the protractor was a little bit off, resulting in a shape one step closer to a diamond as opposed to a square. After a bit of readjustment, I redid that bit and cut it to size - it's the drawer face for the large drawer.






Now that the glue is settled, I decided to throw a few screws into the false fronts.











Awesome. And solid too!






Now, this is kind of embarrassing, but I had to go back and fix a mistake I made in my initial cuts. This piece of wood was supposed to be 20" x 28", but it ended up being more like 19.8" x 28". It may not seem like much, but this is the back piece to the left-hand cabinet. I would have to adjust the width of all 3 shelves if I were to continue using this, and I've got the space already pretty tightly packed with computer components on the top shelf.

So... don't do this at home, just cut a new piece of wood (I didn't want to cut into a new sheet of 4x8 just for this one piece...)

This piece looks like a good fit...


















No one will see it, because it'll be in the back, but you will all know. So... let's just forget that ever happened, ok?


----------



## PopcornMachine (Dec 17, 2010)

ultimatedesk said:


> So... let's just forget that ever happened, ok?



Forget what happened?


----------



## MT Alex (Dec 18, 2010)

Groovy!  You are making some good progress.  For future work, here is another simple and very effective way to straighten stock with odd sides on the table saw.  You push the material and the straight edge (or straight plywood rip) at the same time, so the straight line is transfered to the material.  Do one edge, then flip and trim the opposite side, and square the ends with the chop saw.

Good luck.






 [/IMG]


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## ultimatedesk (Dec 21, 2010)

*Thanks*



PopcornMachine said:


> Forget what happened?


Hehe, thanks 



MT Alex said:


> Groovy!  You are making some good progress.  For future work, here is another simple and very effective way to straighten stock with odd sides on the table saw.  You push the material and the straight edge (or straight plywood rip) at the same time, so the straight line is transfered to the material.  Do one edge, then flip and trim the opposite side, and square the ends with the chop saw.
> 
> Good luck.


Thanks MT Alex, that is a good idea that I haven't seen before. I don't think I would have been able to use that technique this time because I'm pretty sure the piece of wood I was using was rounded outwards on all 4 sides


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## copenhagen69 (Dec 21, 2010)

looking great so far!!

dang all 4 sides rounded out? get better wood lol


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## ultimatedesk (Dec 21, 2010)

*Desk Gluing Time*

I decided it was time to glue the two surfaces together that would comprise of the actual desk surface and take a break from working on the drawers for a while.

Here it is, the first piece. At first I wanted to lay it face down, so I could evenly distribute screws through the bottom, but in the end, I went face up so I would protect the surface, and it would be a LOT easier to line up the holes.






I threw on the top layer, lined them up, and thought to myself: Hmm, I wonder what it'll look like with the top shelf stacked on:






Pretty cool. This was the first time I had actually pulled a chair up to it to get a real grasp of how big this desk is going to be. I was pretty psyched.

Just a note, the two pieces of wood on each end holding up the shelf will actually be the inner supports (ie, pushed inwards towards the middle of the desk a foot or two), and the cubby holes on the outer ends will support the long shelf. The long shelf also has to be trimmed a couple inches, it won't reach right to the end of the desk.






This next part was really quite a challenge on my own.

I lined it up as best as I could (According to the holes that I cut out, since the edges are easy to trim later), lifted one end with a mighty, strong arm, squirted as much glue as I could with my other arm (And only as far as I could reach!), put it down gently, ran to the other side and repeated.

Let me tell you - with the amount of glue I put down, and the fact that each side weighs 20-30 pounds - it did NOT want to slide around easily to get into perfect position.

In the end, I had to muscle it around a bit to get the holes lined up satisfactorily.

(I spoke with a couple friends about this afterward, and one of them suggested making some pilot holes and screwing in a few screws BEFORE the gluing, and then retracting the screws so that just the tips go through the bottom board. That way after the glue is put down, you shuffle around the top board until the tips of the screws find the pilot holes, thus, eliminating the issue of getting proper alignment before the glue becomes too tacky.)

I then threw some weight on top of the table, attached as many clamps as I could find, and started putting some 1.25" screws through the bottom.






A few clamp shots of the hole - everything lined up pretty much perfect. 1/2" on the left and right, 1/2" at the bottom, and I think just a little under 3/4" at the top. (The size of the lip between the upper and lower holes)





















I wasn't satisfied with the way the clamping was going on lengthwise on the surface. I didn't have enough clamps to place them every half foot, so luckily, Mike had some of these nice, big, cedar logs lying around that I re-purposed temporarily.


























The end result turned out quite nicely. The hole was lined up properly. There is only a small overhang / underhang of maybe 2/16's of an inch on two of the edges of the surfaces that should be easy to correct with a flush-bit on the router later.

We'll take a look at them next update! Thanks for staying tuned!


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## ultimatedesk (Dec 21, 2010)

copenhagen69 said:


> looking great so far!!
> 
> dang all 4 sides rounded out? get better wood lol


lol, if only it was a problem with the wood! It's because if you'll look back, the piece that I was trying to square out was originally cut out of the desk surface with a jigsaw. I was able to get nice and close to the edges of the original square I was trying to cut out, but I did big circular cuts for the corners, creating the effect of rounding out all 4 sides


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## ultimatedesk (Dec 29, 2010)

*Start of Drawer Trim*

Hey all, hope everyone had a good Holiday!

I got a chance to do some work on the drawer face trim - this was my first time doing solid wood trim.

I cut a nice piece of maple into 1/4" strips, glued, and sanded. I only did one piece this time, as I am not totally sure that this is the way I would like to go.

Something about the trim not meshing quite well with the plywood.

First, I set the table saw to the right width:






Measure 3 times, and you get a nice solid cut:






Made a few strips:











Cut, glued, and clamped on the initial pieces of trim. The trim pieces were about 2/16's of an inch wider than the plywood, which is great, since there will be no voids, though, I'll have to do quite a bit of sanding:
















Took the sander to the top and bottom:
















Overall, it looks pretty good. I'm still not 100% certain about it, however. I'm thinking there is a strong possibility I will go with solid maple for the drawer faces.


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## ultimatedesk (Jan 14, 2011)

*My Place*

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updates recently, I've been quite busy.

I'll put up some new shots of my progress sometime this weekend, but here's some food for thought in the meantime.

This is the upstairs of the place I moved into a few months ago, and where the desk will eventually go. It'll fit nicely in the space, about 6 or 7 inches wider than the current desk you see there, and it will occupy most of the length of the hallway.

My current desk is a real pain in the butt. I purchased it used last year, and needed the smallest desk possible since I was living in a little bachelor on my own, in fact, my computer desk was beside the kitchen table and it was the only way I could get any work done! My knees always get jammed underneath the keyboard tray, so this new desk will resolve that issue as well! 











There she is. Yes, it's a Guild Wars mousepad that I got for free with the game so many years ago. Yes, that's a BMW M5, the sweetest kind there is / ever was. Yes, it's a crappy desk.






And here's my current system, an old Pentium 4 3.2Ghz. The Coolermaster CM690 was upgraded to only a year ago or so (Thanks sis).






You can see I had to cut away a portion of the desk in the back to make the tower fit. Hilarious, I know.

Take care, I'll get you guys a nice big update posted on the weekend


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## ultimatedesk (Jan 17, 2011)

*Trimming the Drawer Faces*

Had another really busy weekend and unfortunately, wasn't able to post the update on the weekend like I originally wanted to...

BUT! Made a new friend - meet Mr.Air Nailer.











Nice and fast, no need to clamp everything down, and I can get a lot more trim done a lot quicker.

I really did a better job of being picky with the trim, and selected cuts that matched the colour a lot better:






Compared to the first drawer face that I tried:






That had to change, so I took my most subtle and elegant tools:











And, replaced the two mis-coloured pieces with nicer ones.

Anyways - this is what my trim production line looked like for the day:






First, I would mark off the lengths on an appropriately coloured piece of trim just using a pencil and holding the trim against the piece:






Take it over to the miter saw and trim it to within a sixteenth of an inch or so on both ends:











See that cedar log in the bottom right? Remember it being longer? Mike was in the shop today turning them into table legs, which partially explains the big mess!






I then took the piece that is being trimmed, as well as the trim, to the little sander. I would sand to a good 90 degree angle, and get the length just right.
















Glue down, and nail down!











Occasionally, I'll crack the trim with the nailer... which means it has to be removed, and re-done with a new piece of trim:






After some sanding:






I finished all 3 drawer faces and then got started on the actual drawers. They look pretty decent. Not perfect, but they look nice.


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## copenhagen69 (Jan 17, 2011)

very nice !!!

ya the old desk looks like an awful place to work at haha


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## MohawkAngel (Jan 18, 2011)

We see you live in Canada of course...Made in Canada wood and Mastercraft tools .. Canadian Tire FTW ! lol


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## ultimatedesk (Jan 20, 2011)

copenhagen69 said:


> very nice !!!
> 
> ya the old desk looks like an awful place to work at haha


Lol, thanks copengagen69, you can see why I've been so inspired to create a better working area! Like I said, in my bachelor, I had to use my kitchen table for any kind of paperwork!


MohawkAngel said:


> We see you live in Canada of course...Made in Canada wood and Mastercraft tools .. Canadian Tire FTW ! lol


Yes, of course! You'll see some snow in the pics sometime soon as well


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## Sinzia (Jan 23, 2011)

I'd love to look at those sketchup plans and mod them a bit, I want a corner desk, and this would be a perfect starting point for it!
I cant wait to see how it all looks for you.


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## ultimatedesk (Jan 24, 2011)

*Trimming the Actual Drawers*



Sinzia said:


> I'd love to look at those sketchup plans and mod them a bit, I want a corner desk, and this would be a perfect starting point for it!
> I cant wait to see how it all looks for you.


Thanks Sinzia, I'll be making the Sketchup plans available when the project is finished, so keep in touch!

I used a fairly similar process as the drawer faces, I started out by cutting myself some fresh trim strips from this piece of maple:







Hit the miter saw and sander, and lay down some glue:






Then with the nailer. Whoops, one more split.






Here's a before and after shot from the sanding. You'll notice the maple strips got burnt pretty badly when I put them through the table saw (The blade is getting a bit old). After a bit of sanding, they look as fresh as ever:


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## ultimatedesk (Jan 24, 2011)

*More Trim Work*

After trimming all of the drawers and faces, I had to get some wood filler to fill in all of the screw and nail holes, as well as the small voids between the plywood and solid wood. All in all, this process went OK - not as nice as I would have liked.











For the mostpart, I used Elmers Natural Colour Wood Filler. While it did the job, the colour matching wasn't exactly... inconspicious, to say the least. I also tried mixing some sawdust from the random-orbit sander with some wood glue, with not so great results.


























You can clearly see, in the end result, that the sawdust/glue filler looks more like glue. It has an almost transparent look to it. I guess I should have used more sawdust?











Anyways, I finished up the rest of the voids and holes with the regular Elmers stuff:











And then sanded it it all up:











Anyone have any tips on how I can further hide the holes? I will have to go over them again with some more wood filler just to smooth them out completely, but even so, I have a feeling that the stain will accentuate all of my filling, which is not the desired effect, to say the least!!

I have ALMOST determined the stain / technique I will be using. I'm getting some very nice, richly coloured red mahogany / cherry right now on my test boards. With that in mind, has anyone used darker wood filler than the natural wood, when staining dark with good effect?


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## Sinzia (Jan 25, 2011)

I've used stainable wood filler in the past with great results, you cant really see it unless you're looking for it, for the screw holes like the one above, take your time and do multiple layers, allowing time to dry fully.


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## PopcornMachine (Jan 25, 2011)

Once you stain/paint, no one is going to notice those spots. Right?


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## Sinzia (Jan 26, 2011)

PopcornMachine said:


> Once you stain/paint, no one is going to notice those spots. Right?




If you stain wood with normal wood putty for filling the holes, the stain will not get absorbed into the putty, and they will stick out a lot.

Painting, on the other hand.... thats different.


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## mlee49 (Jan 26, 2011)

Wood glue + saw dust = wood working ghetto mod!!!

I've done this once before for a wordworking project and it turned out great.  Super little tip there!


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## Sinzia (Jan 26, 2011)

mlee49 said:


> Wood glue + saw dust = wood working ghetto mod!!!
> 
> I've done this once before for a wordworking project and it turned out great.  Super little tip there!



so have I, and it worked out quite well, you just have to make sure to sand it well.


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## mlee49 (Jan 26, 2011)

It depends, the project I used it on it wasn't showing so I didn't care much. I think yours looks good, it is on the inside of the drawer right?

You should be fine, maybe a little touch up stain and you'll be fine.


