# Scratch Build: The Ultimate Computer Desk



## ultimatedesk

Hey everyone,

Decided a few weeks ago to start building my own custom computer desk / enclosure and I thought some of you would be interested in checking it out, so here goes 

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













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 [email protected], 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

*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!

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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## ultimatedesk

*Initial Cuts*

Purely coincidentally, while talking over the idea with a few pints 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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## Shane

This looks amazing dude,cant wait to see what it looks like when its done 

Looking at where the Components are going,maybe you should add some intake at the front of the desk like ive circled below...i know you have intake at the side but i think more airflow would get in if it was directly infront instead of the side.







Btw what software you use for the plan?


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## voyagerfan99

I'm liking this plan! I also second what Nev said about adding intake vents in the front.


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## linkin

Definitely have some ventilation, intake and exhaust. Looks good too.


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## Compequip

This is cool, I'm going to be watching future posts on this.  I'm a lit bit of a hobbyist when it comes to woodworking/building.....  I have a 10" delta table saw that's 7' long, along with a drill press and multiple sanders, saws, routers and nail guns.  I'm looking into getting a jointer and possible a planer. Oh and I have 2 compressors and many hand tools ( no pun intended ).


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## linkin

Little thought: I'd recommend putting the modem/router somewhere visible so if you need to see the lights for diagnostics you won't have to move that heavy desk


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## ultimatedesk

*Thanks*



Nevakonaza said:


> This looks amazing dude,cant wait to see what it looks like when its done
> 
> Looking at where the Components are going,maybe you should add some intake at the front of the desk like ive circled below...i know you have intake at the side but i think more airflow would get in if it was directly infront instead of the side.
> 
> Btw what software you use for the plan?


Thanks Nevakonaza, I'll have to wait and see what the airflow is like before I decide to put big holes on the front of the desk. I'm really hoping that I'll be able to get good airflow without putting visible intakes on the front.



voyagerfan99 said:


> I'm liking this plan! I also second what Nev said about adding intake vents in the front.


Thanks voyagerfan99!



linkin said:


> Definitely have some ventilation, intake and exhaust. Looks good too.


Thanks linkin 



Compequip said:


> This is cool, I'm going to be watching future posts on this.  I'm a lit bit of a hobbyist when it comes to woodworking/building.....  I have a 10" delta table saw that's 7' long, along with a drill press and multiple sanders, saws, routers and nail guns.  I'm looking into getting a jointer and possible a planer. Oh and I have 2 compressors and many hand tools ( no pun intended ).


Ooooh, that's some nice stuff you've got there Compequip - I only have some small power tools at my actual place, so using the wood shop is a real treat!



linkin said:


> Little thought: I'd recommend putting the modem/router somewhere visible so if you need to see the lights for diagnostics you won't have to move that heavy desk


Ha! That's a good idea, I never thought of that


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## ultimatedesk

*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!

Sorry about the photos folks, I had already uploaded these to imageshack and forgot to resize them, so here are the thumbnails since I don't have the original stock photos on me right now. From now on, they'll be properly sized at 800x600, which I feel is a fair compromise for detail and bandwidth.









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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## ultimatedesk

*Drawer Work*

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, will likely put some hanging folders in there.





















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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## jevery

I have to say I'm impressed! - Both by your concept and by the plan renderings.  My first career was an architectural draftsman.  This was in the days before computers and everything was done by hand.  People teased me because I wouldn't build anything or even move furniture for my Wife until I drew up plans or made scale layouts for feasibility.  You've taken the concept of planning to a whole new level.  I can't wait for pictures of the build in progress.


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## Okedokey

OMG how heavy will that be?  Ill be honest, i haven't read the whole thread, but make sure its modularised, in case you ever need to move it.  Suggestion, use electromagnets.


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## Aastii

This looks incredible!!

You mentioned motherboard trays, or the lack of. I recently got a new case, and my old one was a pile of crap, only really salvagable parts were the fans, screws and mobo trays, the rest is just cheap, thin, flimsy steel that can't really have much done with.

I was initially going to use the motherboard tray for either building a test bench or in a similar way to yours, but just a computer box, not a desk, for a home server/storage, but realised I would very rarely use a test bench, and although we would use a home server/storage, we can't really afford it, so I'm left with a spare tray. 

If you have no luck fashioning one, if you pay shipping you can have it, it supports ATX/uATX boards, so would be perfect unless you plan to use an eATX motherboard, which I guess is sort of unlikely that you will be on both.

It is looking awesome so far, I love following stuff like this and seeing it go from drawings on paper, to raw materials, slowly towards a finished product. The best of luck to you, can't wait to see how it turns out


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## SslagleZ28

Crap I ment to post on this the other day.  By any chance does the guy that helping you have a dovetail jig?  Drawers take alot of stress, if you dovetail them they will last alot longer.  Are you going to edge band the bare edges of the plywood? Nice build though, Im a carpenter by trade, I love " im building" threads


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## BangMash

Nice work dude, its going to be awesome!

Im a cabinet maker by trade and have built my own desk (intergrated case into desk) so I know how exciting it is to do one of these projects! Love the designs you did as well, very thorough!

One thing I noticed though, keep in mind if you have the desk against a wall the ventilation exhausts at the back will need some space between desk and wall to move the warm air out of the area (yellow circle). I left a fair bit on mine (between case and wall) but no ventilation down the back of the desk and its freakin hot haha! Im thinking of exhausting it to the side now so just keep that in mind especially if you upgrade over the years and add more components (maybe vent it out the side towards the back of the door, eg green circle). Its still easy to do, you wont have to change your design you simply attach the fans to the door, router out the appropriate circlular holes to fit fans, and fill it with mesh. 

So what your left with is intake at the front (as Nevakonaza suggested) and exhaust on the side.

Look froward to seeing the finished product


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## ultimatedesk

*Thanks Everyone*



jevery said:


> I have to say I'm impressed! - Both by your concept and by the plan renderings.  My first career was an architectural draftsman.  This was in the days before computers and everything was done by hand.  People teased me because I wouldn't build anything or even move furniture for my Wife until I drew up plans or made scale layouts for feasibility.  You've taken the concept of planning to a whole new level.  I can't wait for pictures of the build in progress.


Thanks jevery, I know what you mean about planning before you even lift a finger to move a couch lol!


bigfellla said:


> OMG how heavy will that be?  Ill be honest, i haven't read the whole thread, but make sure its modularised, in case you ever need to move it.  Suggestion, use electromagnets.


