NCASE M1 Wood Front in Walnut

[warmack]

My NCASE M1 arrived in from customs and I decided to replace the front panel with a wooden one made from some walnut. I really like walnut on aluminum, though I know it isn't everyone's thing. The hardest part of this was routing out a recess in the top of the walnut front so that the aluminum top panel sat flush. I originally tried to leave a small amount of wood on the right land left side of the recess, but it blew out while finishing up the front. The top right corner has a repair that I am unhappy with.

I am going to make another one, and I think I want to do something unusual, like using a cracked piece that is stabilized with some aluminum butterfly joint. Oh and my next one will likely be 2/3rds the thickness.

 

[deeree]

Wow, that looks very clean. How many hours did it take to make it?

 

[warmack]

Wow, that looks very clean. How many hours did it take to make it?

It took about 5 hours to go from rough lumber to this, most of that time probably fumbling around with ideas until landing on a process or look that I thought would work well.

 

[HottestVapes]

Saw this over on the subreddit. Looks great, I want one.

 

[warmack]

Saw this over on the subreddit. Looks great, I want one.

Thanks! I'm planning on offering some up for sale eventually. I will need to batch out 10 or so to be able to price them anywhere reasonable. I will probably do an assortment of woods if you have any input.

 

[HottestVapes]

Thanks! I'm planning on offering some up for sale eventually. I will need to batch out 10 or so to be able to price them anywhere reasonable. I will probably do an assortment of woods if you have any input.

I think a lighter wood could look good with the silver chassis. Maybe a beech or oak? Just thinking back to that InWin A1 that was shown a while ago with a wooden top panel, the lighter wood just sat really nicely with white side/front panel.

 

[Houghton0609]

Are you planning to cater for other cases?

 

[warmack]

Are you planning to cater for other cases?

So far only the Velka 3 and the NCASE M1. I'm working on the Velka 5 but I don't have one on hand so I am going off of provided dimensions.

I'm open to other suggestions but they'd be lower priority unless someone wants to finance them. My other side project that I am working on is a wooden sandwich style case that uses a flex PSU and an ITX graphics card and I'm saving up for a CNC router for that one.

 

[warmack]

over time, the massif of the tree can deform from a large difference in temperature and humidity

I think the front of the NCASE is fairly well shielded from most of the extreme heat of the case, but I mounted it with a single screw in the back and I drilled out where the pins connect to the front panel much larger than the wood. It is a pretty small piece and fairly straight grained. Unless the front goes crazy I suspect any wood movement to minimal, but in the end who knows. Wood will be wood.