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## copenhagen69 (Jan 26, 2011)

looking good!


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## MohawkAngel (Jan 26, 2011)

Hey UltimateDesk tu es Québécois ! lol Je suis de St-Jean-sur-Richelieu et toi ?  Colle Lepage ya juste ça au Québec je crois hahaha


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## blobster21 (Jan 26, 2011)

MohawkAngel said:


> Hey UltimateDesk tu es Québécois ! lol Je suis de St-Jean-sur-Richelieu et toi ?  Colle Lepage ya juste ça au Québec je crois hahaha



first time i can read something without having to translate it first. salutation d'un cousin de l'hexagone


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## MohawkAngel (Jan 26, 2011)

blobster21 said:


> first time i can read something without having to translate it first. salutation d'un cousin de l'hexagone



 Pas de problème cousin mais que veux tu dire par l'hexagone?  Je ne connais pas toutes les expressions de France


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## blobster21 (Jan 26, 2011)




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## MohawkAngel (Jan 26, 2011)

mERCI POUR L'INFO LOL


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## GSG-9 (Jan 26, 2011)

Annnnd Going back to english. This looks awesome so far! I will be watching your progress!


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## MohawkAngel (Jan 26, 2011)

GSG-9 said:


> Annnnd Going back to english. This looks awesome so far! I will be watching your progress!



Yep going back to english but you should learn some french  The guy whos making the desk is a french canadian from Quebec province


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## GSG-9 (Jan 26, 2011)

MohawkAngel said:


> Yep going back to english but you should learn some french  The guy whos making the desk is a french canadian from Quebec province



I have enough trouble speaking python when working with blender php while at work C+ while helping my friends with CS homework and english with the tech support people at dell. 
Maybe someday I will expand my horizons a bit more language wise....


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## makwy2 (Jan 26, 2011)

Tres magnifique!  Love it.  

Great design and follow thru.

\Subscribe!


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## MohawkAngel (Jan 26, 2011)

GSG-9 said:


> I have enough trouble speaking python when working with blender php while at work C+ while helping my friends with CS homework and english with the tech support people at dell.
> Maybe someday I will expand my horizons a bit more language wise....



Then it's time to learn a real life language like french and drink wine then go get laid in Paris hahaha 

CS homework = Counter-Strike homework !!! That rocks


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## Radical_Edward (Jan 26, 2011)

Good looking desk so far, can't wait to see how this turns out.


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## ultimatedesk (Jan 28, 2011)

Sinzia said:


> I've used stainable wood filler in the past with great results, you cant really see it unless you're looking for it, for the screw holes like the one above, take your time and do multiple layers, allowing time to dry fully.


Thanks for the tips Sinzia



PopcornMachine said:


> Once you stain/paint, no one is going to notice those spots. Right?


I hope not!!!



Sinzia said:


> If you stain wood with normal wood putty for filling the holes, the stain will not get absorbed into the putty, and they will stick out a lot.
> 
> Painting, on the other hand.... thats different.


The wood filler I am using says it is ok to stain, so hopefully it won't stick out that much...



mlee49 said:


> Wood glue + saw dust = wood working ghetto mod!!!
> I've done this once before for a wordworking project and it turned out great.  Super little tip there!





Sinzia said:


> so have I, and it worked out quite well, you just have to make sure to sand it well.


Yeah, I think it is the ideal way (Lots of old woodworkers do it that way) but I just didn't use enough sawdust 



mlee49 said:


> It depends, the project I used it on it wasn't showing so I didn't care much. I think yours looks good, it is on the inside of the drawer right?
> You should be fine, maybe a little touch up stain and you'll be fine.


Yeah, the holes are on the "outside" of the drawer - you will see them when you pull the drawer open from the cabinet. You're right though, I may be able to use some touch-up stain to even out the colour if they stick out too much.



copenhagen69 said:


> looking good!


Thanks, as always copenhagen69 



MohawkAngel said:


> Hey UltimateDesk tu es Québécois ! lol Je suis de St-Jean-sur-Richelieu et toi ?  Colle Lepage ya juste ça au Québec je crois hahaha


lol, non non, Je suis pas Quebecois  Je parle Francais beaucoup, mai j'ecrie jamais! Je vie en Ontario, et la colle Lepage se trouve a touts les Home Depots!



blobster21 said:


> first time i can read something without having to translate it first. salutation d'un cousin de l'hexagone


Heh, I'd never heard of the hexagone either - is that a common expression!?



GSG-9 said:


> Annnnd Going back to english. This looks awesome so far! I will be watching your progress!


Thanks GSG-9, I appreciate the comments!



makwy2 said:


> Tres magnifique!  Love it.
> Great design and follow thru.
> \Subscribe!


Thanks makwy2!



MohawkAngel said:


> Then it's time to learn a real life language like french and drink wine then go get laid in Paris hahaha
> CS homework = Counter-Strike homework !!! That rocks


Lol, I would love it if I had Counter-Strike homework. Ok class, your assignment tonight is: get 30 kills, and then get a 30:1 or better ratio. Only youtube links will be accepted. Due tomorrow.



Radical_Edward said:


> Good looking desk so far, can't wait to see how this turns out.


Thanks Radical_Edward

Should have an actual update tomorrow or the day after. Been really busy and tired lately


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## t_ski (Jan 28, 2011)

Props for excellent use of the multi-quote button!


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## ultimatedesk (Jan 31, 2011)

*New Sponsor - Crucial*



t_ski said:


> Props for excellent use of the multi-quote button!


lol, thanks t_ski, I don't know what I would do without it!!

Received a nice package in the mail a couple weeks ago that I've been meaning to show off...












What could it be?






Woohoo!!!
















That's:
4 x 2 GB of 1600Mhz CL7 Ballistix RAM from Crucial and
2 x 2 GB of 1333Mhz ECC, Registered RDIMM RAM from Crucial!

So it looks like for the main system I will have some options. Currently I'm thinking either a socket 1156 Core i5/i7 or a newer Sandy Bridge socket 1155. The only issue that may occur with the Sandy Bridge is that those Crucial Ballistix are rated for 1.65 Volts, which I understand is a bit over the recommended voltage for RAM for the 1155 boards. There is a possibility of looking at an AMD AM3 system as well with a Phenom x4 or x6 - I have not made up my mind entirely yet.

For the server system, I am almost definetely going with a Xeon processor - which motherboard is still in the air.

Aren't they so nice? 











Can't wait to open them up and test them out! It'll have to wait for now, however.

So here's a distraction - my cat! She's going to have some kittens soon!






Big thanks go out to Crucial, who are officially the first sponsor for The Ultimate Computer Desk





Stay tuned, lots of updates in the pipeline!


----------



## t_ski (Jan 31, 2011)

Hold off on Sandy Bridge - news came out today of chipset issues that are cancelling current production and forcing a refresh.


----------



## MohawkAngel (Jan 31, 2011)

Good call t_ski!


----------



## PopcornMachine (Feb 1, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> So here's a distraction - my cat! She's going to have some kittens soon!
> 
> http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/9820/img5367e.jpg



Congrats on the sponsor! 

And if I would take one of the kittens if  I didn't already have a cat that would make a snack of it.


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## ultimatedesk (Feb 3, 2011)

t_ski said:


> Hold off on Sandy Bridge - news came out today of chipset issues that are cancelling current production and forcing a refresh.





MohawkAngel said:


> Good call t_ski!


Roger that, finished reading about that the other day as well. Noticed all of the online retailers have stopped selling anything related to the 1155 socket. Fortunately, it may be another couple months before I have to purchase the rest of the hardware!



PopcornMachine said:


> Congrats on the sponsor!
> 
> And if I would take one of the kittens if  I didn't already have a cat that would make a snack of it.


Thanks PoprcornMachine - I can't wait to have some kittens - never had them before, so I think it'll be lots of fun 

Last time I left off, with regards to the table surface, I had just finished gluing and screwing it together. I put it on the backburner for about a week to dry while I worked on the drawers, and now I'm going to take it down in preparation for putting the outer trim on it.

Here it is:






All 4 sides were a bit off, with regards to the flushness. This was expected, as the initial sizing cuts were pretty rough, and it's better to have extra material than not enough.






Took out a straight-cut flush bit for the router, and some 60-grit sandpaper for the random orbital sander, and got to work. I did two passes with the router, because since the bit is not 1 1/2" tall, I couldn't trim the whole side of the table with just one pass.


























And, after a bit of work, the final result:
















The next step is to take a long strip of maple and turn it into trim for the table surface.


----------



## Laurijan (Feb 3, 2011)

Damn I will envy the end result! Here a pic of my ultimate shitty PC desk:


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## ultimatedesk (Feb 8, 2011)

*Thanks*



Laurijan said:


> Damn I will envy the end result! Here a pic of my ultimate shitty PC desk:


Oh Laurijan, you just gave me an awesome idea for my next build log "My Ultimate Shitty PC Desk" haha, make all the cuts with an axe and have nails sticking out of it, etc.. I think it would be a riot.

Your desk is honestly not bad at all - you saw pics of my current working situation, looks like you have more storage space at least  Nice tower too! Yowza, is that a 750 Watter?


----------



## scooper22 (Feb 8, 2011)

'subbed - *at last* someone who knows how to use tools to get a nice result


----------



## ultimatedesk (Feb 11, 2011)

*Adding Trim to the Desk Surface*



scooper22 said:


> 'subbed - *at last* someone who knows how to use tools to get a nice result


Wow, thanks scooper22, appreciate it! I actually ~don't~ have a lot of experience with wood working except for some basic shelving and aquarium stands in the past, so.. thanks again! A bit of patience and planning clearly goes a long way!!

The last time I left off, I had just finished flushing the sides of the table in preparation to add some trim. I found a nice piece of long maple that was just a little over 8 feet long, a little wider than 1.5 inches, and thick enough to cut some 1/4 inch strips from.

I layed it out, setup the table saw and cut myself a test piece.






Looks good!






Here's a pic of the cutting process. I'm afraid I had some difficulty with this. Actually, let me rephrase - the saw had some difficulty with this. I was still using the same blade I've been using the whole project - which needs replacement pretty badly. Asking it to cut through 1.5 inches of maple, for a length of 8 feet was asking a lot of it.






I made it through eventually, but the whole process left quite a few burn marks on the wood.






I glued and nailed the trim around the perimeter of the desk, which was a pretty straightforward process.






And then took out a hand plane to get rid of most of the excess material and bring the trim down flush with the desk surface. Some neat pictures here.











After some sanding with some 60-grit on the random orbit sander to get everything smooth, I went nuts with the wood filler.
















At that point I stood the surface up in the back of the shop and called it a night.

Next update in the loop, I setup some dado blades in the table saw, mmm mmmm, that was fun!

Have a good weekend everyone!


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 12, 2011)

Ive been wanting to design my own L-Desk and this just gave me some inspiration

What program did you use for the drafts and renders??


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## Brandenburg (Feb 16, 2011)

"subscribed"
Would read again and cant wait to see the finished product.. Looks killer ultimatedesk

@ nvidiaintelftw
I believed he used Google Sketchup..  If i'm wrong.. Some one correct me


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## copenhagen69 (Feb 16, 2011)

looking good ...


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## pantherx12 (Feb 16, 2011)

Anyone forwarded this thread to cyberdruid and MKmods?

Sure they'd be interested to see the work.


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## ultimatedesk (Feb 25, 2011)

*Dado Cutting*



nvidiaintelftw said:


> Ive been wanting to design my own L-Desk and this just gave me some inspiration
> 
> What program did you use for the drafts and renders??


Cool, glad to provide some inspiration, nvidiaintelftw! And yes, Brandenburg is right, Google Sketchup is what I used. Lots of great tutorials available online as well, for what it's worth.



Brandenburg said:


> "subscribed"
> Would read again and cant wait to see the finished product.. Looks killer ultimatedesk
> 
> @ nvidiaintelftw
> I believed he used Google Sketchup..  If i'm wrong.. Some one correct me


Thanks Brandenburg, things have been a bit slow lately, but I'll have some good stuff in the next week or so, hopefully.



copenhagen69 said:


> looking good ...


Thanks copenhagen69!



pantherx12 said:


> Anyone forwarded this thread to cyberdruid and MKmods?
> 
> Sure they'd be interested to see the work.


Ooooh, wouldn't that be nice!

It's been a while since the last update, but basically, I got around to installing the dado blade on the table saw to make some important cuts for the two cabinets, and was able to do a bit of test fitting.

For those of you not really in the know, a dado blade has two regular saw blades (One for the left, one for the right) and some irregular shaped blades of varying thickness that you put in between, until you get the right width. I'll let the pictures do the talking.
















