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Back when I was in high school, I had a woodworking class and had spent a considerable amount of time thinking about designing a desk where the desk itself would be the chassis. I never went through with it however (which is probably for the best).
The idea I had was that both front legs would essentially be enclosed cabinets with enough room to fit a motherboard and a bunch of peripherals; the back legs would've had power outlets running the full vertical length, essentially acting as extra-long power strips. Holes for fans, sliders for hot-swappable drives with front access...let your imagination run wild.
I figured it would've been a heat trap, so it would've had a ton of fans. Which of course means the whole thing would've been noisy. Again...probably a good thing it never progressed any farther than a thought in my mind...
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Yeah, I made that mistake and got scorchmarks in my desk to prove it.
You need ventilation and it'll work. No passive cooling if you use anything wood. My worst idea ever 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Just the other day I was told of a friend's mishap: the power supply in his chassis was a bit bigger than expected and the motherboard wouldn't fit. He cut a corner of the motherboard to make it fit.
Quote: Don't force it, get a bigger hammer.
Arthur Bloch
Mircea
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honey the codewitch wrote: When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws.
I put a Commodore PET in a wooden box once. Not sure why, it was rather flimsy.
Also, I used to work on various ROM "extensions" for the PET, so I had this PCB where I plugged in the ROM's and wired up two external multi-position switches for the $A000 and $B000 (or something like that) ROM select lines.
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OK, not a computer chassis, but a hack nonetheless...
Way back in the mid 80's, I bought a new Korg synthesizer. It had inputs for 3 pedals:
0: Naturally, a sustain pedal
1: A switch to advance to the next programmed sound
2: A volume pedal
I couldn't afford the factory pedals, so I made my own with parts from Radio Shack, a few old pieces of wood, springs, some string, and a few girders and pulleys from my old childhood Erector set!
The sustain and program advance switches were easy, but the volume pedal took some engineering so that it would rotate a rheostat using the string.  It worked until I could afford better equipment!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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Not computer hack, but nevertheless worth mentioning:
A fellow student of mine bought a used car really cheap. One problem was that while driving, the shift box frequently slipped from the selected gear into neutral, disengaged, loosing all power.
So my friend bought a couple of neodymium magnets, gluing one to his shift stick, the other one to the dashboard. This was enough to keep the speed stick in position, keeping it from flipping back to neutral.
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To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Another car hack (referring to the above one) from the student days:
One of my fellow students broke the multi-function handle of his car - the handle only, none of the switches. The handle itself couldn't be bought separately, you had to buy the entire box with all the switches, at a cost that was a fortune on a student budget. So he rather bought a tube of super-glue, gluing an old toothbrush to the remains of the old handle. For years, we saw him flipping his old toothbrush up and down, forwards and backwards, and twisting it around, serving all the functions that the old handle did before he broke it.
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Was it one of the toothbrushes that had the little pick on the end?
Or he messed up and used the end with the bristles?
Too funny. Great description.
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Windows for Workgroups 3.1 came pre loaded with networkable Hearts, the card game for up to four players. We took a left over chassis that had dual floppies. Hacked enough of the OS and game across the 2 floppies (total of 2.4 Mb) to be able to boot it and join the game. Never bothered to put the case back on in case we wanted to scavenge serial port cards or the monochrome monitor card.
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I approve of this.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Not a chassis hack, but a peripheral hack.
The Commodore 64 joystick had 4 contact switches for directions and 1 for the button.
There was a Track and Field game where you just had to move the joystick Left Right Left Right to run the 100M dash.
I made a custom joystick adapter using the little spring connectors from a Radio Shack project board so I could wire any switch into the joy stick port.
I finally set the “world record” using the Fan On/Fan Automatic switch from an old thermostat. Very clean connection on a very short lever.
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Well, there was that abacus that I had to bind together with twine made from flax, because the granite beads were too heavy for the sabre-tooth ivory frame.
But then I am bit older than a lot of you.
Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth.
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That sounds like something a particular friend of mine might say.
Mark, is that you?
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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honey the codewitch wrote: Mark, is that you?
Sadly, no.
Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth.
To err is human, to arr is pirate.
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oh man... where to start.
When I was at university I had a 486 Motherboard hanging from the celling using fishing-wire and a huge desk fan blowing air on it to keep it cool (This was largely in the days before most CPU's had coolers on top, and a lot where still passive), I had to keep it cool because I'd overclocked the 66Mhz 486 DX 2 I had in it to something like 80Mhz.
I've built cases from Lego, changed airflow technology's and ducting using tea-bag boxes and cereal cartons, and during my 4 and a half years as an engineer for Orange UK, you don't want to know how many bare systems where glued into racks in data centre's using "No More Nails", when on a 4AM call out and no spares where available!
Right now in my rack up in the loft is a couple of AMD servers that are basically just bare boards sat on a piece of cloth (To prevent shorts) and propped up in the rack on those bus bars you have for connecting patch leads
Still Crazy (Best and only way to be!)
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Apparently you're the reason I asked the question about hacks. This is what I was hoping for. Well done!
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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LOL...
I've had many accolades over the years, but that ones a first!
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Stick a box fan under it meanwhile.
Where I worked for a while a couple decades ago, we always built our own computers for client jobs, and it was normal for us to always have computers sitting around that consisted of everything screwed to a piece of plywood or foam core board or stiff cardboard or whatever was around for testing before we committed to the components we were going to put together in the boxes, in addition to having some that we already assembled to test them already built. Not quite pizza boxes, though. That's a good one! Personally, though, I just use some old towers that I keep around and just put together new stuff in them.
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I don't know if a mining cart counts as a hack.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I own a MIG welder and chop saw, so I can weld one up and powder coat it from stock steel. But I think it's a pretty neat product and worth a look.
If it ain't broke don't fix it
Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
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Giving new meaning to the expression "Soup up your PC"
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My first hack was in my college years, back when a "laptop computer" was the size and weight of a typewriter (and kept your lap PLENTY warm), I bolted a steamer chest handle to the top of my mini-tower, and an eye-bolt to the back. I then fashioned an old strap with clip-hooks (think old-style carabiner clips before carabiners were known to anyone but climbers) on the ends. This was my daily setup for going from home to school to the office and back again. I got lots of interested looks on the bus.
My second hack was back when my kids were starting grade school and learning more about the internet than Dad was showing them, I gathered scrap components from various dead machines, and built my first home firewall on a piece of cardboard that I mounted on the wall behind my desk. Never worried about overheating. My wife even thought it was a fun conversation piece when friends would come over, even though she knew nothing about computers, and could barely use the one I gave her.
I have done several hacks since then, but they have been less and less original.
I did once mod a 5 1/4" floppy case to fit into a drive bay, and used it as a drawer to keep all my license fobs in. Remember those horrific parallel port devices you had to plug in to make commercial software work? <shudders>
Money makes the world go round ... but documentation moves the money.
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Your last one reminds me of the old:
Customer calls computer support:
“My drink holder is broken.”
CD/DVD disc tray is not designed to hold a 1 liter stainless flask.
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