As I am wrapping up my 70's/80's inspired computer, I thought...why not build an appropriate wood case for it too? LOL

When we moved into this house a little more than a year ago, the previous owners left a large piece of lumber under the deck that's been rained on for who knows how long. It's rotten in places and in bad shape.

But considering wood is so expensive these days, why not use it?

It's inspired from some of the wooden cases I've seen on the Apple 1, the Apple II case, and somewhat the Sol 20.

I still need to sand it and wait a few days(weeks) for it to completely dry out before I stain it.

And yes...it's as heavy as you might think it is.

BTW, the keyboard is from a C64 that I am repairing. The actual keyboard I will use is a spare Commodore 16 keyboard that I have.

Oh, and the top board can be flipped to either side. So if I want to "showcase" that giant knot/hole, I can. hahaha

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Cat; the other white meat.

I think cases are one of the harder parts of a build. Future proofing a case so it can accommodate changes or additions to a build is even harder. In any event the weathered look of the lumber helps with the retro feel.

Yeah, this is not something I plan on using every day.

I was just looking at that piece of lumber for over a year and wondering what to do with it.

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Cat; the other white meat.

You sure it's strong enough? I mean, you never know when a hippo might want to sit on it.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

LOL!

Yeah, it's going to be plenty strong, 1.5" solid wood.

On the back, I decided to see if I could rip a board in half on the table saw. Came out a little imperfect but (not shown) the back is now "only" 3/4" thick. Which will help when I route out ports.

I'm going to put pocket holes on the bottom/sides but leave the top open where you can just lift the thick board to look inside.

The mistake I made is that it probably won't have enough clearance for my expansion cards. But that's OK. This is just for fun.

I also plan on making two small trim pieces to wrap around the keyboard so that you won't see the frame.

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Cat; the other white meat.

One of these days I'm going to use the old MailStation parts I scavenged to build myself a Tandy Model 100-esque portable and build the whole thing into a nice wooden slab - sand off the corners, polish it smooth, and I think it'd be a neat little alternative to modern laptops