[sdiy] Metal enclosures - DIY'ing ?

[sleepy_dog at gmx.de]

Hey list.

I just looked at some pictures of Moog synths like Model D, and even 
more so, Voyager, again, and I must say I'm quite a fan of that kind of 
case design and the fact you can tilt the upper part up to your liking, 
and back in for less cumbersome transportation.

Ok, apart from that, more generally: The upper part - metal case for 
audio electronics, with front panel.

Is that steel, or aluminum, or more importantly, whatever it is - 
*could* you make that out of aluminum and it's be stable enough?
Probably only depends on the thickness. But I have no experience with 
such things.

So, is 1.5mm, or even 1.2mm, thickness of aluminum something that could 
work decently for a case roughly Moog Voyager case sized? (I would be 
willing "cheat" with some reinforcement bars here and there if that's 
what it takes ;))

Why 1.5mm (1.2) alu? Because that's the max thickness (for alu) handled 
by the strongest of those manually operated sheet metal bending machines 
that are fixed with a sturdy vice or such, for longer lengths it's only 
1,2mm. You turn a lever, presumably while making bear-like noises... 
Well, those are floatnig around on ebay (here anyway) for 100...200 EUR, 
depending on the max material length and thickness.


There you read my assumption - that one could bend parts of such a case 
yourself. Perhaps not exactly like the Voyager - it looks like the upper 
"5/6th of a box" are one part, or at least bent around two axes - they 
would be in each others way if I tried that with such a contraption I 
guess. And then just a plate at the bottom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku0BdjNasko&t=2m32s
But maybe one could bend two halves, one "grabs around" in vertical, the 
other in horizontal direction? Not only bending sides/front/back, but 
another slimmer rim, another 90 degrees, to drill holes into and fix the 
other part onto.

(if it's not displayed with monospace font at your end, too bad ;))
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Anyway, if it turns out that 1.5mm aluminum* is far too thin for this, 
at least for that size, I may forget about DIYing here (for things of 
that size anyway), as I don't think I'd buy something much more 
expensive than said contraptions for this purpose.

* no harder than, I think it was called "6061". Because that's something 
I can actually route openings out of, with my weak China CNC router.


- Steve