The beauty of using dado blades in the table saw (At least I think) is that you can set it up at the right height and width, and then set the fence to the proper width and do all 3 of your supporting boards one after another so they will be lined up perfectly when it comes time for assembly.






I put 3 cuts in each of the 3 supporting walls of the left-hand cabinet. There was a bit of chipping, I should have probably put down some masking tape, but it's nothing major and will be on the inside anyways.






I threw on a bit of wood filler to patch up the chipped parts, and then let these 3 dry while I worked on the right-hand cabinet cuts.






I then had some time to put together a quick test fitting! Not bad! Some of the wood was just a bit crooked, so I'll have to spend some time with the sander to loosen up some of the dado joints.































This pretty much completes the first phase of the project - I won't have any use for any of the big, messy tools anymore.

All that's really left are a few small detail cuts, some holes need to be cut out, the whole thing needs to be sanded to pre-stain state, and then assembly and staining!

I'll be bringing all of the materials back to my place where I'll be doing just that.


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## ultimatedesk (Feb 25, 2011)

*Basement Move*

And, through the miracle of internet technology, I'm bringing you the next update right away!

There wasn't much work done in this update - just thought I'd show everyone where the progress is going to be taking place from now on. The spooky basement in my building!

It's a really old house, at least over a hundred years old, in fact, there's a 12" x 12" solid beam of wood running as the main support member along the entire length of the house, it must be at least 30 feet long. Can't get those any more!!!

My main complaint with the basement is that I am constantly bashing my head on the low ceiling beams, and it's quite cold! Getting motivated to go work down there is not nearly as easy as working in the nice, heated wood shop.

Time to let the pictures do the talking:











I purchased a new shop vac at Canadian Tire along with a bunch of other stuff during the Boxing Week sales after Christmas. Sweet.






I also setup a plastic wall to help prevent sawdust from going all over the basement, as well as to help keep any breezes contained when it comes time to stain.






Some of my personal tools:


























And there we have it! Until next time, have a good weekend!


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## Maelstrom (Feb 25, 2011)

Can't wait to see the finished product. Also, love that black bag that says "This bag is green", it made me laugh.


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## ultimatedesk (Feb 28, 2011)

*Quick Test Fitting*



Maelstrom said:


> Can't wait to see the finished product. Also, love that black bag that says "This bag is green", it made me laugh.


Hehe, thanks Maelstrom, love the bag too 

So, I did a bit of work in the basement the other night, and since the next part of the project is going to be assembly, I decided to give it another shot at test fitting, since the last time I tried it was just loosely put together.

Time to get out the sander with some 80 grit. The hose on my shop vac is a little over 2", and I didn't have an adapter to attach it to the DeWalt ROB Sander unfortunately, so a little tape had to do the job.











I took each piece one by one and sanded down the edges where they slide into the dado cuts. I had to do a surprising amount of sanding, as the fit was incredibly tight.

I also took the time to label each piece (Top, Middle, Bottom, and which side faces the front) so that it could be easily repeatable when it comes time for final assembly.

Almost there. So tight! I needed a rubber mallet to set some of them, and then remove them afterwards.






This shelf was just ~slightly~ warped, and needed a lot of sanding so that one end was nice and snug, and this end actually a bit of free space (Hello wood filler!)






A couple more progress shots:











And, all tightly assembled. I could probably jump on this box...











I spent about an hour and a half doing that, and honestly, it was freezing cold down there and that's about all I could stand for that evening. Until next time!


----------



## ultimatedesk (Mar 14, 2011)

*First Staining Attempt*

So - it's been some time since my last update (What has it been.. 2 weeks? Geez!) but I haven't been idle at home, it's just that I was really busy (There are kittens running around now!) and I've been working with some staining techniques, which has been a long, learning process.

I did a bit of research and came across a good video over here: Link and I opted to give it a shot, because there apparently, is a tendency for maple to come out a little blotchy due to the tight grain, or something or other like that.

So I picked up some supplies:






Made up a test board - some wood filler, some real maple trim, and one side sanded to 120 and the other sanded to 220:






And, apparently, I was supposed to cut the shellac with some denatured alcohol. Something I was not able to find, and subsequently, I found out that it is actually quite difficult to obtain here in Ottawa. I did not realize at the time, that I could have cut it with methyl hydrate, which is something quite commonly available at the local Canadian Tire.

And, this is where things start to go wrong. Here is the shellac applied:






Ok, not bad. Full strength. Ended up closing the grain structure completely, most likely. Here is the gel stain I chose:






And, onto the wood:






Wait 5 minutes, wipe off...






Gross. Seriously? This is why you test on samples first. Look at that colour - it's practically pink!

How about a second coat.






And why the heck not, we'll stain the back as well, where it hasn't been shellac'd.






Huh...











Now really. That was not quite what I was expecting. Time to get a new sample piece - no shellac, but sanded properly to 120.
















What's going on here? This is not really the expected "richness" of a dark gel stain like this, is it? Hmm..






Doh! Looks like keeping the gel stain in the basement, where it is freezing, separated the contents. There is a visible layer of clear liquid on top of the stain - that shouldn't be there.

Staining attempt number 1? Failure.

1. If you're using shellac to seal, to avoid streaking and blotching - you MUST cut it
2. If you're going to use a gel stain, don't keep it in a cold environment before you're about to use it.

Well, time to put the stain upstairs for a little while, and maybe another trip to the hardware store... And just an fyi, this took me about a week just to do the 2 samples, since it's so cold, I can only do 1 coat per day, as it takes a long time to dry.

And here's a little something else:






Cute, no? A litter of 5 - the first one was stillborn, so we've got 4 kittens, pretty exciting stuff.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Mar 14, 2011)

t_ski said:


> Props for excellent use of the multi-quote button!



Yep between that and commenting on the project log section this guy must spend time at XS.


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## Nailezs (Mar 14, 2011)

love this project, and love the updates with the kittens. keep those coming also!


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## ultimatedesk (Mar 15, 2011)

*Second Staining Attempt*



Wrigleyvillain said:


> Yep between that and commenting on the project log section this guy must spend time at XS.





Nailezs said:


> love this project, and love the updates with the kittens. keep those coming also!


Hehe, you got that right Wrigleyvillain - thanks for the comments, both of you 


Some of you may have wondered - "You stained 2 small pieces of wood in the past 2 weeks?! That's all you have to show for progress on THE ULTIMATE DESK?!"

Well, not quite... Really - I did more, I swear.

As you all know, the first staining attempt went really poorly, so I immediately went out and started on a second staining attempt. This time, I purchased some pre-stain wood conditioner, as well as a traditional oil-based stain. I also set out to do this the right way. If I'm going to spend a week staining small samples, I might as well have something to show for it. I cut 8 small blocks of wood, and sanded them all to 120 grit, just like before, and tacked them all off.






I had a plan this time - I was going to see what kind of colour combinations I could get with just 2 stains, and 1 wood conditioner (The gel stain, for what it's worth, had been mixed several times, and had been kept upstairs for a few days). Here is the wood conditioner I used. You can see in the background that it tints the wood just slightly.






Here is the oil-based stain I picked up. It's a Minwax product, Red Mahogany.






And of course, the Varathane Gel Stain that you've already seen, also, Red Mahogany.






In this picture you can see a bit how the oil stain reacts to the wood conditioner. The wood conditioner seemed to have hardly any effect on the gel stain, most likely because gel stains don't really penetrate the wood the same as an oil stain.






And in this picture you can see the whopping difference between the oil stain and gel stain, which are, strangely enough, supposed to be the same colour. The one on the left is the Minwax, and the one in the middle is the Varathane. Neither the first or second piece have wood conditioner on them. The piece on the right is wood conditioner + the Minwax oil stain.






Here's the production line, the stain is still wet, I haven't wiped off the excess yet.






And here is the result of 2 days of staining. (First day sanding, tacking, wood conditioner, first coat of stain, second day some of them got a second coat).

From left to right, here is what I did to get the different results (Some of them obvious, some of them pretty darn subtle).

1. Minwax Red Mahogany Oil Stain
2. Varathane Red Mahogany Gel Stain
3. Wood Conditioner + Minwax Red Mahogany Oil Stain
4. Wood Conditioner + Varathane Red Mahogany Gel Stain
5. Wood Conditioner + Minwax Red Mahogany Oil Stain + Varathane Red Mahogany Gel Stain
6. Wood Conditioner + Varathane Red Mahogany Gel Stain + Minwax Red Mahogany Oil Stain
7. Wood Conditioner + Minwax Red Mahogany Oil Stain x 2 Coats
8. Wood Conditioner + Varathane Red Mahogany Gel Stain x 2 Coats

Wow! It's pretty amazing the different shades you can get when using just 3 pretty simple substances.
















I then set about the next 4 or 5 days applying one coat of high gloss polyurethane each day (That was a long and boring process). Basically, get home from work, go downstairs for a whole 5 minutes, do a quick sanding, tacking, and another light coat of poly, done for the day, wait for the next day.

Here's the final result of Staining Attempt Number Two. Please keep in mind, they are not in the same order that I mentioned above.











There's no doubt that I will use this method again in the future. I also now have a great set of staining samples for maple plywood that I will surely fine handy in the future (They are all marked on the back what the process / stain used was).

Guess what though. None of them really came out the way I wanted. I'm still in search for that rich, deep, red mahogany / cherry look, and these just won't cut it (Though I admit, I do like #5 and #6, but maybe only because of their really spectacular grain pattern).

See you next time for Staining Attempt Number Three! *sigh*



Oh - and here's another snap of the kittens - they are 20 days old when this picture was taken, and they had just opened their eyes only a couple days beforehand.






I won't be posting another update until next week, as I've decided to take a trip to the East Coast to celebrate St.Patricks day! I'll be in Halifax if anyone wants to go for a few pints! Have a great weekend everyone!


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## PopcornMachine (Mar 15, 2011)

Congrats on the kittens! 

Sorry about the one that didn't make it.


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## BumbleBee (Mar 15, 2011)

so cute! you should build them a little house.


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## ultimatedesk (Mar 24, 2011)

*Third Staining Attempt*



PopcornMachine said:


> Congrats on the kittens!
> 
> Sorry about the one that didn't make it.


Thank you! They are running around like crazy now and are a joy  I think it's pretty normal to lose at least 1 in the litter, so ah well.



BumbleBee said:


> so cute! you should build them a little house.


Hehe, you should see my next project! Maybe I'll post it in the off-topic section 

For those of you interested in seeing how the kittens are doing, I've been keeping a bit of a video log on them - ie. I have been taking quick video clips of them every few days, since day 0. You can check them out here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MrAderome#p/u

Also, here is a bit of a sneak peak, as far as actual computer hardware is concerned - I've been slowly acquiring bits and pieces, since I'm still not entirely sure what will end up in this Ultimate Computer Desk.

Kingston has decided to sponsor me, and has sent me this really fantastic SSD drive. I am PSYCHED!










As you are all aware, my first 2 staining attempts were successful in the sense that I learned a lot, however, I was still not achieving the result I originally wanted.

I decided to try something other than the tried-and-true local Home Depot, and I hit up a custom furniture store - Randalls. Let me tell you - it was a truly great experience, and I will be returning there many more times in the future due to the incredible service I received there.

I walked in with my backpack full of my 2nd attempt samples, and immediately a salesperson started talking with me about what I was there for. I explained to her the stains I tried, along with the techniques, and she asked to see my samples.

I pointed out the ones I liked, and why, and why I didn't like them, and she came back in a few minutes with a couple stains that might interest me. She then asked if she could do some sample stains on the back of the pieces I brought in. She took the pieces behind the counter, sanded them down, stained them, and came back in a few minutes with actual, real - this is what they're going to look like - samples.

How cool is that? I could have just gone there in the first place and spent the whole extra 2 dollars, but would have walked out with 1 product - the right one - the first time. Amazing - I'm really happy I discovered that place.

I can't imagine Home Depot opening up any of their products for a test piece.. I've never asked though, so who knows. Randall's is my goto place for stains now, however!






Once again, I decided to see what variety of colours I could get with what I had on hand, so I setup 8 samples once more:

1. Old Masters
2. Wood Conditioner + Old Masters
3. Wood Conditioner + Minwax + Old Masters
4. Wood Conditioner + Old Masters + Minwax
5. Wood Conditioner + Old Masters x 2 Coats
6. Old Masters x 2 Coats
7. Wood Conditioner + Varathane + Old Masters
8. Wood Conditioner + Old Masters + Varathane






I worked on the samples for about a week (1 coat per day, did 5 or 6 coats of poly on top, light sanding between poly coats)






Here are a couple close up shots while staining was in progress











And a comparison with the previous samples, once everything was nicely glossed up






Look at the difference in colour! Now that's more what I was looking for. There's no question that the gel stain has "muted" the grain a little bit, however, the colour is unquestionably closer to what I was looking for originally.

Here is a shot of my previously favorite samples from the 2nd round, against the new samples






And a closeup of the 2 samples I think I like the best. The differences between this batch are quite subtle, as the Old Masters gel stain has a very strong dye which mutes out the effects of conditioner, or any other stain applied before or after.






Now that's what I call progress! I think I can call it quits for testing stain now. Time to move on to the dreaded motherboard tray / I/O Slot stuff...

Until next time!


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## HalfAHertz (Mar 24, 2011)

Wow this is some pretty amazing work! Everything looks very professional.


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## Nailezs (Mar 24, 2011)

wow, i like the colours you've chosen!

EDIT: i spelled colors like a brit by mistake rofl


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## Laurijan (Mar 24, 2011)

Hard to wait for the end-result since a perfect PC-desk project gets my attention because I have a VERY shitty one.


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## BumbleBee (Mar 25, 2011)

thanks for the update Bubbles


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## ultimatedesk (Mar 31, 2011)

*Some New Hardware*



HalfAHertz said:


> Wow this is some pretty amazing work! Everything looks very professional.


Thank you HalfAHertz, I appreciate the encouragement!



Nailezs said:


> wow, i like the colours you've chosen!
> 
> EDIT: i spelled colors like a brit by mistake rofl


Heh, you know, that's how we spell colours in Canada too eh? 



Laurijan said:


> Hard to wait for the end-result since a perfect PC-desk project gets my attention because I have a VERY shitty one.


lol, well, you saw the desk I'm currently using - not exactly 5-star. Believe me - I CANNOT WAIT until this is done! But I need to do a good job, so, you know.. that's how she rolls - it's going to take some time.



BumbleBee said:


> thanks for the update Bubbles


Hey, I actually saw the pub that he used to own when I went to Halifax a couple weekends ago!


Sorry about the lack of updates everyone, it's not that I haven't been working on the desk much, but it's more that I've been using the camera a lot (You know.. kittens) and I haven't had time to sit down and sort through all the photos, re-size, crop, etc for some real proper updates.

I've had this update sitting on the back burner for a little while now and I've been meaning to squeeze in it somewhere. I had been talking with some folks at Danger Den because I was looking at their motherboard trays and I/O panels, and they've decided to sponsor me!

Big thanks go out to Danger Den, as these are critical components required for a professional end result - you've all seen the mangled results of the cases I tore up earlier in the project.






http://www.dangerden.com






Everything came very nicely packed - not much loose play, and plenty of foam to absorb any shipping issues.






I had these PSU support brackets custom made:






I sent them a higher resolution image of this, that I threw together in Sketchup:






Also included in this little shipment were some momentary switches for power and reset. (These are really popular these days, aren't they?)






And some real nifty motherboard trays:











All the acrylic is 1/2" clear - I will leave them wrapped up until the project is close to completion. With these parts -finally- settled, I can cut some holes in the cabinets and actually put them together -for real- !!

Stay tuned, I'll sit down this weekend and sort through the next round of updates


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## GSG-9 (Mar 31, 2011)

The stain looks beautiful on those boards.


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## ultimatedesk (Apr 12, 2011)

*IO Slot Cutting Part 1*



GSG-9 said:


> The stain looks beautiful on those boards.


Thanks GSG-9, hopefully everything turns out that nice in the final product eh!

So - it's been sometime since I've posted an update - apologies, things have been very busy lately.

With the parts from Danger Den having arrived, I could now move on to some more specific details with both of the cabinets that will contain the computers.

Once again, I started with a test fitting, this time, it was a very accurate fitting, requiring quite a bit of sanding and fiddling around to get as close to the final product as possible.
















I then placed some test parts for fitting, and traced some outlines on the wood. The motherboard tray was placed on some thin strips of packing foam that I cut up, to help isolate any vibration from the CPU Heatsink.











Installed some new blades on the jigsaw, put my biggest drill bit in the drill, and went to town!











Part 2 coming right up!


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## ultimatedesk (Apr 12, 2011)

*IO Slot Cutting Part 2*

After doing the rough cut with the jigsaw, I took out the router and free-handed with a straight bit to smooth out the edges.






The semi-finished air intake for the left-hand cabinet:






The power supply rough cut:











I decided that the PSU bolts will need a little more clearance around the screw holes.






The I/O Shield cut out was a bit tricky to measure, but I think I did a pretty decent job:
















And a final shot from above and below:











Next update, I'll have pics of actual assembly of the left hand cabinet, and then more cutting, and biscuit joining on the right-hand cabinet.


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## GSG-9 (Apr 12, 2011)

The thing that sucks about finding good, current worklogs is you know its going to be great when its done...but its not done yet. So you have to wait for every update as it slowly creeps towards something awesome.


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## Sinzia (Apr 12, 2011)

Looks awesome so far, keep it up!


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## PopcornMachine (Apr 13, 2011)

Excellent work! Thanks for the pics.


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## Brandenburg (Apr 13, 2011)

am i the only one.. as this whole project gives me a major boner...


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## ultimatedesk (Apr 20, 2011)

*Left Cabinet Assembly*



GSG-9 said:


> The thing that sucks about finding good, current worklogs is you know its going to be great when its done...but its not done yet. So you have to wait for every update as it slowly creeps towards something awesome.


Heh I hear you man - I personally have trouble keeping up with work logs in progress. I love the ones that are already finished too!



Sinzia said:


> Looks awesome so far, keep it up!





PopcornMachine said:


> Excellent work! Thanks for the pics.





Brandenburg said:


> am i the only one.. as this whole project gives me a major boner...


Thanks Sinzia, PopcornMachine and Brandenburg. Brandenburg, you are definitely not the only one lol, don't ask how I know!


It's been a while, but I can assure you, progress is still moving forward with the Ultimate Computer Desk!

I finally got around to assembling the left-hand cabinet - here it is, all glued and clamped together. It's a really solid unit - the dado cuts lined up really well, and the structure is rock solid.











Here I am doing a mock-up of the right-hand cabinet. This one was a little trickier to put together. There is a pretty specific order of assembly, otherwise, you're left with a piece that just doesn't want to fit properly.






Some outlines for the motherboard I/O and power supply






I remember mentioning that I free-handed the holes with the router for the left-hand cabinet. I decided to play a safer route for the right-hand cabinet.

I took a piece of wood, lined it up with my straight edge, and ran my router on top of the wood with a straight bit - this game me a perfect "stencil". What I can do then, is take the stencil, line up the edge with a line that I've drawn on the target piece, place a straight edge behind the stencil, clamp down the straight edge, remove the stencil, and run my router across the straight edge for a straight, accurate line.

Wow, that was a mouthful.











And the end product:











And then I made a pretty huge mistake...

Here is the suspect:






Bam. Can you guess why this was a bad idea?


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## t_ski (Apr 21, 2011)

You forgot to put a piece of wood behind the material you're drilling into.  That will prevent tear-out on the other side...


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## Zyon (Apr 21, 2011)

"Before, they mock your dear PC as a wooden computer, now you can truly own one and get them to shove their cliche joke back up their ass." Very nicely done, do you take orders if you finish that one for yourself?

11/10


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## ultimatedesk (Apr 29, 2011)

*Small No-Update*



t_ski said:


> You forgot to put a piece of wood behind the material you're drilling into.  That will prevent tear-out on the other side...


Heh... wish it was that and only that...



Zyon said:


> "Before, they mock your dear PC as a wooden computer, now you can truly own one and get them to shove their cliche joke back up their ass." Very nicely done, do you take orders if you finish that one for yourself?
> 
> 11/10


Heh, that'd be pretty sweet eh? I think I could get it done in less time than 8 months the next one too!


I've been terribly sick lately, sorry for the no show on the updates. Here are some kittens to keep you content until I get some more work done 

These are pictures from when they were 3 weeks to 8 weeks old.









































Hopefully I'll have something interesting for you on Monday


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## t_ski (Apr 29, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> Heh... wish it was that and only that...



What was it then?  Drilled right on the corners instead of compensation for the size of the bit?


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## Sinzia (Apr 30, 2011)

cute kittens!

Cant wait to see the next update on the desk.


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## ultimatedesk (May 16, 2011)

*Right Cabinet Assembly*



t_ski said:


> What was it then?  Drilled right on the corners instead of compensation for the size of the bit?


Hehe, I just shouldn't have drilled the hole in the first place.. you'll see below lol



Sinzia said:


> cute kittens!
> 
> Cant wait to see the next update on the desk.


Thanks Sinzia, it's been a while. You should see how big the kittens are now too lol

Holy moly, I'm really sorry for the lack of updates folks - I've been sick for quite a while and the weather has been miserable so I haven't had much time to work on the desk. Apparently I had cedar poisoning! Wonderful!

Anyways - back on track!

Those of you who guessed it right - yes, I shouldn't have made the hole in the first place. I don't know what I was thinking. This is the right-hand cabinet.






Whoops!






Here's the biscuit joiner I was using. It worked pretty well for what it is. The tricky part was determining the order of which pieces/faces/sides to glue first and how to keep it all from falling apart before completion.





















Here's the left-hand cabinet all dried and ready for some trim






And voila, my erm.. elegant clamping solution (I need to grab some cauls!)











Hope you enjoy! Rest assured, this project WILL BE FINISHED! Just.. mm, I don't really know when. I'm moving in a month and a half, so all the staining/sanding will have to be done, at a minimum.

Take care!


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## PopcornMachine (May 17, 2011)

This really is a major amount of work. 

Good job and thanks for the detailed pics.

P.S.  Love the kitten shots.  I have one giant cat.


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## ultimatedesk (May 20, 2011)

*Staining the Desk Surface*



PopcornMachine said:


> This really is a major amount of work.
> 
> Good job and thanks for the detailed pics.
> 
> P.S.  Love the kitten shots.  I have one giant cat.


Thanks PopcornMachine, much appreciated. So your cat is the Megazord of cats?

This part of the project took a better part of a month. There was a lot of sanding, waiting, and sweating as I put on each thin layer of polyurethane on the desk surface.

Here it is at the start of the phase - what a mess!











You can see there was still sanding to do from when I put in the wood filler back in... November!






All cleaned up, ready to rock the stain. It was starting to get nice as well so it was time to lube up the 'ol bike chain as well!











Part way through the first coat






Note that this is the bottom of the desk surface. I did this intially without any kind of pre-stain or wood treatment to see if I could get away with it.











I actually noticed a significant amount of dark spots and uneveness, so for the top of the desk, and for all future staining, I went with a pre-stain, and two coats of Old Masters Gel Stain. Here is the desk surface approximately a month later with around 8 coats of polyurethane on top. It will be getting a good ol fashion rubbing out in another month from now once it has fully cured.






Have a good weekend everyone!


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## TheMailMan78 (May 20, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> Thanks PopcornMachine, much appreciated. So your cat is the Megazord of cats?
> 
> This part of the project took a better part of a month. There was a lot of sanding, waiting, and sweating as I put on each thin layer of polyurethane on the desk surface.
> 
> ...



I love the rose finish. Always looks classy. I'm also glad you didn't go the cheap route with biscuits. You should do dove tails on the outer edges.


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## PopcornMachine (May 20, 2011)

The stain is looking real nice.


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## theJesus (May 20, 2011)

First time seeing this, but it looks really good so far


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## Smokyo7 (May 20, 2011)

Ya I like the stained wood. I wanted to go the same route with mine but my girl demanded it be black like the desk I butchered 

Cheers on the good work sir


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## kciaccio (May 21, 2011)

Very cool. I want to upgrade my desk too. I have been concerned about heat when concealing
my computers. 






Uploaded with ImageShack.us

My Unraid storage server is on the right and regular computer on the left. on the ground to the right is my Blue Knight compter build that will replace my regular computer to the left, just waiting on Bulldozer release.

I have a thread on my Blue Knight build so far. Once it is done this space will get overhauled to something nicer like your set up. 

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145434


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## ultimatedesk (May 25, 2011)

*Prepping the Upper Desk*



TheMailMan78 said:


> I love the rose finish. Always looks classy. I'm also glad you didn't go the cheap route with biscuits. You should do dove tails on the outer edges.


Thanks TheMailMan78, not sure what you mean about going the cheap route with biscuits though. Dovetails would be really nice to do, but I think it would extend the length of the project significantly since I've never done them before. Maybe they can be an upgrade to the drawers in the future.



PopcornMachine said:


> The stain is looking real nice.


