[Walnut Woodscraps] Electronics enclosures

I use a lot of hardware debugging tools. These tools, in the process of debugging my sketchy hacky bare circuit boards, also look like sketchy hacky bare circuit boards. I consider that a “project”, not a “tool”, so an enclosure is warranted for a tool I intend to use a lot. In line with those goals, I designed a Bus Pirate case a few years ago, but I’m kinda bored of lasercut acrylic.

I have a new debug tool, an FT232H breakout. It can talk a lot of protocols, and Python scripting looks pretty good.

So let’s find a good chunk of walnut in the scrap pile donated by @Hekseskudd

Very rough planning:

After marking out the outlines of the board, I set a depth stop on the drill press and roughly took out the bulk of material.

Thanks to @jon (different Jon), VHS has some awesome wood chisels, and I was pretty stoked to find them still sharp, probably thanks to @mike.

Walnut is super nice to work with, and I’m sure my next one will be neater. It’s been about fifteen years since I did any serious wood carving, so it’ll take a bit to get back into the swing of things.

It fits, though.

IMG_20181004_190348

The next vertical level involves a little bit more shark jumping. You can see that one of the standoffs chipped off, and general work is messy. Three mounting points is fine, and dimensionality is okay, so press on. The real problem is that I didn’t go back to the drill press to get to the lower level - That would have been faster, cleaner, and saved all of my standoffs. Oh well. Don’t be lazy next time :slight_smile:

In parallel with this, I drilled out a variety of hole sizes to see what would best accept an M3 threaded brass insert (actually designed for plastic, but I’m a rebel).

Near hole too small, rear hole juuust right. It’s a 5/32" drill bit.

Then, back on the main piece, I chopped it down to size, and started shaping it with a mixture of handplaning and sandpaper.

And a quick coat of walnut lacquer.

Done! I’m satisfied. This whole process only took about three hours (spread out over two days when I had some spare time).

I’ll probably do something similar for a bunch of my stuff, I’ve been intending to use some of these scraps for over a year now. And it’s not hard for anyone to get into! Just take care of the chisels and the handplanes, they’re awesome. Certainly more zen than turning to one of our CNC tools immediately (although those are fun too).

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Nice!!! So classy in walnut!

Awesome! Much nicer than acrylic!

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Looks totally awesome! Next time you are around, give me a shout and I’ll show you a few things with chisels that I’ve picked up that can help, but the end-product is awesome! I love that you did a real nice job making it not feel like a block with that pillow shape.

Also, next time I’m bored (hahah) I’ll try to make one of those sharpening jigs (we designed one in a Fusion class but I’ve never cut it out or refined it); but until then I’ll keep bringing mine in from time to time to touch off those Narex.

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I’m a little disappointed that you didn’t CNC that sucker.

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That’s ok, I’m disappointed you are disappointed :slight_smile:.

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I knew every one hinges on my opinion, so I just had to give it. I pray to the maker gawds that Jarrett understands I was merely taking the piss. :smiley:

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Hah, of course!

I think the real problem is that CNCs just aren’t very useful

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Shots fired!

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Looks amazing!

Haha! That’s awesome

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