Atomwood by Chris Cook

Working with Wood

I started with a piece of 24" x 24" oak veneer plywood. I never use plywood for my projects, so this was an experiment. I usually process my own wood from raw cut boards, but I needed a piece of oak 10 inches wide to start with and this is a short cut so they usually come at a considerable price.

The other woods include Padauk, which is a deep browny redish colour. I used Plexiglas for the motherboard tray as well as for the bottom of the case. The first thing I did was to cut the plywood into four pieces and label them so I can keep up with the grain patterns. These were then miter cut and fitted together to make the four walls of the cube as the pictures below show.



After I made the separation cuts I discovered the payback for the plywood's benefits. It's not so evident in the pictures, but it splintered horribly: it had more tear-outs than a 16 year old in a V8 Mustang! Let me say this for the benefit of everyone: NEVER USE PLYWOOD!

What I saved in time so far in the build will be eaten up with the time it will take to correct this awful stuff. I knew better, but I did it anyway! Always use solid wood and always process your own boards!! I'd estimate that this cost me about 6 hours of patch up work to get it into a usable state.