Thanks PopcornMachine



theJesus said:


> First time seeing this, but it looks really good so far


Thanks theJesus! Glad you didn't rapture everyone..



Smokyo7 said:


> Ya I like the stained wood. I wanted to go the same route with mine but my girl demanded it be black like the desk I butchered
> 
> Cheers on the good work sir


Thanks Smokyo7, can't argue with the girl, that's for sure 



kciaccio said:


> Very cool. I want to upgrade my desk too. I have been concerned about heat when concealing
> my computers.
> 
> My Unraid storage server is on the right and regular computer on the left. on the ground to the right is my Blue Knight compter build that will replace my regular computer to the left, just waiting on Bulldozer release.
> ...


I know what you mean about the cooling, we'll see how that goes in real world testing. There are at least a lot of options available. Nice build so far on your Blue Knight


So, with the main desk surface out of the way, it was time to start focusing on the top shelf portion, which, at this point, hadn't been sanded, cut perfectly, or assembled. Here were all the pieces required.







A quick mock up:






A few tests with the biscuit joiner to make sure I was aligned properly:
















I couldn't get it exactly in the center - the bottom of the joiner is a bit concave and it made lining it up a little difficult. The tool is generally used to join boards end to end, so there wasn't really any facility for on-face joining like this.

Assembly and glue up time:
















Enjoy! You can never have too many clamps you know? I couldn't continue on doing the side pods until this stuff dried up first.


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## theJesus (May 25, 2011)

Yup, that is a lot of clamps lol.


----------



## copenhagen69 (May 25, 2011)

lol loven me some clamps


----------



## Smokyo7 (May 25, 2011)

That's a solid $400 worth of clamps, haha. /jealous


----------



## ultimatedesk (May 27, 2011)

*Top Shelf Assembly*



theJesus said:


> Yup, that is a lot of clamps lol.


I kept the rapture down with those clamps



copenhagen69 said:


> lol loven me some clamps


They be lovin me lots too!



Smokyo7 said:


> That's a solid $400 worth of clamps, haha. /jealous


Ha, don't kid yourself too much - these are the cheapest "quick-clamp" type clamps you can buy at Canadian Tire, and I have never paid full price for any of them. When they go on sale, I think the 48" ones go for 15 dollars, the 36" ones for 12, and the 24" ones for 8 or 9. This boxing day I saw they were on sale and I went to 4 Canadian Tires and bought up all of them lol - they go like hotcakes and I knew I was going to need them for the desk!!

With the first phase of the top shelf all solid and dried, I could continue on to the two side pods. Here's the initial mockup.











Notice the pencil lines for the biscuits I'll be installing.






Those biscuits are so dark and moody... lol!






Aaand, some gratuitous clamping shots. Like that extra-long setup? Yeah, that worked this time, but I don't recommend it. It wasn't too stable, but there wasn't really anything else I could clamp on to for that end-pressure required.
















Mmmm glue.






So that's it for this update, I know it's a pretty simple one, but hey, it's one more phase done. Just needs to have some trim stuck on and then staining!

Have a good weekend!


----------



## theJesus (May 27, 2011)

[insert fetish joke about using clamps on "wood" here]


----------



## TheMailMan78 (May 27, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> Thanks TheMailMan78, not sure what you mean about going the cheap route with biscuits though. Dovetails would be really nice to do, but I think it would extend the length of the project significantly since I've never done them before. Maybe they can be an upgrade to the drawers in the future.



These puppies. I can't stand them. Dovetail or go home ya know?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit_joiner


----------



## Kreij (May 28, 2011)

Dovetails for plywood joinery? You're kidding, right?


----------



## Velvet Wafer (May 28, 2011)

Kreij said:


> Dovetails for plywood joinery? You're kidding, right?



Mailman is always kidding, he is here only for that reason


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jun 20, 2011)

*Top Shelf Trim*



theJesus said:


> [insert fetish joke about using clamps on "wood" here]


Seriously!



TheMailMan78 said:


> These puppies. I can't stand them. Dovetail or go home ya know?
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit_joiner


Heh, next one Mailman, next one...


Ok, so it's been a little while since an update eh?

I've been busy, sorry folks, life seems to speed up in the summertime!

As a peace offering, here are the kiddo's, at about 4 months old now!











And, back to the desk!

I had a bunch of solid maple cut into more 1/4" strips so I could finish doing the trim on the top shelf and the cabinets.






My trusty compound mitre saw - got it reconditioned at a bargain place for like 60 dollars, and it's been pretty reliable for a number of years now. It's loud as all heck though!






And, my favorite part - clamping up!
















And, since there was nowhere to place clamps in between this area, I had to improvise with a small block of wood!


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jun 20, 2011)

*Staining the Top Shelf*

After the trim was glued on and then sanded flush, I proceeded with the staining and poly






Looks good, eh?






I also finally decided to buckle down and build myself a quick rig to store all my clamps. Since I'm moving soon, it'll also make it easier to move them to the new place! Nice lap joints eh!!






I proceeded to the cabinet drawers, where I finally sanded off the wood filler that's been attached for weeks (months?)






Lined up the drawer faces, glued them on (Was going to screw them on after, from behind. Lol)






And put a bit of weight on top..






Walked away for a bit, and realized... maybe it was a bad idea to glue them on first! Uh oh!


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jun 20, 2011)

*Staining the Drawers*

I decided that it might actually be a lot easier to line up the drawer faces if I attached them AFTER I had attached the drawers to the drawer slides, to I ripped em off.

So, next on the list - staining the actual drawers!

Pre-stain on!






Mmm, they look so good











And, poly of course











Done!






And just so ya know, it really did basically take a month just to finish the top shelf and the drawers... more to come soon!


----------



## Smokyo7 (Jun 20, 2011)

Nice work man. Look forward to more updates in the future.


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jun 21, 2011)

*Drawer Face Staining*



Smokyo7 said:


> Nice work man. Look forward to more updates in the future.


Thanks Smokyo7, more to come!

With the drawers themselves all stained up, it was time to stain the drawer fronts!






Since most of the back of the drawer fronts won't be visible, I decided that I could probably stain and poly both sides at once...

Pre stain!











They look so nice like this... ahh, next project...






Some staining time
















And some sweet, sweet gloss poly.






Woops! One of the drawer faces slipped off the painting cones and picked up a whole whack of saw dust and wood chips... at least this will never be seen on the final project!


----------



## Luciel (Jun 22, 2011)

Wow, it looks like proffesionally made furniture, the kind of stuff you wouldn´t want to screw up by putting a PC in it lol! so congrats and keep up the good work! ^^


----------



## theJesus (Jun 22, 2011)

Luciel said:


> Wow, it looks like proffesionally made furniture, the kind of stuff you wouldn´t want to screw up by putting a PC in it lol! so congrats and keep up the good work! ^^


Doesn't just look like it, it _is_ professionally made.


----------



## PopcornMachine (Jun 22, 2011)

Very nice looking stain.  Glad to see no kittens stuck on one.


----------



## THRiLL KiLL (Jun 22, 2011)

looking good. subscribing to thread


----------



## twicksisted (Jun 22, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/6026/img6036.jpg



is that a Maine Coon kitten?


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jun 23, 2011)

*Trimming the Cabinets*



Luciel said:


> Wow, it looks like proffesionally made furniture, the kind of stuff you wouldn´t want to screw up by putting a PC in it lol! so congrats and keep up the good work! ^^


lol, too funny - thanks for the comments, hopefully the PC's will fit right in nicely 



theJesus said:


> Doesn't just look like it, it _is_ professionally made.


Thanks theJesus, I learned from your teachings lol 



PopcornMachine said:


> Very nice looking stain.  Glad to see no kittens stuck on one.


Haha, nice - I'm glad I have space to be without them running all over the place and knocking things over! 



THRiLL KiLL said:


> looking good. subscribing to thread


Thanks!



twicksisted said:


> is that a Maine Coon kitten?


Good question. I don't think so, however. The mother cat was a street cat that we took in when she was only 3 or 4 months old (A starving little thing, eating bugs off the street), got her her shots and still let her go outside, and sure enough, 4 or 5 months later she was pregnant. I suspect it's one of the nicer, big gray cats that hangs around the backyard. I don't know what kind of cat he is either.

With the drawers and drawer faces all finished and ready for installation, it was time to turn to finishing up the two cabinets.

First up, finishing the piece that goes on the front of the left-hand cabinet.






And, well, not a lot of writing today, as the rest of it should look pretty straightforward. I had to cut up a bunch of trim pieces, and somehow arrange the clamps to hold them in the right place. A few of the arrangements required some creative thinking, but in the end, I got the whole cabinet trimmed up over the course of a few days.











Mmmm glue.





















Enjoy! We're getting close to the final assembly, yay!


----------



## ObSo-1337 (Jun 23, 2011)

The stain/gel/varnish you used is amazing. The colour is absolutely beautiful!


----------



## theJesus (Jun 23, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> Thanks theJesus, I learned from your teachings lol


Well then it's good that you apparently didn't pay any attention at all, because I'd have screwed this up long ago.


ultimatedesk said:


> Mmmm glue.


I get so hot looking at your hard, clamped wood dripping with sticky goo.


----------



## PopcornMachine (Jun 24, 2011)

theJesus said:


> I get so hot looking at your hard, clamped wood dripping with sticky goo.



Stll haven't stopped counting the things wrong with that. :shadedshu


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jun 24, 2011)

*Sanding the Cabinets*



ObSo-1337 said:


> The stain/gel/varnish you used is amazing. The colour is absolutely beautiful!


Thanks ObSo-1337, glad you like it!



theJesus said:


> Well then it's good that you apparently didn't pay any attention at all, because I'd have screwed this up long ago.
> 
> I get so hot looking at your hard, clamped wood dripping with sticky goo.


lol thanks, theJesus. I'm beginning to think that the fumes from the stain have started to evaporate through the pictures a bit too much lately lol



PopcornMachine said:


> Stll haven't stopped counting the things wrong with that. :shadedshu


Seriously!  All fun 'n games though!

With the trim all glued up and dry, and the weather nice and warm, I decided to take the cabinets outside to have the trim sanded flush. I start with 80 grit to get all the bits nice and close, and then move to 120 grit with the random orbit sander in preparation for staining.






Everything looking pretty good on the right-hand cabinet











And now for the left-hand cabinet











I'm under the impression that I mistakenly sanded this edge too much prior to installation, because I thought that I was going to have to squeeze this end into the dado cut at the back of the drawer. Woops! Hopefully that won't show up too much after staining.






And, a bit of glue squeeze-out that I missed previously is easily taken care of by the sander






I'll be staining over the weekend, so some fresh and shiny cabinets await for next weeks early update!

Have a good weekend folks!


----------



## theJesus (Jun 24, 2011)

This is really coming along great.  And I'm sorry for my inability to resist making sexual innuendos about your expertise with clamps and hard wood lol

Seriously, though, this is awesome; my brain is just always in the gutter.


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jun 28, 2011)

*Staining the Cabinets*



theJesus said:


> This is really coming along great.  And I'm sorry for my inability to resist making sexual innuendos about your expertise with clamps and hard wood lol
> 
> Seriously, though, this is awesome; my brain is just always in the gutter.


lol thanks again theJesus, glad you're enjoying the ride 

Well, got some time to start the staining of the cabinets this weekend, and overall, everything went pretty well. Started off with a bit of detailed sanding by hand, and then a good dusting with a tack cloth / cloth with paint thinner.












And then went to work applying the stain with a clean cotton rag











They both turned out pretty well - these pictures were taken after only the first coat (A second one will go on). I find that this stain really shines once a coat of poly is put over it.

Let me tell you - getting the inside of the cabinets was quite time consuming and I really did a number on staining my arms...






Eww! It looks like a heart!


----------



## techtard (Jun 28, 2011)

Looking good. I had the idea to build a custom desk with watercooling built in, but am not handy with woodwork.
But this build log has me thinking about trying anyway!


----------



## PopcornMachine (Jun 28, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> Eww! It looks like a heart!
> 
> http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/8194/img6151p.jpg



See, I often start at the last post.  So I scrolled up to see that. 

"Did I click on the Butcher Shop thread?" I asked myself. 

Glad to see the stain work is continuing.


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jun 30, 2011)

*Rubbing out the Desk Surface*



techtard said:


> Looking good. I had the idea to build a custom desk with watercooling built in, but am not handy with woodwork.
> But this build log has me thinking about trying anyway!


You know, some patience will go a long way with woodworking - I honestly haven't done too many projects before this, and this is certainly my first "furniture grade" project.



PopcornMachine said:


> See, I often start at the last post.  So I scrolled up to see that.
> 
> "Did I click on the Butcher Shop thread?" I asked myself.
> 
> Glad to see the stain work is continuing.


Hehe, I didn't tell you what else go on down in the "woodshop" ? 

I kind of forgot to take some pictures of the cabinets after I applied a pair of coats of polyurethane, but here's the status of the project so far






Both cabinets have been poly'd, and there are only 3 more pieces to stain + poly (The two caps for the end spaces on the top shelf, and the door for the right-hand cabinet). Otherwise, I am pretty much ready to assemble.

Before assembly, however, I wanted to try a technique I had been reading about - rubbing out a finish.

You start with some baby oil and a product called rottenstone (It's a very finely ground stone)






Apply some baby oil liberally (This slows down the cutting process. If you use water, it will speed up the cutting process)






Sprinkle on your rottenstone (Once again, fairly liberally. I didn't find the cutting action very aggressive at all, especially with all the baby oil)






Take a block of wood with a soft material wrapped around it, in this case, I used a piece of cut up fleece from an old blanket, but I think a felt block is the most recommended for this.






Go with the grain in long strokes, and rub the slurry into the wood. Its very fine cutting action should almost eliminate all dust marks, brush marks, and any small scratches.

This took quite a long time, and it was very, very messy. Baby oil rottenstone slurry everywhere. I then went through a ton of rags soaked in paint thinner cleaning it all off the desk surface in preparation for some good 'ol waxing.






Applied with a lint free rag, I swirled it onto the table a little bit too liberally






I then let it dry for a few moments and "attempted" to buff it all off by hand with a clean rag. Much to my dismay, after spending 10 minutes trying to buff only but a small corner, I realized that I would never get the shine I was looking for...






So I made a trip to my storage unit (My mom's garage) where I remembered I had an old electric car buffer in a bin...






Booya. It was late when I got back home, so I left it and went to sleep. Have a good weekend everyone - Canada Day tomorrow here in Canada, so I'm going to enjoy the long weekend. I'm moving this weekend too, so hopefully the desk survives the trip!!


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jul 5, 2011)

So, I finally moved this weekend, and I'm glad to say everything went pretty well. A few small parts of the desk got scuffed up, but nothing major. Here are some shots from just before being transported.

The car buffer partially worked. I ended up actually taking some more paint thinner and totally removing the wax. For some reason it didn't stick well - I think it's because I didn't remove the baby oil enough before adding the wax. Either way, it's shiny as glass and looks great.






Then I took some 3/4" weather stripping and put it on both cabinets to prevent the desk surface from slipping and sliding:
















And, here's a sneak peak. Right before the move was pretty much the moment of triumph - assembling the 4 stained and poly'd pieces, and actually sitting at it. The monitors come in at perfect eye height, and the desk height is perfect as well, providing lots of forearm and elbow support.

Ahhhhhhhhh.... 8 months.

Now for the details


----------



## Captain.Abrecan (Jul 5, 2011)

That looks glorious.


----------



## theJesus (Jul 5, 2011)

Absolutely beautiful!  Now you just need to shove a computer in it 

edit:  I forgot, make that _two_ computers.


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jul 8, 2011)

*Thanks*



Captain.Abrecan said:


> That looks glorious.


Thanks Captain.Abrecan



theJesus said:


> Absolutely beautiful!  Now you just need to shove a computer in it
> 
> edit:  I forgot, make that _two_ computers.


Thanks theJesus, I'm just getting all my stuff organized at the new place. Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to do some work on it!

As for the computers... we'll have to see what the budget agrees to as well!


----------



## arnoo1 (Jul 8, 2011)

damn nice desk, can't wait to see whole picture and build


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Jul 8, 2011)

Did you polish (sand) between poly applications? If not then the grit between layers will reduce shine. Been there done that lol

Also DO NOT use a buffer like that. Ruins the finish. Do it by hand. Buffer is good for commercial work. Not something custom like this. You used to much thats why it was hard to buff.


Heres a good break down....

http://benchmark.20m.com/articles/Finishing/woodfinishing.html


----------



## twicksisted (Jul 8, 2011)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Did you polish (sand) between poly applications? If not then the grit between layers will reduce shine. Been there done that lol
> 
> Also DO NOT use a buffer like that. Ruins the finish. Do it by hand. Buffer is good for commercial work. Not something custom like this. You used to much thats why it was hard to buff.
> 
> ...



looks pretty shiny to me


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jul 18, 2011)

*Almost Setup*



arnoo1 said:


> damn nice desk, can't wait to see whole picture and build


Thanks arnoo1!



TheMailMan78 said:


> Did you polish (sand) between poly applications? If not then the grit between layers will reduce shine. Been there done that lol
> 
> Also DO NOT use a buffer like that. Ruins the finish. Do it by hand. Buffer is good for commercial work. Not something custom like this. You used to much thats why it was hard to buff.
> 
> ...


Thanks TheMailMan78, yes, I did sand between coats, with progressively finer grits. Before the final coat of polyurethane I believe I did a quick sanding with 400 grit.

I managed to remove the wax with some paint thinner and a lot of elbow grease. The next time I used much less wax and you're right, it was a lot easier and there was no need for the buffer!

I remember reading that article many times - have it bookmarked, in fact! Thanks for the reminder though, that website is an excellent resource!



twicksisted said:


> looks pretty shiny to me


Hehe, got it all fixed up 

So - I finally had some time this weekend to do a bit of work on The Ultimate Computer Desk.

Here's a little shot of the desk as it sits now. Note that the drawers aren't installed, there's clutter everywhere, the two cabinets are not lined up in any particular fashion, and of course, no hardware has yet been installed.






If you didn't notice, I finally said to myself "Ok Mr. You've been working on this desk for 8 months - time for a present". I ~finally~ ditched my old CRT monitor (Which was nice, at 1600x1200 resolution) and purchased myself a brand new 27" Asus. Sweet!






That was my first new computer component in ages!


I moved on to the next part of the project, which was installing the drawers, so I got to work. Sorry about the pictures, I think I accidentally turned the auto focus off!











Imagine my surprise when I went to go and slide the drawer in. The drawer was too wide! I accomodated for 0.25" on each side of the drawer, for the width of the drawer slides. Unfortunately, these particular drawer slides were 3/16's of an inch wider than I accounted for... Here's a wonderfully in focus shot:






So my options were:
1. Redo the drawers completely, making them a total of 6/16's (3/8's) skinnier, or
2. Shave off 3/16's" from each side, about 1.5" tall, along the length of both sides, of each of the drawers.

What a bummer! I thought oh well, it'll actually look pretty tidy with the sides shaved anyways, and also give additional support, so here goes!

Time to tape up my poor drawers. They're about to get scratched up pretty bad!






Setting up the tablesaw for some "guidelines" - 3/16's of an inch deep, set the fence at 2" and then 3.5" if I remember correctly.






And there you go, some proper guidelines for the material that will need to be removed.






This was a pretty big surprise, but not too major, and nothing that cannot be done well.


----------



## PopcornMachine (Jul 18, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> If you didn't notice, I finally said to myself "Ok Mr. You've been working on this desk for 8 months - time for a present". I ~finally~ ditched my old CRT monitor (Which was nice, at 1600x1200 resolution) and purchased myself a brand new 27" Asus. Sweet!



Congrats.  Looks nice. 



> Imagine my surprise when I went to go and slide the drawer in. The drawer was too wide! I accomodated for 0.25" on each side of the drawer, for the width of the drawer slides. Unfortunately, these particular drawer slides were 3/16's of an inch wider than I accounted for... Here's a wonderfully in focus shot:



It's always something!


----------



## Riotpump (Jul 18, 2011)

Very nice monitor.  I've followed this thread for a while now. Great to see you are almost at the finish line with the actual desk itself.  A few roadblocks here and there. Nothing that a little elbow grease and machinery can't fix. This build is unbelievable, appreciate all the all work you are putting into it. Officially an subscriber, looking forward to the finished product.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Jul 19, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> Thanks arnoo1!
> 
> Thanks TheMailMan78, yes, I did sand between coats, with progressively finer grits. Before the final coat of polyurethane I believe I did a quick sanding with 400 grit.
> 
> ...



No problem man! I'm glad you took it as advice and not ridicule. My grandfather was a cabinet builder for 60 years. You tend to pick up a few things when hanging out with a guy like that in his shop. I've refinished more then a few pieces in my time too. FYI you did a damn fine job!


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jul 20, 2011)

*Fixing the Drawers*



PopcornMachine said:


> Congrats.  Looks nice.
> 
> It's always something!


Thanks PopcornMachine - yes - it is ALWAYS something eh!



Riotpump said:


> Very nice monitor.  I've followed this thread for a while now. Great to see you are almost at the finish line with the actual desk itself.  A few roadblocks here and there. Nothing that a little elbow grease and machinery can't fix. This build is unbelievable, appreciate all the all work you are putting into it. Officially an subscriber, looking forward to the finished product.


Thanks Riotpump! The next portion of the project should be really interesting with the cable management, air setup, and electronics stuff. I expect I'll be buying a lot of spare parts lol!



TheMailMan78 said:


> No problem man! I'm glad you took it as advice and not ridicule. My grandfather was a cabinet builder for 60 years. You tend to pick up a few things when hanging out with a guy like that in his shop. I've refinished more then a few pieces in my time too. FYI you did a damn fine job!


Wow, that's pretty awesome! I know so few people these days that are interested in the trades. Must have been neat going to his shop when you were younger!

So, after I used the table saw to make my reference cuts, I grabbed the router with a 1/2" flush cut bit, set it at the appropriate depth and went to town. Making the reference cuts made the rest of this usually tedious job easy.
















When I went to do the reference cuts on the shorter drawers, I realized... there were a bunch of screws in the way. Ooops! Good thing I noticed so quickly!






I had to go and remove all woodfiller and the screws that were in the way of the 3/16's inch material removal. This meant all the screws along the bottom, and 1 or 2 at the front and back of the drawer. What a pain!
















After getting all of the extra material removed, I drilled some new counter-sink holes (Since the old ones were taken off with the router), re-inserted the screws, and gave all the dressers a light sanding, since I would have to redo the polyurethane coat anyways (They got pretty scratched up). In this pic, I had already re-stained the portion where I removed the extra material.






So. Next - polyurethaning the drawers... AGAIN!


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Jul 20, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> Thanks PopcornMachine - yes - it is ALWAYS something eh!
> 
> Thanks Riotpump! The next portion of the project should be really interesting with the cable management, air setup, and electronics stuff. I expect I'll be buying a lot of spare parts lol!
> 
> ...



Question. Why did you finish it before you fit it?


----------



## ultimatedesk (Jul 25, 2011)

*Installing the Drawers*



TheMailMan78 said:


> Question. Why did you finish it before you fit it?


Hey TheMailMan - I was reading the specs from a catalog which said that the drawer slides were 0.25" wide - which is what I built the drawers to. After I picked up the drawer slides and installed them, that's what I noticed that they were actually slightly wider than the specification from the catalog, so either I purchased a different part, or the part was out of spec.


While getting ready to re-polyurethane the drawers, I also took the time to stain and poly the right-hand cabinet door, as well as the two pieces that will be above each of the cubby holes on the top of the desk











Re-polyurethaning the drawers went really well - they look fantastic






Things have been pretty busy in the shop - have been re-glassing a war-horse of a canoe at the same time!






Here are the first couple drawers installed. They fit perfectly - the slides fit right into the grooves that I cut out. This photo turned out a little redder than reality






Getting the actual slides lined up and screwed in straight took a bit of patience, but well worth the effort






Ahh, nice and messy, but finally got the drawers in.






Some of the things I'll need to be working on shortly:

- Front Panel (Fan controls, LED's, Power/Reset switches, USB, Audio Jacks)
- Fan Installation (Foam surrounds, filter fitting)
- Hardware selection

After the hardware is selected and installed, I will be able to focus on cable routing and placement of the drives.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Jul 25, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> Hey TheMailMan - I was reading the specs from a catalog which said that the drawer slides were 0.25" wide - which is what I built the drawers to. After I picked up the drawer slides and installed them, that's what I noticed that they were actually slightly wider than the specification from the catalog, so either I purchased a different part, or the part was out of spec.
> 
> 
> While getting ready to re-polyurethane the drawers, I also took the time to stain and poly the right-hand cabinet door, as well as the two pieces that will be above each of the cubby holes on the top of the desk
> ...



Sweet man! I didn't know this was a kit. I thought you were cutting these pieces yourself. My mistake! Explains why you didn't dry fit it for sure. By the way she looks nice put together.

Where did you get the kit from? Links?

