building the housing

When you look around some of the ideas punters are coming up with for their MIDIBox projects it's inspiring to say the least. I decided that rather than mod my old C64 case or gut an unused CD DJ mixer deck I wanted to build my own housing from scratch. Keeping things simple and cheap, I found a bunch of aluminium angle strips sold at Bunnings that would do the job. Aluminium is a great material as it's cheap, strong, light-weight, conductive, safe & easy to work with and readilly available. My design was going to be a flat rectagular tablet, which I might later annodize or powder-coat to black for aesthetics. First would be make the rectangluar frame from anlge strips, then add a plate for the base and a plate for the top panel. When I get to that stage and if I still have any money left, I might get all the holes and etching in the top panel professionally done (for what I expect to be a hefty fee).

Just getting an idea of how the frame will fit together.

Clamp and cut the angle strips to length, then flush off on the disc-sander. This leaves the edges perfectly straight and square.

Finish off the sanding with some wet and dry.

Clamp 2 pieces so they meet in a corner and are square, then drill the guide holes for the self tapping screws. The laser guide on this drill-press turned out less of a gimmick than I thought.

Because I want a nice flush finish for the screws it's time to rock out the counter sync bit.

Nice....nice and uhh, counter-sunk.