Well I just want to start by saying that this was my first build involving building a case or a desk or anything else out of wood. I now wish I would have kept a more complete build log but, to be honest, I wasn't sure that it would turn out the way I planned. I decided at the beginning of the fall that I wanted a new computer desk and needed to upgrade my water cooling due to age. After a bit of inspiration from builds such as L3p D3sk and crossdesk I dove in head first. After a bit of sketching for dimensions I whipped out a quick base and started to play with my preliminary layout. I then went to work on my drill press with 4.5 inch whole saw attached for the sides. I then routed out the whole for the front panel, painted the inside and assembled the sides to the base. Inside view of the holes and the paint. I then stained the out side using Minwax Bombay Mahogany polyshades. This stain/poly combo went on way darker then I had hoped for so I rubbed it off after about 5 minutes. I then applied a second coat of stain in the same manner leaving me with this finish that I liked.
I then cut out the top measuring for a 3/4 inch lip on all sides. Next I picked up some wall trim I liked from home depot and used the miter saw to cut the trim to fit the future desk top. When that was finished I used titebond wood glue and a lot more tape to glue and "clamp" the trim on the lid. I then cut the hole for a preordered peace of tempered glass. With the assistance of a buddy I cut the hole 1/2 inch smaller then then dimensions of the glass then routed out 3/8 deep lip to accommodate the thickness of the glass. The picture above is the under side of the lid after the above steps and stain. I was in the middle of fitting some 5050 rgb LED lights when I remembered to snap the picture. I then cut a board to size to use as a back board which would house the I/O panel for mobo as well as the pumps. I then routed a hole to mount the I/O panel for th motherboard which I ordered from mountainmods.com After Cutting a hole for cables to pass through and some paint, I then mounted the I/O panel. After a good bit of deliberation I mounted the backing board using Door hinges. The pin allowed for an easy removal the board while still having a sturdy, zero give mount. I then installed the radiators, which are alphacool monsta 360mm and began my acrylic work. I used Monsoon hardline 5/8 od tubing with Monsoon free center hardline fittings. I also used two EK-MultiOption RES X3 250 reservoirs and a Bitspower G 1/4 Thread Dual D5 Mod Top on two mcp655 pumps. I also used XSPC RS/RX 120mm Series Radiator Stands to mount the massive radiators. If you look closely in the front you can see I also installed a 3x 3.5" drive bay that I also ordered from mountainmods.com.
Some of the bends were a bit tight/tricky but I made good use of the monsoon bending kit which included several mandrel bending jigs. The monsoons measuring kit was also somewhat useful but I fell it was not totally necessary. The youtube videos from monsoon on bending, cutting and measuring made my first experience with acrylic a joy. Next I attached the lid to the base using a 47" piano hinge I picked up from the local hardware store. As you can see in the pick I also drilled some holes and added two fans to ventilate the back compartment which would hold the psu, hard drive and other odds and ends to clean up the overall look. I wish I would have remembered to do this prior to paint/stain but live and learn. I also used an old motherboard as a template and drilled the holes for the mother board standoffs. I then installed a set of Akust Anti-Vibration Standoffs which are rubber to help absorb any vibration working its way to the mobo. I had to use a set of standard standoff on top of the Akust standoffs to add additional height to the mobo. It was now time to mount the motherboard which P6x58D-premium mother board with a i7-930 for a brain cooled by an EK-Supremacy waterblock. I also installed two sapphire tri-x r-290x(scored for a steal off eBay after NVidias latest release) with EK-FC R9-290X cooling blacks, Ek cooling back plates and an EK FC bridge. The gpu's along with the psu(Corsair AX1200i) were the only hardware upgrade besides the water cooling loop. I will hopefully upgrade my mobo/cpu/ram when skylake releases and at that time I may move to cooling the ram/mobo as well. Next I finished wiring Noiseblocker NB-BlackSilentFan XLP 120mm radiator fans to my Gelid solutions fan controler. I then went to work on the final bit of plumbing for the top end of the cpu loop which you can see above filled with Mayhems pastel orange coolant. I installed my side grill on over the radiator holes and mounted my optic drive along with Rosewill font panel usb card reader with a sata slot.
I was scratching my head about what to do for legs when I stumbled on to these bad boys. They are a pair White rotary sewing machine legs off of an old sewing machine. I repurposed them(No, Im not a hipster) and here you have it. All that was left after moving it into the house was to install the hard drives and wire up the power up/restart switches. You can also see a center mounted keyboard tray that I scoured eBay for and I apologize for not snapping any pictures as I mounted that bad boy. I rubbed on a couple light coats of polyurethane before moving the desk in. I also mounted a power bar in the back compartment so that I would only have one power cable running into the desk. The hole in the bottom for the keyboard/mouse cords and the power cable may have also slipped my mind. luckily I was able to add it without harming the finish. close up of the lower legs, a lot going on but hopefully you can make it out. The LED's have 20 different light settings not including the dimming settings but most of which do not agree with my camera. so here are some pics that turned out.
Last but not least heres a little shaky footage of the loops ending at the fill/drain port. you may need to scroll down a bit to view. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask, I know I left out a lot lol. A special thanks goes out to my supervisor Tobey. Couldn't have done it without you.
I know its an old post but just wanted to add a couple update photos. A problem with the monsoon locking collars caused some damage and forced my hand in an upgrade, so just wanted to add some pics of the updated build. I went with the Intel i7 6700k, a Gigabyte z170 G1 Gaming and 16G of Gskill Rip Jaws V DDR4 3000.