Edit: Also wanted to show you something for future reference....

http://www.woodshopdemos.com/sstat-21.htm


----------



## GSG-9 (Jul 25, 2011)

Looks good sir. 

Can't wait to see it with all the hardware in your rig picked out!


----------



## ultimatedesk (Aug 9, 2011)

*Up and Coming Preview*



TheMailMan78 said:


> Sweet man! I didn't know this was a kit. I thought you were cutting these pieces yourself. My mistake! Explains why you didn't dry fit it for sure. By the way she looks nice put together.
> 
> Where did you get the kit from? Links?
> 
> ...


Hey MailMan, it's not a kit - it's just that I was basing my measurements for the drawers off of some drawer slides I was going to get from the Home Depot, and I got the specs online. I actually ended up purchasing the drawer slides from Lee Valley Tools and they were a slightly different size. Thanks for the link, some good tips in there I'll have to keep in mind for next time!



GSG-9 said:


> Looks good sir.
> 
> Can't wait to see it with all the hardware in your rig picked out!


Thanks! This is when it gets real exciting as you'll see in my sneak peak below 

Sorry for the delay in updates everyone - I've been enjoying the beautiful summer weather we've been getting lately and haven't been putting a tremendous effort into getting the desk finished.

Surprise though - I did manage to get quite a bit done, and I've had some good fortune lately as well. I expect to post several updates this week, so just to get you back into the spirit of things, here's this weeks preview!

4x Scythe Ultra Kaze 120mm x 38mm 3000RPM
4x Scythe Slipstream 120mm x 25mm 1900RPM





Lots of foam cutting and trimming, and a sweet, sweet ruler from the Moddders Inc Featured Rig of the Month Contest(Thanks! I'm honored!)





Hmm, what's this?





Holy moly cool prize pack Modders Inc! I still can't believe I won this - perfect stuff for The Ultimate Computer Desk! 





Finally removed the protective cover from these babies - they look soo nice!





Hmm? Another surprise?...





Oh good lord! What kind of super monster is that!!?





Bwahahaha





Ok, so maybe a lot's happened in the past couple weeks. I haven't been posting any updates because I've been tinkering around with hardware AND enjoying some good outdoor times. I'm thinking that the next round of updates in the following month or so will be ultra exciting - things are starting to wrap up!

Seeya soon!


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Aug 9, 2011)

As always man....nice job. I cant wait to see this thing 100% done.


----------



## PopcornMachine (Aug 9, 2011)

So you have Gigabyte and server motherboards.  Cool.  Is that dual socket a Tyan, or something like that?

Need more specs on the hardware...eventually.


----------



## AhokZYashA (Aug 10, 2011)

Cool desk, love the shiny finish,
Can't wait until its finished


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## techtard (Aug 10, 2011)

Wow this is an inspiring build, can't wait to see it finished. 
Also, enjoy the rest of the summer!


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## ultimatedesk (Aug 10, 2011)

*Fan Setup*



TheMailMan78 said:


> As always man....nice job. I cant wait to see this thing 100% done.


Thanks once again, couldn't have done it without you!



PopcornMachine said:


> So you have Gigabyte and server motherboards.  Cool.  Is that dual socket a Tyan, or something like that?
> 
> Need more specs on the hardware...eventually.


Something like that! 



AhokZYashA said:


> Cool desk, love the shiny finish,
> Can't wait until its finished


Thanks!



techtard said:


> Wow this is an inspiring build, can't wait to see it finished.
> Also, enjoy the rest of the summer!


Thanks! Will do! Camping and fishing this weekend, woot!


After gluing a few blocks of foam together with a spray adhesive, I trimmed the block down to the appropriate size using a bandsaw.







Unfortunately, it wouldn't fit in order to do the vertical cut...






So I took out the trusty hand saw!











Here's the plan for the fan layout











At first I tried cutting the holes with a good quality knife, but the cuts were not very consistent and it took a long time. I ended up using an old drywall saw, which worked perfectly.






Test fit






Cut some more holes






Awesome!






Let's see how it looks in the right-hand cabinet






LOL - hilarious. It shouldn't fit like that. At least, it didn't during my initial measurements! I'll have to tweak that a bit later!

On to the crazy fans. I decided to go with 3 instead of 4. There just wasn't enough room for foam between each of the fans, and I figured there would be a lot of vibrational noise if they were touching. I could always go to 4 in the future if this proves to be insufficient.






Lookin good
















Stay tuned! More stuff tomorrow!


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## PopcornMachine (Aug 10, 2011)

Lot's of foam. That set of 4 looks like it was designed by Salvador Dali. 

Perhaps the fans stretched it a bit.  Just need to shave some off the ends.


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## scaminatrix (Aug 11, 2011)

Man, I just spent about 2 and a half hours going through the whole thread... Well worth it!

Absolutely epic work man


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## ultimatedesk (Aug 11, 2011)

*Server Setup*



PopcornMachine said:


> Lot's of foam. That set of 4 looks like it was designed by Salvador Dali.
> 
> Perhaps the fans stretched it a bit.  Just need to shave some off the ends.


lol yeah, thanks, always wanted to be an artist  



scaminatrix said:


> Man, I just spent about 2 and a half hours going through the whole thread... Well worth it!
> 
> Absolutely epic work man


Thanks scaminatrix, welcome to the project!

I was in an extremely fortunate position recently. A friend of mine's work was moving from a large location to a much smaller location, and he had asked me if I wanted to come scope out the old office for any old bits of computer stuff that might be useful to me. To my shock and amazement, I was indeed able to pick up some pretty fancy hardware that I would have never dreamed of owning. They must have done some pretty big upgrades to leave stuff like this behind!

I was able to get a hold of a handful of Socket 775 motherboards with Core 2 Duo processors, a bunch of DDR RAM, a box full of Hard Drives, and some relatively decent (lower powered) power supplies. The real treasure though, was a pair of servers. You can see that I had already disassembled one of them:






2 Full 4U Antec Rackmount cases, each of them containing a Dual-Xeon motherboard + Processors. Both with FB-DIMM RAM sticks as well.

This particular one contained a pair of Xeon E5410's, with 16GB of DDR2 FB-DIMM's, 4 1TB Western Digital Blacks (SATA), and the motherboard is an Asus DSBF-DE.











The other one contained a pair of Xeon E5335's, with 4GB of DDR2 FB-DIMM's, 5 1TB Hitachi Deskstas (SATA), and the motherboard is an Asus DSGC-DW.

Now - before we go on - someone had queried earlier about the PCI Express slot on the board pictured, and I had said something along the lines of "Ya ya, it's there, don't worry about it". I of course, actually looked at the pictures, and no, it's not. It is indeed a PCI Express 16x slot, but on this particular motherboard, it only runs at PCI8. Now, the other motherboard, the Asus DSGC-DW DOES have a PCIX16 slot. When it was released, it did not support the 54xx series of Xeon processors, but I checked the website and there is a BIOS update to add this functionality. I will have to do a test setup with that board to update the BIOS, and then it will be swapped into the desk with a full video card, both the E5410's, as well as the 16GB of RAM, so keep that in mind when looking at the rest of this update. No, unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the other motherboard.

Cool stuff either way. Never, ever thought I'd have a dual processor motherboard. What an amazing find!

These dual Xeon heatsinks mount directly into the motherboard tray, so unfortunately, I couldn't use those spiffy motherboard trays from Danger Den. Also, since they are of size "SSI", there's no way it would mount on a regular ATX motherboard tray anyways. Time to drill out a tray!






It actually came out pretty nice and clean






This is a bit of a shame, since I took the time to clean the processors, put new thermal compound and remount everything. I'm just going to have to disassemble it again anyways when I put in the different motherboard. Ah well.





















This is a bit of a hack job getting the tray mounted... Since the processors are mounted to the tray, I had mounted it outside of the desk, so when I went to fasten the tray to the desk, I was *gasp* actually lazy and didn't want to dismount the motherboard again... so umm.. I'm going to replace those odd-angled screws when I switch motherboards..






The power supply looks pretty good there. It's an Antec 650W - an Earthwatts maybe? I forget. I may consider replacing it with a unit that has a 120-140mm fan just to exhaust the air a bit better. The board has a requirement for a 24pin, an 8pin, as well as a 4pin, so I can't just use any power supply unfortunately.






The cables, of course, are not nearly long enough to reach the connectors on the board. I've already ordered the extensions and hopefully I'll get them at the beginning of next week. Oh, you'll see that I've straightened out the fans as well.






The cooling solution looks good. There will be two fans directly in front of the CPU's. I may consider putting an additional hole in the door to allow the CPU's and RAM to exhaust directly.






There is one major issue with the right-hand cabinet setup. The original specifications called for an ATX board, which is significantly smaller, so umm.. I have no idea where the hard-drives are going to fit. lol! Fun times.

Hope you're enjoying this flurry of updates. I may or may not be able to post an update tomorrow, as I'm going camping for the weekend! At the latest, I'll be posting again early next week!


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## GSG-9 (Aug 11, 2011)

Its looking good!


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## TheMailMan78 (Aug 11, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> Thanks once again, couldn't have done it without you!



lol You flatter me. I contributed nothing man. Thats all you!


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## PopcornMachine (Aug 11, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> This particular one contained a pair of Xeon E5410's, with 16GB of DDR2 FB-DIMM's, 4 1TB Western Digital Blacks (SATA), and the motherboard is an Asus DSBF-DE.



An ASUS server board. Fooled me. Very nice.


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## theJesus (Aug 11, 2011)

Nice finds!  Are you gonna be selling any of it?


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## ultimatedesk (Aug 17, 2011)

*Gigabyte Board*



GSG-9 said:


> Its looking good!


Thanks GSG-9!



TheMailMan78 said:


> lol You flatter me. I contributed nothing man. Thats all you!


Ha! Honestly TheMailMan, you contributed much more than you think - the positive comments, the encouragement, and not only that, but the fact that you continue to visit the project not only inspires me to do a better job, but it also gets more sponsors to send some really great stuff that I wouldn't have been able to afford on my own (At least not on this short of a timeline). So thank YOU!



PopcornMachine said:


> An ASUS server board. Fooled me. Very nice.


Yes, a sweet find, unfortunately the one with the PCIx16 slot doesn't work - I couldn't get it to boot  Ah well!



theJesus said:


> Nice finds!  Are you gonna be selling any of it?


Thanks theJesus - nope, I generally don't feel good selling used parts. I have put together 3 Core2Duo systems for friends and family so far though - they just have to buy or supply the case!

A huge thanks goes out to Gigabyte for supplying me with this amazing motherboard - a GA-Z68XUD4-B3.

Without a doubt, the coolest motherboard I have ever owned!











I could barely wait to open this up when I got it in the mail!











And this poor motherboard tray that had been sitting for months and months covered in brown paper - finally had it removed. It looks even better than I could have hoped!






Here is the test fit in the actual desk






And with the fans in place






I'm going to trim off the plastic tabs from the motherboard tray to make it a bit easier to build the tunnels for cable management. Also, I'm considering putting a pair of holes beneath the motherboard to pass cables through underneath. Lots of stuff happening in the next few weeks!

I attempted to boot up the Asus DSGC-DW board (The one with the PCIx16 slot) but it would not boot. I'm afraid that that particular motherboard has gone bad, so I will continue to use the board with the PCIx8 slot. Anyone have any suggestions with regards to determining the best video card I can put in a PCIx16 slot with only x8 bandwidth? I was thinking I could look at the theoretical bandwith of an 8x slot and match it with that of the video card to maximize performance (ie. no point in installing a 5970x2 in an x8 slot).

Anyways, hopefully will have a handful of updates this week!


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## theJesus (Aug 17, 2011)

That board looks awesome.  I love that so many companies are willing to sponsor quality mods with parts and such.


ultimatedesk said:


> Thanks theJesus - nope, I generally don't feel good selling used parts. I have put together 3 Core2Duo systems for friends and family so far though - they just have to buy or supply the case!


Well, you've got some lucky friends and family then


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## PopcornMachine (Aug 17, 2011)

Very cool looking Gigabyte board.  Looks cool set in the desk. 

I have a EP45-UD3P that's still kicking.  It's only 3 years, but that seems old these days. 

Good boards.


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## Ahhzz (Aug 17, 2011)

/late to the party... Just spent the last hour prowling the build... VERY impressive. looking forward to the final Power On   Nice work!


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## ultimatedesk (Aug 29, 2011)

*Testing and Cable Management*



theJesus said:


> That board looks awesome.  I love that so many companies are willing to sponsor quality mods with parts and such.
> 
> Well, you've got some lucky friends and family then


Thanks again theJesus - I too am blown away by the industry's generosity, it's been an incredible experience so far!



