To give a contrast to the acrylic case I decided to make a support structue out of aluminium, it would keep the inner case in place and also provide strength and stability to the outer case. As I would need multiples of the same items I decided to use the CNC lathe (H+S info here) this would produce exact copies each time.

The supports would be aliminium bar with the surface pared away to give a good fininsh, these would have a hole drilled into either end to allow the posts on the CNC manufactured ends to fit in and be fixed in place using araldite liquid steel. The inner support posts will have to be made on the lathe as they need to be milimeter perfect to follow the calculations I made so the back of the door would fit perfectly. Right on to manufacture…

(some time and much effort later)

OK I now have 4 exact supports and the 8 tops for the inner case and 6 outer supports and 12 tops for the outer case. The lathe is simple to use as long as you follow two rules 1) measure and 2) measure again. The machine relies on human input to tell it where the end of the billet is for it to work accuratly. Here are some pics and a short video showing the manufacturing process: