Wood Case

[prosser13]

After finishing my budget, I have realised that I just don't have enough for a pretty looking case, or one with half decent airflow. My grandfather is a good carpenter, and he will give me some wood and let me use his workshop, so I was wondering if there was anything I had to do? Like, can I made a box the right size with holders for everything, stick in a scavenged motherboard tray, and then just put everything in?

 

[imported_malcontent]

I read, just this past week, about someone who did this. It included the details, and pix throughout the build. I will look around and see if I can find the link, and edit my post.


Found it..

 

[drifter106]

sweet...

 

[AristoV300]

I have never heard of using a wood case for a PC. I'd like to see the link and how the case temps were like when completed.

Edit: Wow the temps are not bad.

 

[l Xes l]

building a case out of wood is such a hastle.. i'd rather go buy some $15 cases..

 

[prosser13]

It may be a hassle, but as I have everything I need pretty much, and can plan it exactly, it seems the right option. Thanks for the link malcontent. I am planning on making quite a big case, but having 4 sections, one for PSU, another for hard drives, another for the front bays, and then an empty one, where if I wanted I could put water cooling or another PSU. The PSU has it's own fans, the motherboard section will be cooled by 3 or 4 120mm fans, the hard drives by a 120mm fan, and the front bays will just have a vent in the top so that any hot air will rise out of the case. There will also be a front fan with two pieces of wood guiding the airflow from a 120mm fan into the motherboard section. I'll get some pics when I draw it on Paint.

 

[akugami]

I remember reading about someone who did this. He built a case out of wood. One of the issues he ran into was the fact that heat causes the wood to expand and contract thereby ruining his paint job on it. What you'll probably want to do is just varnish every individual finished piece instead of painting the case as a whole. Offhand you'll probably need some drive cages for your HD's and optical drives. Unless you plan on making custom would cages for them. A mobo try would definitely be needed as well as a backplate and something to help secure any PCI cards you will install.

 

[ROJAS]

Imagine getting some ebony wood and making a case out of that.

 

[SVT Cobra]

Ive seen very intricate cases built out of wood. They can be very beatiful done right. Just make sure you use the proper heat absorbing sealents and paints ect.

 

[imported_malcontent]

I was looking at one the other day on the web, that cost over $3500, but it was beautiful.

See it here

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

wow thats nice

 

[prosser13]

I doubt mine will be any where near as nice as that! I plan to scavenge some Hardrive bays and some CDROM and Floppy bays from an old PC case which is too small and has very bad airflow. Also planning on taking the PCI backplate from it too. Just going to make some designs on Paint now, will post them soon.

 

[globalcitizen]

I am curious as to these wood cases. Will they not catch fire due to heat?

 

[SVT Cobra]

w0w thats a nice case that would look awesome in my office...

now the wood will not catch fire or even warp...they are treated and then coated with nonflammable and heat resistant polymers...if you have a new fireplace with wood paneling around or near it, its the same thing

 

[akugami]

Uhh...you'd need a LOT of heat to make them catch fire even when they're not treated. The part in question touching the wood would have to be too hot to touch. The only parts that get hot enough to do that are the CPU and GPU and perhaps the insides of the PSU. The major problem would be warping as I've said due to heat.

 

[Varun]

Would MDF not be better than real wood for a case? I know it is used in Subwoofer boxes (home and car) because it does not resonate. It wouldn't look as nice though, but you could laminate some oak or something on the exposed edges.

Also if you do use MDF you have to be sure to predrill all of the holes for screws.

I think if I had the time and the tools I would likely try one of these cases, though for the time being I will have to stick to the Antec Sonata I just ordered yesterday.

 

[alexXx]

there is a lot of bad information in this thread.
here goes
Heat in a case is almost COMPLETELY convectional heat. This means that the radiant heat (the heat that would be dissapated by a good thermal conducting case material) is very minimal. For good case cooling you need proper air-flow. It is THAT simple. Just because you've read an article that aluminum cases are cooler doesnt mean anything important. It just means that they have better air flow. That is it. THat is all there is to it. You could make a case that is just as cool out of R32 insulation as you could with copper.

Another thing, wood burns at an extremely high temperature. I beleive paper generally burns at 454F so wood should be pretty close to that. It would be impossible to have any part of a computer get anywhere near that.

The reason people generally dont use wood is because it is expensive and it changes dimensions greatly different times of the year. Plus you should have the entire case grounded, but a wood case can be built to do that also.

 

[Mrvile]

Good idea, and I have seen quite a few case mods that use mostly wood. However, you're forgetting a few things:

Making a wood computer case is hard to do. One guy I saw who made a wood case cut off the top half of his thumb with the table saw, so you have to be careful. More importantly, though, you still need a case to put IN the enclosure. Did you see that link malcontent posted? The guy made the outside out of wood, but he still used parts from a regular computer case to attach the motherboard and drives to. Basically it was wood around a stripped down computer case.

 

[SVT Cobra]

Originally posted by: alexXx
there is a lot of bad information in this thread.
here goes
Heat in a case is almost COMPLETELY convectional heat. This means that the radiant heat (the heat that would be dissapated by a good thermal conducting case material) is very minimal. For good case cooling you need proper air-flow. It is THAT simple. Just because you've read an article that aluminum cases are cooler doesnt mean anything important. It just means that they have better air flow. That is it. THat is all there is to it. You could make a case that is just as cool out of R32 insulation as you could with copper.

Another thing, wood burns at an extremely high temperature. I beleive paper generally burns at 454F so wood should be pretty close to that. It would be impossible to have any part of a computer get anywhere near that.

The reason people generally dont use wood is because it is expensive and it changes dimensions greatly different times of the year. Plus you should have the entire case grounded, but a wood case can be built to do that also.

umm and we didnt know this already...??? we are talking about warping not burning

 

[frx218]

Most of the woods cases are ugly . The $3500 one looks a lot better though

 

[alexXx]

i was refering to globalcitizen, AristoV300 and akugami

 

[akugami]

alexXx, I KNOW wood will not burn at the produced by the typical CPU. Perhaps I should have worded my reply better. I was referring to the fact that it would require heat that would be too hot to touch in order to make the wood catch fire. The only parts that get hot enough that you can't touch it for more than a second or two are generally the CPU, GPU and some hard drives. The way these very hot components are designed to be mounted in a computer case, none should be touching the "walls" of your case.

I also know that regardless of material used, so long as there are proper cooling intake and outake holes for cool air to pulled in and out of the case as well as unclogged passageways for the air to circulate then a computer case's internal temperatures will be the same regardless of whether it's made by steel, aluminum, wood, plastic or whatever other material you choose.

You're mostly restating what has already been said (granted you went deeper into details) while saying everyone else is giving bad information when two of them were merely commenting or asking questions. Myself, I didn't feel I gave bad advice. Perhaps I could have worded it better but nothing in my comments IMHO contained bad advice.