Hehe, it's going to be VERY heavy! Don't worry though, it's going to break down into 4 pieces - the desktop, the top shelf, and the two cabinets 


Aastii said:


> This looks incredible!!
> 
> You mentioned motherboard trays, or the lack of. I recently got a new case, and my old one was a pile of crap, only really salvagable parts were the fans, screws and mobo trays, the rest is just cheap, thin, flimsy steel that can't really have much done with.
> 
> I was initially going to use the motherboard tray for either building a test bench or in a similar way to yours, but just a computer box, not a desk, for a home server/storage, but realised I would very rarely use a test bench, and although we would use a home server/storage, we can't really afford it, so I'm left with a spare tray.
> 
> If you have no luck fashioning one, if you pay shipping you can have it, it supports ATX/uATX boards, so would be perfect unless you plan to use an eATX motherboard, which I guess is sort of unlikely that you will be on both.
> 
> It is looking awesome so far, I love following stuff like this and seeing it go from drawings on paper, to raw materials, slowly towards a finished product. The best of luck to you, can't wait to see how it turns out


Thanks, I'll keep that in mind, that's very nice of you 


SslagleZ28 said:


> Crap I ment to post on this the other day.  By any chance does the guy that helping you have a dovetail jig?  Drawers take alot of stress, if you dovetail them they will last alot longer.  Are you going to edge band the bare edges of the plywood? Nice build though, Im a carpenter by trade, I love " im building" threads


Hmm, I hadnt' considered doing something like dovetailing... I may have to go over the design for the drawers before final assembly. Nice to see carpenters here, chime in with any other tips if you've got them! The edges will be covered with strips of solid maple.


BangMash said:


> Nice work dude, its going to be awesome!
> 
> Im a cabinet maker by trade and have built my own desk (intergrated case into desk) so I know how exciting it is to do one of these projects! Love the designs you did as well, very thorough!
> 
> One thing I noticed though, keep in mind if you have the desk against a wall the ventilation exhausts at the back will need some space between desk and wall to move the warm air out of the area (yellow circle). I left a fair bit on mine (between case and wall) but no ventilation down the back of the desk and its freakin hot haha! Im thinking of exhausting it to the side now so just keep that in mind especially if you upgrade over the years and add more components (maybe vent it out the side towards the back of the door, eg green circle). Its still easy to do, you wont have to change your design you simply attach the fans to the door, router out the appropriate circlular holes to fit fans, and fill it with mesh.
> 
> So what your left with is intake at the front (as Nevakonaza suggested) and exhaust on the side.
> 
> Look froward to seeing the finished product


That is certainly a good point - you're right though, it shouldn't be hard to add additional ventilation if it becomes necessary. Hopefully, it won't be an issue.... Thanks for the great pic


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## ultimatedesk

*2nd Desktop Hole*

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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## User0one

Nice job, 

I modified a existing Desk, by mounting (2) mini itx motherboards, in a Partition in the back of the center Desk Drawer.

Used small Laptop DVDRW roms, and kvm switch to switch between the two CPU's.


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## ultimatedesk

*Desktop Chop Shop*



User0one said:


> Nice job,
> 
> I modified a existing Desk, by mounting (2) mini itx motherboards, in a Partition in the back of the center Desk Drawer.
> 
> Used small Laptop DVDRW roms, and kvm switch to switch between the two CPU's.


Oooh, that is super cool User0one - I can't believe how small those mini-itx motherboards are!  Bet no one can even tell they are there eh?

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...

On to that first I/O plate - I need to dremel out the section that I need






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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## SslagleZ28

Everthing looks great so far... One thing though I see your using a piece of 1x4 it looks like as a straight edge for your router... remember wood bows and twists and all that good stuff, everything looks straight but maybe use a 4ft level next time, it might give you a better line.  Other than that if this is your first time your doing a great job keep up the good work


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## mep916

Sick build log. 5 stars.


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## ultimatedesk

*Desktop Chop Shop 2*



SslagleZ28 said:


> Everthing looks great so far... One thing though I see your using a piece of 1x4 it looks like as a straight edge for your router... remember wood bows and twists and all that good stuff, everything looks straight but maybe use a 4ft level next time, it might give you a better line.  Other than that if this is your first time your doing a great job keep up the good work


Good call there SslagleZ28 - I should have used something metal, but so far I've been lucky I suppose and everything is looking nice and square. We'll see ultimately though when I drop in the piece of glass!  Thanks for the encouragement!


mep916 said:


> Sick build log. 5 stars.


Thanks mep916 - glad to have you tune in, stick around for some more updates!

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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## wolfeking

this looks to be an awsome build man. 
I think that I have got some ideas here. Might try my own later on.


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## Shane

Looking good  :good:


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## linkin

If I had the money and tools to do something similar, I would. Already got the time


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## ultimatedesk

*More Drawer Work*



wolfeking said:


> this looks to be an awsome build man.
> I think that I have got some ideas here. Might try my own later on.


That's great, thanks man, glad you're getting some ideas for your own project!


Nevakonaza said:


> Looking good


Thanks Nevakonaza!


linkin said:


> If I had the money and tools to do something similar, I would. Already got the time


Heh, to be honest, the project so far has only cost me around 250 Canadian or so. Now, the tools, yes, they would be rather costly if I hadn't had someone with access to them!


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?


----------



## ultimatedesk

*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!


----------



## voyagerfan99

SO. MANY. PICTURES. O_O

Can't wait to see the end result


----------



## SslagleZ28

Coming along very nicely.... Are you planning on covering the screw holes?  If so how are you doing it?


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Drawer Trim*



voyagerfan99 said:


> SO. MANY. PICTURES. O_O
> 
> Can't wait to see the end result


Hehe, yeah, hope I'm not overdoing it.. Thanks for sticking around 



SslagleZ28 said:


> Coming along very nicely.... Are you planning on covering the screw holes?  If so how are you doing it?


I'll be using some plain Jane wood filler. I'm using the Elmers natural wood colour stuff right now. We'll see how it goes 

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.


----------



## Troncoso

This is so fail... I wanna see what's going on.

Damn work computer blocking all the stupid image sharing sites...


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Trimming the Drawers*



Troncoso said:


> This is so fail... I wanna see what's going on.
> 
> Damn work computer blocking all the stupid image sharing sites...


Lol I was reading that and was all like "Whaaat? What did I do wrong?" oh - right, reading the descriptions must be pretty boring!!

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.


----------



## Aastii

Are you going to leave it as just plain wood, or are you going to paint them? Of course, not leave them totally bare and at least treat them, but will it be kept au natural?


----------



## Troncoso

Haha. I was just bummed I couldn't see the pictures with everyone going "That's awesome" and whatnot. But I can see them now and it's looking tight so far. Might I suggest an overall picture after each day of working on it so we can see the actual progress. Kind of hard now since you are like half way there though


----------



## Benny Boy

Very nice !   And Excellent choice on wood. :good:
Maple is hard and very dense. That makes it stable. Has tight smooth grain and stains beautifully. Finishing is easier. Painting is lots more prep.
I have 30 yrs exp. in the finishing and painting industries. If you want any pointers, let me know. I might add now, , that if your going natural or stain, do a sample with, clear or stain, and filler - to see how they match up. The label on the filler is always wrong, and best the filler stains lighter(if not perfect) than darker. Lighter can be darkened easily with an artist brush. Darker is fixable, but harder and takes longer. Suggest use the filler on the big stuff, and colored putty on the small nails/cracks after the sealer is sanded. Use a waterbased dyestain for depth, clarity, ease of application(just brush it on and let it dry), evenness of color, and that furniture look.
If your going to paint it,,.
 Can't wait to see it in action.


----------



## ultimatedesk

Aastii said:


> Are you going to leave it as just plain wood, or are you going to paint them? Of course, not leave them totally bare and at least treat them, but will it be kept au natural?


Ooooh, you'll see  I'm going to be staining a nice, dark red cherry / mahogany!! Test samples so far are going well 



Troncoso said:


> Haha. I was just bummed I couldn't see the pictures with everyone going "That's awesome" and whatnot. But I can see them now and it's looking tight so far. Might I suggest an overall picture after each day of working on it so we can see the actual progress. Kind of hard now since you are like half way there though


Heh, it's kinda tough isn't it? I'm working on a lot of small detail stuff, so unfortunately, there aren't really any big picture types pictures yet! Assembly will come in the next few weeks, don't you worry 



Benny Boy said:


> Very nice !   And Excellent choice on wood. :good:
> Maple is hard and very dense. That makes it stable. Has tight smooth grain and stains beautifully. Finishing is easier. Painting is lots more prep.
> I have 30 yrs exp. in the finishing and painting industries. If you want any pointers, let me know. I might add now, , that if your going natural or stain, do a sample with, clear or stain, and filler - to see how they match up. The label on the filler is always wrong, and best the filler stains lighter(if not perfect) than darker. Lighter can be darkened easily with an artist brush. Darker is fixable, but harder and takes longer. Suggest use the filler on the big stuff, and colored putty on the small nails/cracks after the sealer is sanded. Use a waterbased dyestain for depth, clarity, ease of application(just brush it on and let it dry), evenness of color, and that furniture look.
> If your going to paint it,,.
> Can't wait to see it in action.


Hmm... I may have to get back to you with a few PM's later on - I've started to do test pieces (But I've neglected to put wood filler on them) and I'm starting to get the colour I want - a nice rich red cherry / mahogany. I'm using an oil-based gel stain, with 4-6 coats of polyurethane (Brush on) on top.

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:


----------



## ultimatedesk

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?


----------



## SslagleZ28

if you go over them again, and maybe a 3rd time and get them filled really well and sand them down you wont notice them all that much... but you will notice if you look at it.  thing is the holes are a perfect circle and perfect circles dont exactly exist in wood so they eye is going to naturally pick it up :/


----------



## Jet

amazing build log--CF needs more of these!

On the fan locations--you might want to try and keep the fans off the front to reduce the sound levels--maybe you can use some sort of director to make sure the airflow goes over the components where it needs to, and then you can have intake in the side near the front, and exhaust on the side near the back. Just a thought.

Keep it up!


----------



## Shane

Simply amazing,Wish i could build something like that...looks like you have a great workshop too.


----------



## Rocko

I love following things like this. Keep the pictures coming! :good:


----------



## ultimatedesk

SslagleZ28 said:


> if you go over them again, and maybe a 3rd time and get them filled really well and sand them down you wont notice them all that much... but you will notice if you look at it.  thing is the holes are a perfect circle and perfect circles dont exactly exist in wood so they eye is going to naturally pick it up :/


Thanks SslagleZ28 - I'm wondering if there are any techniques to break up the circle pattern, maybe a bit of.. brown crayon smudged strategically or something.. I dunno, we'll see.



Jet said:


> amazing build log--CF needs more of these!
> 
> On the fan locations--you might want to try and keep the fans off the front to reduce the sound levels--maybe you can use some sort of director to make sure the airflow goes over the components where it needs to, and then you can have intake in the side near the front, and exhaust on the side near the back. Just a thought.
> 
> Keep it up!


Thanks for the encouragement, Jet! Just an fyi, none of the fans will be exposed, or even be considered "in front". Maybe it's just not presented very well in my diagrams, but you'll see once I start putting together the cabinets  The idea of using directors is a very good idea - I'd like to implement something like that, maybe when I'm working on the cable management.



Nevakonaza said:


> Simply amazing,Wish i could build something like that...looks like you have a great workshop too.


Thanks Nevakonaza - the workshop is a dream to work in, total coincidence that it became available just as I was finishing the plans for the desk!!



Rocko said:


> I love following things like this. Keep the pictures coming! :good:


Thanks Rocko, glad you have you on board 

No real update today, but there'll be one in the next couple days - work has been keeping me busy, so I've not got the energy to go through my photos and write nice descriptions


----------



## ultimatedesk

*New Sponsor - Crucial!*

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!


----------



## Troncoso

DUDE!!!! They freakin sponsor you!?!?!?


----------



## nathan32111

you are awesome
good luck:good:


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Trimming the Desk Surface*



Troncoso said:


> DUDE!!!! They freakin sponsor you!?!?!?


Hehe, that was my reaction too! How cool is that? Props to Crucial lol



nathan32111 said:


> you are awesome
> good luck:good:


Haha, thanks nathan32111 

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.


----------



## richt79

very nice design, in all honesty though you should have 4 monitors. Not sure how anyone can work off just 3 monitors nowadays.


----------



## Benny Boy

ultimatedesk said:


> has anyone used darker wood filler than the natural wood, when staining dark with good effect?


TONS of it. 
Any wood filler(or wood dough)brand, and any color name within those brands, need to be sampled to see how well it stains to the desierd color. The only way to do that is to have the stain and the wood and the filler. Put the filler colors you think might be close on the wood, sand it and stain it. Make sure everything is sanded with the same grit sandpaper because diff grits will produce diff colors using the same stain. 
Not very often will a filler color be found that will match perfectly because of the types of wood and types of stains. All three.-wood/filler/stain- together, will determine what the filler will look like when stained, not the filler color name. Getting a few and sampling each is the only way, really, way to go. The undesireables can be returned.


ultimatedesk said:


> I'm wondering if there are any techniques to break up the circle pattern, maybe a bit of.. brown crayon smudged strategically or something.. I dunno, we'll see.


Finding a filler that matches good enough by sample can be non existent and almost always is. So it's almost always winds up being - pick the filler that stains close to-but a little lighter than - the desired color. It seems to be lighter in this case. This makes it easy to darken the areas with the same stain or anything you can find,other stain-paint-tints that have the desired basic color in them, and an artist brush. As long as the base(water/solvent) is the same you can intermix to get the color close. Use dilution to get the desired transparency.
If it's raw stain(no sealer on it yet), stay inside the lines w/ your brush. If it's raw but you're Dr'ing where the glue/sawdust is, it won't soak in so put a bit of clear in the material so the next brushed clear won't move the color around. 
If the spots are too dark, it can be very involved to fix. That's why the samples and making sure it's at least lighter is very important. Lightening when its darker takes some experimentation. If this is the case using yellow paint or tint,-the stain-other tint colors-or even any paint/other stain you may have around that has the basic needed color in it<--or some combo of those, will help. It's the yellow that will lighten using this simpler method.

If the surface has been sealed, hand sand everything first, and again use a small amount of the clear in your touch-up material to keep the the color from moving around when you brush on the next coat.

I know by looking at the shallow hole in the pic above that the filler was sanded before it was all the way dry.  As Z28 said will flush it up. :good:


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Thanks!*



richt79 said:


> very nice design, in all honesty though you should have 4 monitors. Not sure how anyone can work off just 3 monitors nowadays.


Hehe, seriously, what was I thinking. You know what? Scrap this whole project. Sorry folks, gotta start over  



Benny Boy said:


> TONS of it.
> Any wood filler(or wood dough)brand, and any color name within those brands, need to be sampled to see how well it stains to the desierd color. The only way to do that is to have the stain and the wood and the filler. Put the filler colors you think might be close on the wood, sand it and stain it. Make sure everything is sanded with the same grit sandpaper because diff grits will produce diff colors using the same stain.
> Not very often will a filler color be found that will match perfectly because of the types of wood and types of stains. All three.-wood/filler/stain- together, will determine what the filler will look like when stained, not the filler color name. Getting a few and sampling each is the only way, really, way to go. The undesireables can be returned.
> 
> Finding a filler that matches good enough by sample can be non existent and almost always is. So it's almost always winds up being - pick the filler that stains close to-but a little lighter than - the desired color. It seems to be lighter in this case. This makes it easy to darken the areas with the same stain or anything you can find,other stain-paint-tints that have the desired basic color in them, and an artist brush. As long as the base(water/solvent) is the same you can intermix to get the color close. Use dilution to get the desired transparency.
> If it's raw stain(no sealer on it yet), stay inside the lines w/ your brush. If it's raw but you're Dr'ing where the glue/sawdust is, it won't soak in so put a bit of clear in the material so the next brushed clear won't move the color around.
> If the spots are too dark, it can be very involved to fix. That's why the samples and making sure it's at least lighter is very important. Lightening when its darker takes some experimentation. If this is the case using yellow paint or tint,-the stain-other tint colors-or even any paint/other stain you may have around that has the basic needed color in it<--or some combo of those, will help. It's the yellow that will lighten using this simpler method.
> 
> If the surface has been sealed, hand sand everything first, and again use a small amount of the clear in your touch-up material to keep the the color from moving around when you brush on the next coat.
> 
> I know by looking at the shallow hole in the pic above that the filler was sanded before it was all the way dry.  As Z28 said will flush it up. :good:


Wow, thanks for all the information Benny Boy - sounds like I have my work cut out for me. Thankfully, the only place I really need to mess around with screw holes are the drawers. I do still have to concern myself with how the wood filler turns out on the desk surface, since I've used some to fill in the small cracks between the desk and trim...

I'm definitely going to go with biscuits when doing the joinery for the upper shelf. No way I'm messing with screw holes again!!!



I'll have an actual update in a few days - work's been keeping me a lot busier than usual, and it's crazy cold out, so it's been a bit discouraging for working on the desk


----------



## Thanatos

I'm currently building a Loft bed with a desk underneath. It's pretty awesome, And it clears up tons of space.


----------



## voyagerfan99

^I feel I should go that route, as my desk isn't big enough.

Old pic, but basically the same desk space.


----------



## Thanatos

owch.... that desk IS tiny.


----------



## kobaj

Green dog252 said:


> I'm currently building a Loft bed with a desk underneath. It's pretty awesome, And it clears up tons of space.
> 
> *snip*



I built my own loft bed too! They're great on saving space but they're such a pain to move and the constant up and down every night was getting burdensome. Do enjoy (but the novelty wears off quickly, as I'm just using a regular bed now).


----------



## wolfeking

....sigh.... all the carpenters here. 
I'll be moving soon, so.. I hope the new place will have a barn to work in so I can make my own desk....


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Adding Trim to the Desk Surface*



Green dog252 said:


> I'm currently building a Loft bed with a desk underneath. It's pretty awesome, And it clears up tons of space.


That is super cool Green dog252, it looks like a real nice and sturdy piece. That's an awesome outdoor bedroom too!!   



voyagerfan99 said:


> ^I feel I should go that route, as my desk isn't big enough.
> 
> Old pic, but basically the same desk space.


Well - start planning! Snap some pics and keep us in the loop!



kobaj said:


> I built my own loft bed too! They're great on saving space but they're such a pain to move and the constant up and down every night was getting burdensome. Do enjoy (but the novelty wears off quickly, as I'm just using a regular bed now).


Oh I could see that - maybe you could build in an escalator or something lol



wolfeking said:


> ....sigh.... all the carpenters here.
> I'll be moving soon, so.. I hope the new place will have a barn to work in so I can make my own desk....


That would be so freaking awesome to have a barn to do woodworking in. I know what you mean though - I actually live in an apartment pretty much, and it takes me around an hour to get to the wood shop, so as much as it is really awesome to be able to use it, it's nowhere close to convenient.

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!


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Dado Cutting*

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.


----------



## ultimatedesk

*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!


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Quick Test Fitting*

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!


----------



## Troncoso

I see no pictures...I am sad


----------



## Aastii

Troncoso said:


> I see no pictures...I am sad



403 forbidden?

That is what I'm getting on them


----------



## Troncoso

I don't even get that. Just blank space


----------



## linkin

Pictures aren't working for me, only because I'm at TAFE


----------



## Compequip

No pics. just red X..... Something is wrong with his upload....


----------



## Mitchell

i am seeing an ice cube with a frog. and it also say that it violates tos


----------



## Shane

ultimatedesk,Use photobucket its much better....Imageshack is crap imo.


----------



## linkin

Nevakonaza said:


> ultimatedesk,Use photobucket its much better....Imageshack is crap imo.



I second this


----------



## FuryRosewood

or he could use dropbox.


----------



## cabinfever1977

I can see the pics just fine.


----------



## ultimatedesk

*First Staining Attempt*



Troncoso said:


> I see no pictures...I am sad





Aastii said:


> 403 forbidden?
> That is what I'm getting on them





Troncoso said:


> I don't even get that. Just blank space





linkin said:


> Pictures aren't working for me, only because I'm at TAFE





Compequip said:


> No pics. just red X..... Something is wrong with his upload....





Mitchell said:


> i am seeing an ice cube with a frog. and it also say that it violates tos





Nevakonaza said:


> ultimatedesk,Use photobucket its much better....Imageshack is crap imo.





linkin said:


> I second this





FuryRosewood said:


> or he could use dropbox.





cabinfever1977 said:


> I can see the pics just fine.


Wow, sorry to all you folks that cannot see the images - I really don't know what could be going wrong. Imageshack in general is for the most-part reliable. They occasionally have a server that goes down, but still. Are you all still having problems viewing them?

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.


----------



## Aastii

All of the pics are working perfect for me now 

I can not express just how jealous I am, it looks quite simply amazing. The desk, not the kittens


----------



## voyagerfan99

When do you think it'll be totally finished?


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Second Staining Attempt*



Aastii said:


> All of the pics are working perfect for me now
> 
> I can not express just how jealous I am, it looks quite simply amazing. The desk, not the kittens


Thank you Aastii, glad the pictures are working as well!



voyagerfan99 said:


> When do you think it'll be totally finished?


Well... I've actually assembled both of the cabinets, and last night I did the final sanding (In preparation for staining) of the actual desk surface. The real time consumer is that it's cold, and I can only really stain 1 piece at a time. So, figure, a week for the desk surface, a week for both of the cabinets, a week for the top shelf... so optimistically, I'll have a desk, assembled, upstairs, ready to use in 3 weeks, but I'm thinking it'll be more like a month, to a month and a half.

Also, that doesn't include all the detail work like getting the glass, setting up fans, hiding the wires, making the fan controls, power switches.. oh geez, now I'm getting depressed lol. It'll get done sometime soon 


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!


----------



## Troncoso

halifax like nc/va (not sure which)??


----------



## wolfeking

halifax (South Boston area) is in southern VA. not too far away really, about ~35 miles from me.


----------



## danthrax

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about and viewing pictures of Ultimate Desk!  Looking forward to seeing the progress from here.  Good luck and thanks for giving us something to marvel at, you are quite the craftsman.


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Third Staining Attempt*



Troncoso said:


> halifax like nc/va (not sure which)??





wolfeking said:


> halifax (South Boston area) is in southern VA. not too far away really, about ~35 miles from me.


Halifax, Nova Scotia - CANADA Yeaaah  I had a lot of fun - it's a big St.Patties day drinking destination. Home of Alexander Keith, you know!



danthrax said:


> I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about and viewing pictures of Ultimate Desk!  Looking forward to seeing the progress from here.  Good luck and thanks for giving us something to marvel at, you are quite the craftsman.


Thank you very much for the comments danthrax. I remember spending so many hours browsing various build logs and saying the exact same thing you're saying, to the poster, and to have it returned on my very own projects is really incredible. Thanks.

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!


----------



## Troncoso

A 128gb SSD...........................................

you have no idea how sad I am....but at least grats to you


----------



## jgoff14

I want one!


----------



## Benny Boy

Mohawk furniture grade waterborn dystain. Being a dye, the color turns out uniform and not muttled. The natural colors in the wood, make the color variations in the finished piece. The porosity of the wood(soft spots make bloches)does not affect the consistent color acheived, without the "wash" coat.(wash is usually 1/2 sealer-1/2 solvent but I make it weaker beacuse if its too much it may not all sand back out enough). With dye, no wash needed.

Each color the raw wood has, takes on it's own stained color. Make sence?Has that deep(as in depth, not dark) look, yet clean and clear. Like 3D if you will. Has that slight glisten like it's wayyy down in the wood, when the light shines on it. I think this is what your looking for. You probably have some furniture that looks like that. 
Very easy to use, just brush it on, and let it dry. There are other alcohol/solvent type wood dyes but those are for other specialty finishes and the waterborn is the way to go. I know you been working on this stain for a while, and working hard I see, but I think you'll be glad you looked into it, if you do. They have mohagany, but it doesnt have to be that brand. I'm suprised Randalls didn't show/have some. Perhaps they do!

http://www.mohawk-finishing.com/catalog_browse.asp?ictNbr=178 suggest dark read mohagany. color can be easily adjusted/lightened from there if wanted.

If interested, call a couple Architectural Millworlk companies in your area, that do the finishing themselves.


----------



## danthrax

Troncoso said:


> A 128gb SSD...........................................
> 
> you have no idea how sad I am....but at least grats to you



What the hell are you sad for??


----------



## npuesey

Is the build finished yet?


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Some More Hardware*



Troncoso said:


> A 128gb SSD...........................................
> 
> you have no idea how sad I am....but at least grats to you





jgoff14 said:


> I want one!


Aww c'mon, no need to be sad!



Benny Boy said:


> Mohawk furniture grade waterborn dystain. Being a dye, the color turns out uniform and not muttled. The natural colors in the wood, make the color variations in the finished piece. The porosity of the wood(soft spots make bloches)does not affect the consistent color acheived, without the "wash" coat.(wash is usually 1/2 sealer-1/2 solvent but I make it weaker beacuse if its too much it may not all sand back out enough). With dye, no wash needed.
> 
> Each color the raw wood has, takes on it's own stained color. Make sence?Has that deep(as in depth, not dark) look, yet clean and clear. Like 3D if you will. Has that slight glisten like it's wayyy down in the wood, when the light shines on it. I think this is what your looking for. You probably have some furniture that looks like that.
> Very easy to use, just brush it on, and let it dry. There are other alcohol/solvent type wood dyes but those are for other specialty finishes and the waterborn is the way to go. I know you been working on this stain for a while, and working hard I see, but I think you'll be glad you looked into it, if you do. They have mohagany, but it doesnt have to be that brand. I'm suprised Randalls didn't show/have some. Perhaps they do!
> 
> http://www.mohawk-finishing.com/catalog_browse.asp?ictNbr=178 suggest dark read mohagany. color can be easily adjusted/lightened from there if wanted.
> 
> If interested, call a couple Architectural Millworlk companies in your area, that do the finishing themselves.


Thanks for the info Benny - I checked out the site. I had read a bit about dye stains, but I could not find anywhere locally to go and check them out in person. Calling a local millwork company is a fantastic idea. I have, unfortunately, already stained a few of the actual pieces, so this is what I will be sticking with for the entirety of the project, but I will certainly check out the Mohawk products in the future.



danthrax said:


> What the hell are you sad for??


Seriously!



npuesey said:


> Is the build finished yet?


I wish!!


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


----------



## linkin

Looks like it's all coming together nicely  

I can't wait to see the finished product.


----------



## ultimatedesk

*IO Slot Cutting*



linkin said:


> Looks like it's all coming together nicely
> 
> I can't wait to see the finished product.


Slowly, but surely! It's taken a while to get here, but I can finally see the light on the horizon lol


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!











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.


----------



## emac227

ahh i need more updates. i check everyday to see if you posted more pictures!


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Left Cabinet Assembly*



emac227 said:


> ahh i need more updates. i check everyday to see if you posted more pictures!


lol, thanks for the support emac227, sorry things have been a little slow lately! 

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?


----------



## Benny Boy

Drilled thru to the piece underneath?


----------



## FuryRosewood

its not a mistake, its a feature! just make it work c.c


----------



## NyxCharon

Benny Boy said:


> Drilled thru to the piece underneath?



That would be my guess too.


----------



## Iceyn1pples

I wish i had the skills and resources to do this project...Kudos to you!

If i might add my 2 cents, i would suggest that you turn your gaming computer compartment, into a removable compartment. Example, make it a drawer underneath the glass. that way, at least the PC can be moved around if need be, and prolly be much easier for upgrades. 

Love your file server compartment tho, pretty sleek. The only problem i see is that the keyboard compartment is kinda pointless...if its a server, might as well just Remote Desktop into it, saves hardware, and all you need is the power cable and an ethernet, Hopefully you plan on getting a GIGABIT router and use the LAN insteand of wireless.

Awesome work tho!


----------



## ultimatedesk

Lol, not a mistake, a feature!

Hmm.. little bit late for the drawer idea, but it is certainly a good one I'll have to keep in mind for the next big project. As for remoting in - occasionally there will be a second user for some multiplayer gaming, or I'll want to fire up a movie on the second computer without quitting any full screen apps I might be running on the primary.

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!


----------



## linkin

Coming together nicely, quite literally


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Staining the Desk Surface*



linkin said:


> Coming together nicely, quite literally


Hehe, I see what you did there 

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!


----------



## Aastii

omg that looks beautiful 

That is something I didn't think I would end up saying...about a desk


----------



## NyxCharon

Looks great man!


----------



## Perkomate

i really like the shine and that the grain in the timber shows too. what kinda wood are you using?


----------



## linkin

I want one!


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Prepping the Upper Desk*



Aastii said:


> omg that looks beautiful
> 
> That is something I didn't think I would end up saying...about a desk


lol, never thought I'd hear it either!



NyxCharon said:


> Looks great man!


Thanks!



Perkomate said:


> i really like the shine and that the grain in the timber shows too. what kinda wood are you using?


It's maple-veneered plywood, with Old Masters Deep Red Mahogany Gel Stain (2 coats + gloss poly)



linkin said:


> I want one!


Hehe, same here! 

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.


----------



## linkin

So many clamps 

I can't wait to see this thing finished


----------



## Sox_

Wow that is massive.

You've put a lot of hard work into that lol.

The finish isn't to my taste, I prefer a lighter sort of coat but well done.


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Top Shelf Assembly*



linkin said:


> So many clamps
> 
> I can't wait to see this thing finished


Hehe, and I still don't have enough! Thanks for stickin around!



Sox_ said:


> Wow that is massive.
> 
> You've put a lot of hard work into that lol.
> 
> The finish isn't to my taste, I prefer a lighter sort of coat but well done.


Heh, yeah, should be interesting fitting it into the new place lol. Finishes are a finicky thing I suppose!


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!


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Top Shelf Trim*

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

*Staining*

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!

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!


----------



## linkin

Looking very snazzy!


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Drawer Face Staining*



linkin said:


> Looking very snazzy!


Thanks linkin, everyday, gettin a bit closer!

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!


----------



## NyxCharon

I've got to say, I love your choice in stain. Looks fantastic.


----------



## voyagerfan99

Yes, the stain is very nice indeed!


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Trimming the Cabinets*



NyxCharon said:


> I've got to say, I love your choice in stain. Looks fantastic.





voyagerfan99 said:


> Yes, the stain is very nice indeed!


Thanks, both of you - you either love it or you hate it! I think the dark cherry is nice and modern, whereas the haters like the more traditional "golden" type stains 

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!


----------



## Aastii

Very, very nice.

How long has it been since you first thought "I'm going to make a desk" and where we are now?


----------



## Des_Zac

This looks pretty cool, I can't wait to see it all come together.


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Sanding the Cabinets*



Aastii said:


> Very, very nice.
> 
> How long has it been since you first thought "I'm going to make a desk" and where we are now?


Hehe, brutal question - let's just say I didn't think it would be 8 months later and I'd still be working on it. I knew it was going to be a big project, but I had no idea the number of hours I would put into it. It's the details - the hours and hours of sanding, and waiting for glue, stain, and polyurethane to dry has been nuts!

I think I drew up the original plans in... October 2010, and I started the initial cuts at the wood shop in November 2010... !!



Des_Zac said:


> This looks pretty cool, I can't wait to see it all come together.


Thankd Des_Zac, believe me, I can't wait as well!!

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!


----------



## lubo4444

Wow this is a great project.  Keep up the good work.


----------



## Needhelpplease

This is so awesome, I hope your Ultimate Desk is everything you hope it will be . It's infinitely more satisfying when you do it yourself


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Staining the Cabinets*



lubo4444 said:


> Wow this is a great project.  Keep up the good work.


Thanks!



Needhelpplease said:


> This is so awesome, I hope your Ultimate Desk is everything you hope it will be . It's infinitely more satisfying when you do it yourself


Yes, that's what it is, isn't it? Satisfaction!


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!


----------



## Perkomate

nice looking red stain there. makes it look kinda like really expensive hardwood


----------



## bomberboysk

Very nice looking, I'm quite a fan of the dark stain, quite a classy choice of color IMO. Been watching this project since you made the first post, looks like it's coming together nicely.


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Rubbing out the Desk Surface*



Perkomate said:


> nice looking red stain there. makes it look kinda like really expensive hardwood





bomberboysk said:


> Very nice looking, I'm quite a fan of the dark stain, quite a classy choice of color IMO. Been watching this project since you made the first post, looks like it's coming together nicely.


Thanks guys, it took me a while to get the stain right, but I'm really glad I decided to keep looking. This colour in real life is really quite pleasing, like a dark cherry. I really appreciate the positive comments - more good stuff coming your way!

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!!


----------



## linkin

Looking good  I hope the move goes well.


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Before Transportation*



linkin said:


> Looking good  I hope the move goes well.


Thanks linkin, everything went pretty smoothly, just some small dings and scuffs!

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


----------



## Shane

Looks really good!


----------



## linkin

You have inspired me to build my own desk rather than buy one 

I suppose it'll have to wait until after we move.


----------



## Aastii

That is just incredible. Very, very good job


----------



## FXB

Awesome keep it up everything is coming together nicely.


----------



## IknowLITTLE

Looking amazing, cant wait for it to be done, please keep updating us


----------



## Okedokey

Good job mate, whats your final costs for this ?


