Progress has been made.
This is for a stock Chipamp.com gainclone which has been living in a very plain Hammond box. For simplicity, I've decided to just re-face the Hammond chassis with aluminum plate rather than to build a whole new case. If I were starting from scratch I'd do that, of course. The faces are 1/4" aluminum so that it's easy to drill and tap edgewise, while the sides are 5/4 cocobolo. I dug through a stack of boards to come up with one that had a really good figuration.
The most fun part of this so far was convincing my father that you could put 1/4" aluminum through a table saw without causing death and destruction. I used a 10", 60-tooth carbide blade with no hook, but it wasn't a special non-ferrous metals blade. The local woodworking store had those for the low price of $120. I decided to try with a blade that wasn't getting used anyway. My father hid in the corner while I put on enough shields to play ice hockey, and the aluminum went through the blade like butter--well, frozen butter, maybe, but without complaint.
Don't even think about doing it without a face shield though! The first cut I had chips bouncing off my coat and into my face under the shield, so I put glasses on under the shield. Wood chips in your eye are uncomfortable enough, I am not going to chance it with aluminum!
Next steps are to finish off some case fittings on my lathe, and drill and screw it all together.
I am seriously thinking about selling something like this. Materials cost all told is probably going to be around $100 including the bits and pieces. The cocobolo wood is $25 of that, and the aluminum is about the same. To do the whole thing in Al plate would probably cost the same as building on top of the chassis, maybe even less in materials since I found a great local source for small-qty metal stock. I had started out thinking about plastic, but with the price of oil, the aluminum is almost the same price.
The funny thing is that it's easy for anyone to assemble electronics on their desk in a corner of a room, but nice enclosures (at least ones that look high-end) seem to demand a full shop. It would be relatively easy to produce rectangular cases in pretty much any dimensions people wanted. With a few jigs the most time-consuming part would be finishing it, and that can be left to the consumer. At retail this would probably be a $200 case or thereabouts.
I have a bunch of smaller brass and aluminum turning stock, so I may try making some nice binding posts to go with it.
This is for a stock Chipamp.com gainclone which has been living in a very plain Hammond box. For simplicity, I've decided to just re-face the Hammond chassis with aluminum plate rather than to build a whole new case. If I were starting from scratch I'd do that, of course. The faces are 1/4" aluminum so that it's easy to drill and tap edgewise, while the sides are 5/4 cocobolo. I dug through a stack of boards to come up with one that had a really good figuration.
The most fun part of this so far was convincing my father that you could put 1/4" aluminum through a table saw without causing death and destruction. I used a 10", 60-tooth carbide blade with no hook, but it wasn't a special non-ferrous metals blade. The local woodworking store had those for the low price of $120. I decided to try with a blade that wasn't getting used anyway. My father hid in the corner while I put on enough shields to play ice hockey, and the aluminum went through the blade like butter--well, frozen butter, maybe, but without complaint.
Don't even think about doing it without a face shield though! The first cut I had chips bouncing off my coat and into my face under the shield, so I put glasses on under the shield. Wood chips in your eye are uncomfortable enough, I am not going to chance it with aluminum!
Next steps are to finish off some case fittings on my lathe, and drill and screw it all together.
I am seriously thinking about selling something like this. Materials cost all told is probably going to be around $100 including the bits and pieces. The cocobolo wood is $25 of that, and the aluminum is about the same. To do the whole thing in Al plate would probably cost the same as building on top of the chassis, maybe even less in materials since I found a great local source for small-qty metal stock. I had started out thinking about plastic, but with the price of oil, the aluminum is almost the same price.
The funny thing is that it's easy for anyone to assemble electronics on their desk in a corner of a room, but nice enclosures (at least ones that look high-end) seem to demand a full shop. It would be relatively easy to produce rectangular cases in pretty much any dimensions people wanted. With a few jigs the most time-consuming part would be finishing it, and that can be left to the consumer. At retail this would probably be a $200 case or thereabouts.
I have a bunch of smaller brass and aluminum turning stock, so I may try making some nice binding posts to go with it.
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