PopcornMachine said:


> Very cool looking Gigabyte board.  Looks cool set in the desk.
> 
> I have a EP45-UD3P that's still kicking.  It's only 3 years, but that seems old these days.
> 
> Good boards.


Thanks PopcornMachine, I still think that the P45 chipset is one of the best to have, even by todays standards!



Ahhzz said:


> /late to the party... Just spent the last hour prowling the build... VERY impressive. looking forward to the final Power On   Nice work!


Thanks Ahhzz, welcome to the build!

So - it's been another few busy weeks, so apologies for the no updates. Have been enjoying those last rays of sunshine before the summer ends!

I think I mentioned last update that I tried to boot up the Asus DSFC-DW board but had issues - here was the attempt:











I got a green LED to light up (Standby power on the motherboard) but jumping the Power ON pins had no reaction whatsoever. Tried it with a different videocard, re-seated the RAM and CPU's, but still no luck.

Moving onwards - since I un-mounted almost everything, I decided to keep the copper heatinks instead of the aluminum ones for the other motherboard. I also picked up a pair of these units from Rosewill via Newegg:











They should do nicely for my hard-drive racks. I would like to mount them like so, except higher up:






Unfortunately, they are deeper than the cabinet I built. At the time, I was thinking maybe they would stick out of my air intake window, and I would just build-out the section of the door with the air filter... Not exactly what I had in mind initially though.

With most of the major components in place, I decided to start tackling the cable management with some cardboard templates, and then some 1/8" plywood:
















At this point I was a little frustrated with how slowly this portion of the project was going. Things weren't quite fitting the way I had planned, and they were not looking as nice as I would have liked them to...

Maybe it's time for some thinking instead of doing.

I decided (In hindsight, unfortunately) to go ahead and mount the hard-drive racks so I could get some better measurements and ideas of how to manage the cables nicely.











Installed the fans and started to route some of the cables






Took out a handful of old SATA cables... (Yes, let's not forget, that I'm a computer tech first, and a carpenter second, or maybe even fifth or tenth...)






And had fun connecting all the bits and trying to get them in a reasonable state of organization
















Ugh... this will not do, this will not do at all. Might as well boot it up and see if everything works though (I had mounted and un-mounted the board several times, banged around a few things, etc, so might as well see if it's all still working!)

This would be the first time I see if all the fans work as well. Keep in mind that this is with the door removed.






Until next time.. still not quite sure what I'll be doing next.


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## ultimatedesk (Aug 30, 2011)

*Seasonic and New Layout*

You guys are awesome, thanks again.

Second off I want to give out a huge thank you to Seasonic, who has decided to sponsor The Ultimate Computer Desk by sending a ~really~ sweet Power Supply my way. An 850 Watt Seasonic Gold.










Thanks Seasonic! We'll take a closer look at that PSU a bit later..

I had been a little frustrated with the layout of the Dual CPU Xeon board for quite some time, so I finally made the decision to ditch it and setup the right-hand cabinet with an ATX sized board. This is more in spec with my initial design - the extra couple inches makes a big difference, and it will make it easier to upgrade in the future as well.

On one hand, I'm a little disappointed that I won't be using that super geeked out board, but rest assured, I'll find something else neat to do with it.

So I went ahead and removed everything and started from scratch. Looks way better already:











I then decided that, unfortunately, through the miracle of cable limitations, it would make a lot more sense if I put the optical drive in the front of the case, as opposed to up above the desk, where I had originally wanted to put it. So, time to do some more cutting.











The masking tape managed to pull off some of the polyurethane, but have no fear, I will be making a faceplate that will contain the power button, LED's, and USB ports that will cover that spot up quite nicely.






And, we've gone so far, yet, gained so little, eh? It'll get done, I swear!


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## PopcornMachine (Aug 30, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> And, we've gone so far, yet, gained so little, eh? It'll get done, I swear!



You're doing just fine. And that PSU should handle anything you throw at it.  Very nice.


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## MT Alex (Aug 31, 2011)

Dang!  That's my dream PSU.  Nice work soliciting.


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## ultimatedesk (Sep 1, 2011)

*New Layout Work*



PopcornMachine said:


> You're doing just fine. And that PSU should handle anything you throw at it.  Very nice.


Thanks PopcornMachine, always appreciated 



MT Alex said:


> Dang!  That's my dream PSU.  Nice work soliciting.


Thanks MT Alex - my dream PSU as well! I couldn't believe my eyes!

Feeling a bit more motivated about the right-hand cabinet, I decided that the foam fan-holder had to go. It was too large, was akward, and was difficult to keep straight and in the proper position.

I decided to put together a nice and clean fan holder:






After doing some measuring, I took it to the drill press for the initial holes (I didn't have a hole saw for 120mm fans unfortunately... that would be pretty huge!)











I then took out the spindle sander to sand right to the line. Just an fyi, I swapped out the spindle for a much larger one. This was my first time using this type of sander, and I was very impressed - the degree of accuracy and control is extremely high - perfect for sneaking up on the pre-drawn lines.






Time to drill some holes for the fan screws






And a test fit. The product came out quite nicely - accurate cuts, all 4 of the positions are secure with screws, and this piece should be much easier to align in the proper location in the case.











I had cut a few other new pieces for cable management, but they were rough cuts, as I will not know their exact dimensions until I install hardware. I can't install hardware until I finish cutting and drilling in the right-hand cabinet, and since there is still the issue of the power button, LED's, etc... 

Time to get started on that, I suppose!






Kinda looks like a bull head eh?


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## PopcornMachine (Sep 1, 2011)

Foam is good for sound, but I like the solid frame.

Little concerned on where the air is going after hitting the drives though.


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## ultimatedesk (Sep 20, 2011)

*New Face Plate*



PopcornMachine said:


> Foam is good for sound, but I like the solid frame.
> 
> Little concerned on where the air is going after hitting the drives though.


Mwahaha, you'll see in time my young padawan!

I guess it's been a while eh!

Well, you'll be glad to know, that I'm actually almost done. There've been a few changes to the original plan, etc, etc, but I've still been goign full steam ahead, just not a lot of time to post updates lately.

Here you go, some photo bombardment!

First off, my awful cutting job. Notice how the masking tape ripped off some of the polyurethane? Looks pretty great eh.. (NOT!)






Fitting my original faceplate design






I thought it didn't look too bad, but the USB ports were difficult to secure, and there were no audio jacks, so I went about and redesigned a new face plate






Did some work with the band saw, scroll saw, and some sanding, and voila!











Looks not terrible eh? That's a nice unit from Silverstone that I picked up from my local computer store. Everything fits real nice and tight






Holes for the power switch and LEDs look good






And a quick test fit






Wonderful! I cut the hole for the card reader / usb with a jigsaw, but neglected to take photos...

Anyways - after a couple coats of black spray paint, I think it looks pretty cool.


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## ultimatedesk (Sep 20, 2011)

*Older i5*

With the faceplate out of the way, and hopefully, the last of the drilling / sawing / making sawdust portion over, for the right-hand cabinet, it meant I had the all clear to install more hardware.

Here are the two hard-drive trays with the actual HDD trays removed.






Gave them a nice coat of black spray paint and they mounted them inside the cabinet. I think they look pretty groovy.






Even groovier loaded up with hard drives.. (Two missing in this pic, 7TB total, however!)







Now, before we get to the next pic... another boon happened recently - traded some of those Core 2 Duo systems + some cash and picked up a really cool previous generation Core i5!

Here's the power supply - a Corsair 650TX, a very quality unit. All that could be better is some modular action. Ah well!






And another beautiful Gigabyte motherboard - a GA-P55-USB3 with 4 GB of G.Skill RAM











Here's the sweet mother. A quad core 2.8Ghz. Wow, talk about moving on up the CPU chain!






I picked up an older version of the Coolermaster Hyper 212 (Not the Plus version) and mounted a pair of Scythe fans to it






Oooh, it's getting so close to boot time!


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## GSG-9 (Sep 20, 2011)

Keep up the awesome work!


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## PopcornMachine (Sep 20, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> Mwahaha, you'll see in time my young padawan!



I eagerly await your teachings Master.


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## ultimatedesk (Sep 21, 2011)

GSG-9 said:


> Keep up the awesome work!


Thanks!



PopcornMachine said:


> I eagerly await your teachings Master.


Ha, awesome, there's plenty more to come 

Wow, with all those SATA cables there, it sure messes things up, no?











I went ahead and threw in my current video card (Radeon HD5770, which kicks some pretty decent butt still). I'm sure I'll see an improvement from my P4 3.2!!!






And here's the magical moment. It looks like it's already been tweaked around a bit. Running at 3.2Ghz instead of 2.8Ghz, RAM speed up to 1600Mhz... Hey - nice temps! That's only a few degrees over ambient! (It's chilly in the basement)






Only one major problem with this setup... Can you see what it might be? (Well, ok, there's more than one thing not "ideal")






That might cause an issue. I also don't like the way the heatsink exhausts all of its hot air directly onto the back of the video card, so off to the local computer shop!

This should do the trick:






Much better. Fits almost like it was meant to be.






Looks real good there actually. I think the wide fin spacing will be an advantage as well, since there is going to be a lot of general air flow throughout the cabinet.


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## PopcornMachine (Sep 21, 2011)

ultimatedesk said:


> That might cause an issue. I also don't like the way the heatsink exhausts all of its hot air directly onto the back of the video card, so off to the local computer shop!
> 
> This should do the trick:
> 
> ...




Nice new cooler.  It does look very cool there. 

Will be interested in how well it works.


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## ultimatedesk (Sep 26, 2011)

PopcornMachine said:


> Nice new cooler.  It does look very cool there.
> 
> Will be interested in how well it works.


Well, I'm happy to say that everything has been working quite well so far - see below!

So, now that the hardware has been installed, I can proceed to managing those cables a little. I first cut a quick piece out of 1/4" hardboard with a few strategic holes







Already much more to my liking. Time to place the new fans with their new mounting system






Ok - with both "plates" in place, I can cut the appropriate holes in the door and go ahead and install!











Woohoo, that blue furnace filter sure looks out of place eh? Everything fits, it's nice, snug, and square, so I went ahead and added a bunch of closed cell foam






Another view of the almost finished right-hand cabinet old i5 system











*Testing*

I've been using this cabinet setup for a little while now, and I'm happy to report that the temperatures are really quite nice. Because I've "sealed" the air intake portion, all of the intake air is coming through the blue furnace filter. You can literally feel suction if you place your hand in front of the filter. There is a massive amount of air coming out of the CPU hole, as well as the open PCI slots, power supply exhaust, and the half inch of space between the door and the "non-intake-area". (You can see in the previous photos, I did not put foam around the entire door perimeter).

So far it has been idling at ambient (23-25) and at maximum, just under 50 degrees Celcius.

I can hear the fans running - they are louder than all of the hard drives spinning up. I am going to get a small fan controller and get them down to the minimum speed while maintaining these current temperatures (There is a very large amount of air running through the case).

*To Do*

I have clearly got to find something to either replace the blue furnace filter, or cover it up with something a little more visually appealing.

Also, I need something to cover the CPU exhaust area. It will need to match whatever I do for the furnace filter area.

'Til next time!


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## t_ski (Sep 27, 2011)

My suggestion for both covers are radgrillz:

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=290

The biggest that they come (AFAIK) is a 3x120mm.  There may be another manufacturer if you need something bigger.

Where do you plan to install the fan controller?


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## Darkleoco (Sep 27, 2011)

Wow that looks amazing  It seems like designing a computer desk would be alot of fun lol


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## ultimatedesk (Sep 28, 2011)

t_ski said:


> My suggestion for both covers are radgrillz:
> 
> http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=290
> 
> ...


Thanks for the link - pretty much what I'm looking for. I'm hoping to purchase a large sheet to cover all of the intake/exhaust holes (there are others... just haven't posted them yet lol)



Darkleoco said:


> Wow that looks amazing  It seems like designing a computer desk would be alot of fun lol


Thanks - it has been a ton of fun! Building it too!

On the other end of the desk, things have been progressing along nicely as well - had this beauty cut for me






Placing it in the hole, it sits just a little bit too large. The original square I cut out was about a millimetre smaller on one end than the other






So I took out the trusty chisel and did a bit of shaving!











There we go!











Mm, starting to look so awesome!











The foam fan-holder will have to say bye-bye on this side, just like the one in the right-hand cabinet. Doesn't quite look right.


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## techtard (Sep 28, 2011)

Wow, this buildlog just keeps getting better every time I look!
I would embed this, but it doesn't appear to work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh78T--ZUxY


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## PopcornMachine (Sep 28, 2011)

Nice glass cover. Everything looking very cool.


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