----------



## jgoff14

Would you be willing to build the desk and ship it, or do some sort of Ikea type set up and just send it ready to assemble?! I'd love to buy one, what did that run you if you don't mind me asking?


----------



## ultimatedesk

*All Setup*



Nevakonaza said:


> Looks really good!


Thanks Nevakonaza! Love the name, too 



linkin said:


> You have inspired me to build my own desk rather than buy one
> 
> I suppose it'll have to wait until after we move.


Awesome man! Building your own is soo worth it!



Aastii said:


> That is just incredible. Very, very good job


Thanks Aastii!



FXB said:


> Awesome keep it up everything is coming together nicely.


Thank you FXB 



IknowLITTLE said:


> Looking amazing, cant wait for it to be done, please keep updating us


Thanks IknowLITTLE! Plenty more to come 



bigfellla said:


> Good job mate, whats your final costs for this ?


Thanks bigfella, so far I think I have spent between 500 and 600 Canadian for the wood, stain + polyurethane, staining supplies, misc supplies, drawer slides, etc... That's a pretty approximate number though - that doesn't include all the tools I purchased that would be considered "investments" that shouldn't be included in the cost of the project.



jgoff14 said:


> Would you be willing to build the desk and ship it, or do some sort of Ikea type set up and just send it ready to assemble?! I'd love to buy one, what did that run you if you don't mind me asking?


Hey jgoff14, while it's really very nice of you to even inquire about purchasing something like that, it would have to require some discussion to determine the actual cost of having something like this built and shipped. So far, as mentioned above, I estimated having spent around 600 in materials alone. It weighs almost 200 pounds, and is 8 feet long - the shipping charge I am sure would be rather phenomenal. Thirdly, with the number of hours I have put into making this project work, there would be a rather hefty labour charge to make a second one!! PM me if you're still seriously interested, however!

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.


----------



## Troncoso

Man. you are getting so close. Can't wait til it is done.


----------



## Aastii

Are we going to be seeing "the ultimate computer chair" after this? you have to change from that when you have this kick ass desk there, surely 

it's all looking great :good:


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Fixing the Drawers*



Troncoso said:


> Man. you are getting so close. Can't wait til it is done.


Thanks!



Aastii said:


> Are we going to be seeing "the ultimate computer chair" after this? you have to change from that when you have this kick ass desk there, surely
> 
> it's all looking great :good:


lmao, you're not the first person to mention that lol - it'll be replaced soon enough, dontcha worry! 

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!


----------



## ultimatedesk

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.


----------



## linkin

Looks awesome, looks like it's nearly finished from the external impressions


----------



## voyagerfan99

Definitely got a lot of time invested in this project. Looks good :good:


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Up and Coming Preview*



linkin said:


> Looks awesome, looks like it's nearly finished from the external impressions


Gettin there eh? Now the fun stuff begins....



voyagerfan99 said:


> Definitely got a lot of time invested in this project. Looks good :good:


Thanks voyagerfan99, it's been around 9 or 10 months now I think lol

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!


----------



## Aastii

There has been a hell of a lot of work gone into this and all of it is paying off, that is a hell of a (nearly) end result


----------



## FXB

That's great I can't wait to see the next updates.  What form factor is the motherboard it look pretty big.


----------



## linkin

Nice, but you should have got gentle typhoons


----------



## Aastii

linkin said:


> Nice, but you should have got gentle typhoons



Have Scythe hired you or something? I like mine but Jesus, pushing them at every opportunity


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Fan Setup*



Aastii said:


> There has been a hell of a lot of work gone into this and all of it is paying off, that is a hell of a (nearly) end result


Thanks Aastii, it has certainly been a long time.. getting there though! Fun stuff is starting!



FXB said:


> That's great I can't wait to see the next updates.  What form factor is the motherboard it look pretty big.


Thanks FXB - I think it is an SSE form factor. I'm not too familiar with server board form factors.



linkin said:


> Nice, but you should have got gentle typhoons


Mmm, I considered it, but I think these ones have better pressure and will be more ideal for pulling air through the air filter I plan on using.

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!


----------



## FXB

ultimatedesk said:


> Thanks FXB - I think it is an SSE form factor. I'm not too familiar with server board form factors.
> Stay tuned! More stuff tomorrow!



Why did you decide to get a server mobo more expansion possibilities?  This ended so quickly


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Server Setup*



FXB said:


> Why did you decide to get a server mobo more expansion possibilities?  This ended so quickly


You'll see below that it was just by chance that I ended up with a dual proc server, so I said to myself "Hey! Free? Why the heck not!". Don't you worry, there's still lots more to come before it's absolutely done!

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!


----------



## Perkomate

completely and utterly jealous of that find. and the desk looks really really good. always nice to see a project completed!


----------



## bomberboysk

Aastii said:


> Have Scythe hired you or something? I like mine but Jesus, pushing them at every opportunity



UK's are Scythe as well

I'm still slightly sad myself that i had to ditch my deltas for college..


----------



## CrazyMike

I will have to say, "well done". Number one is that i am in love with the color of wood. It is very nice. Number two, the design is pretty good, lots of thought and innovation went into building this. Number three, thinking you have inspired me to concider (fool around with prints) to try and accomplish the same task. 

Please post more pictures, esspecially of the finish product. I would love to see the details of every square inch.

Bravo!!!


----------



## ultimatedesk

*Gigabyte Board*



Perkomate said:


> completely and utterly jealous of that find. and the desk looks really really good. always nice to see a project completed!


Thanks Perkomate!



bomberboysk said:


> UK's are Scythe as well
> 
> I'm still slightly sad myself that i had to ditch my deltas for college..


Hehe, Deltas... that would have been a nice option!



CrazyMike said:


> I will have to say, "well done". Number one is that i am in love with the color of wood. It is very nice. Number two, the design is pretty good, lots of thought and innovation went into building this. Number three, thinking you have inspired me to concider (fool around with prints) to try and accomplish the same task.
> 
> Please post more pictures, esspecially of the finish product. I would love to see the details of every square inch.
> 
> Bravo!!!


Thanks a lot CrazyMike, that means a lot to me. Don't you worry - there will be plenty of photos between now and then and even after!

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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## linkin

Even top-end cards aren't really affected by PCI-E bandwidth, though if you're using a workstation card that may be different story! I've seen people testing this, going from an x16 to x4 slot was about a 5% performance loss. So with an x8 you should only lose 2.5% which isn't a whole lot, really.

That gigabyte board looks nice too! Though they STILL cannot figure out how to put an x1 slot before the main x16 slot, for some of us run sound cards, and if you have SLI or CF as well, you get a sound card sandwiched between two hot GPU's and restricting airflow to the top card


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## FXB

Why do you have a second motherboard in this build?

Sorry just read the first post saying you have 2 computers in one desk.


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## PhotonCrasher

Wow, looks so cool, can't wait to see the finished product.


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## kswindell

Was wondering where you got the motherboard tray an what they cost. I'm currently working on a project very similar to yours an need a stand alone MOBO tray.


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## ultimatedesk

*Testing and Cable Management*



linkin said:


> Even top-end cards aren't really affected by PCI-E bandwidth, though if you're using a workstation card that may be different story! I've seen people testing this, going from an x16 to x4 slot was about a 5% performance loss. So with an x8 you should only lose 2.5% which isn't a whole lot, really.
> 
> That gigabyte board looks nice too! Though they STILL cannot figure out how to put an x1 slot before the main x16 slot, for some of us run sound cards, and if you have SLI or CF as well, you get a sound card sandwiched between two hot GPU's and restricting airflow to the top card


Thanks, that's pretty much the same conclusion I came to as well, after doing a bit of searching. Interesting about the x1 slot - I haven't had to use one yet. I'll keep that in mind though



FXB said:


> Why do you have a second motherboard in this build?
> 
> Sorry just read the first post saying you have 2 computers in one desk.


Two computers! Two motherboards!



PhotonCrasher said:


> Wow, looks so cool, can't wait to see the finished product.


Thanks PhotonCrasher!



kswindell said:


> Was wondering where you got the motherboard tray an what they cost. I'm currently working on a project very similar to yours an need a stand alone MOBO tray.


I got the motherboard trays from Danger Den, kswindell - they were sponsored, so I'm not sure how much they would normally cost

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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## kennebell347

This is an awesome thread! I cant wait to see it all come together in the end! Great job.


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## linkin

Mucking around with hardware and BIOS - always a PITA, except when it all works


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## ultimatedesk

*Seasonic and a new Layout*



kennebell347 said:


> This is an awesome thread! I cant wait to see it all come together in the end! Great job.


Thanks kennebell347, it's been a long wait, but it's coming together!



linkin said:


> Mucking around with hardware and BIOS - always a PITA, except when it all works


Heh, you're right, especially with the older stuff. I don't find the newer BIOS's too bad to mess around with though

First 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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## Aastii

You are such a lucky bugger!! If you tot up the cost of your lumber and materials, then the cost of the stuff sponsors have given you, you have probably more than made up the cost!!


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## Machin3

Oh man saw this on another forum, it looks pretty sweet man.


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## Perkomate

what are you going to do with the dual socket board now?


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## ultimatedesk

*New Layout Work*



Aastii said:


> You are such a lucky bugger!! If you tot up the cost of your lumber and materials, then the cost of the stuff sponsors have given you, you have probably more than made up the cost!!


Thank you Aastii - some of my friends have been saying things like "Oh man! How much have you spent on that thing so far! Why is it taking you so long, why don't you just get it done! Why spend so much time taking pictures and posting etc.. etc.." and that is exactly, always my response. It has been totally, absolutely worthwhile. The fact is, there would be almost no way for me to have been able to afford all that cool hardware in the same timeline, so thanks to you, and thanks to my sponsors - all the work has been hard, but totally worth it!



Midnight_fox1 said:


> Oh man saw this on another forum, it looks pretty sweet man.


Thanks Midnight_fox!!



Perkomate said:


> what are you going to do with the dual socket board now?


I think I'm going to use that for my next project - believe it or not, probably a little wacky, but I'm going to try and make a homebrew laptop with that dual-cpu board lol

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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## ultimatedesk

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.






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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## voyagerfan99

Wow! You're almost done!


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## FXB

Looks awesome I can't wait to see some pictures of the whole desk and you'll do cable management.


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## linkin

Looks like it's all coming along, can't wait to see it finished


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## skidude

This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.


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## ultimatedesk

voyagerfan99 said:


> Wow! You're almost done!





FXB said:


> Looks awesome I can't wait to see some pictures of the whole desk and you'll do cable management.





linkin said:


> Looks like it's all coming along, can't wait to see it finished





skidude said:


> This is one of the coolest thing's I've ever seen.


Thanks everyone, it really is coming along, isn't it! It feels like the easy part was building it, and now this is the difficult part - putting it all together and making it work!!! 

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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## skidude

Do you think there will be any airflow issues with that HSF when you put on whatever side panel you're planning to have since it comes so close to the edge? Or will you cut vents to accommodate for it?


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## ultimatedesk

skidude said:


> Do you think there will be any airflow issues with that HSF when you put on whatever side panel you're planning to have since it comes so close to the edge? Or will you cut vents to accommodate for it?


Vents, baby, yeaaah!

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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## CrazyMike

That is sooooo damn amazing. Looks and sounds like it is one hell of a computer project. 

As for the Blue Filter, why not a silkish screen mesh? If you have ever taken a look at the Corsair 600T case, it comes with a mesh set up that catches dust bunnies. It is black like.

Or you could just go to walmart and get black ladies panty hose and put it around the filter.


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## skidude

Could you use a modified (or custom-built) floor vent style cover to go over both the furnace filter and cpu vent?

Something in the style of this (but obviously a different size/color):






If you did it right it would probably slide in nice and snug around the edges. Might not be possible, but just a thought.


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## ultimatedesk

CrazyMike said:


> That is sooooo damn amazing. Looks and sounds like it is one hell of a computer project.
> 
> As for the Blue Filter, why not a silkish screen mesh? If you have ever taken a look at the Corsair 600T case, it comes with a mesh set up that catches dust bunnies. It is black like.
> 
> Or you could just go to walmart and get black ladies panty hose and put it around the filter.


Thanks for the ideas - I don't think it will be so hard to get a nice looking filter/mesh, the hard part aesthetically is to get a frame to cover the parts of the door that were cut, and also for it to be durable (ie. could take an accidental kick)



skidude said:


> Could you use a modified (or custom-built) floor vent style cover to go over both the furnace filter and cpu vent?
> 
> Something in the style of this (but obviously a different size/color):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you did it right it would probably slide in nice and snug around the edges. Might not be possible, but just a thought.


Believe it or not - after many hours spent at the local Home Depot / Rona / Lowes / Canadian Tire - I actually purchased a pair of brass coloured vents to do exactly that, but it just didn't quite mesh well enough. No matter not I thought about modifying them, they still look like... floor vents lol


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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## skidude

Any plans on doing hard drive cages in there? I assume so but figured I'd ask.


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## Troncoso

Is this project done? I'd like to see a few more pictures of it, if so....please!??!!


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## SuperDuperMe

Just gone through the last few pages and this thread is immense, keep up the work dude would love to see it all up and running


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## BurningSkyline

Whenever I look at this thread I just get jealous... good job!


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## FXB

Can we expect a final gallery of pictures of your desk?


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## Machin3

Man, for a project like that, water cooling would be the sickest looking thing ever.


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