I think this has come up a few other times but having problems finding the relevant threads.

I think I've figured out a reasonably inexpensive way to do a custom case with an old-school looking Baby-AT front panel.

The case will use hexagonal risers as the supports for the side panels, haven't quite worked out how the top and bottom will connect to those just yet, but still working on my design. The back where the ISA cards will need to screw into will have an aluminum bar with the proper size holes drilled. That is the relatively easy and cheap part.

The part that may get pricey is printing out the custom front panel at Shapeways. I was thinking of 5.5" wide by 12" high, with the case itself being 5.5"x12"x12", basically just big enough for a micro ATX or Baby-AT motherboard and one 5.25" drive and 2 3.5" drives. PSU may be internal but probably external since I likely won't be able to find one small enough.

Anyone have any rough ideas what a 5x12" front panel printed at 1/8" thickness would run? I haven't designed the front panel yet, I have a rough idea what I want but I probably need to first mock it up in Sketchup and upload to Shapeways and I may get a better estimate that way.

I'm going that small because I want at least 5 of my systems to all be able to sit on the same shelf and not take up a ton of space. I can't really get Baby AT cases anymore so as long as I can keep the build cost at or around $50 I should be ok. If it starts creeping over $75 it may not be worth doing. I have at least 3 systems like this that I want to make cases for, I've looked online and found some small cube cases but they don't look like proper retro cases obviously.