question about building a case for a portable nes

[notaburger]

i know that this is not arcade related persay but i trust you guys and most of you seem to know your stuff 
i am going to build a portable nes and write a paper about it for my technical writing course here at A&M and i was wondering if anyone here happens to have any suggestions of what i should build the case out of
i am not familiar with metalwork or plastics so i'm lost
i was considering buying a project box but they are not really ergonomic and tend to be fairly thick
i'm plannin on using a full size nes and a psone lcd if anyone is curious about the size or the route that i'm going to take
i decided against the nes-on-chip for legality reasons eventhough i'm fairly confident that it's not illegal, just frowned upon at best
any help with links or something would be great
i literally have no clue where to start
thanks

[Abomination]

I've seen mini atx integrated boards put into the old NES systems before.  Do that and convert the joysticks to USB.  Put the slimline CD rom in where the eject cartridge would be.  To be honest I would skip the PS LCD and try and make it look stock (just my humble opinion).

But check out http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/nespc/
should be easy to do.

[Silhouette]

Go here, read up, buy the book. 

[PacManFan]

I've built a few portables, and you've got a few options:

1) standard radio shack project case
2) cnc milled parts
3) hand cut parts (or machine cut)
4) vacu-forming (not as hard as it looks)

-PMF

[notaburger]

i've visited ben's site quite a few times and found somewhere where he posted how he built his snes case, he does it by hand though and i am afraid that i don't have the abilities to do that and have it look nice
what are these cnc milled parts that you're talking about and do you happen to have a nice link that explains vacuum forming?
thanks for the help

[spiffyshoes]

He doesn't make the cases by hand anymore.  Now he casts them out of urethane resin.  You might consider trying to go that route.

[Stingray]

It would be fairly easy to do a one-off case out of fiberglass.

-S

[notaburger]

alright, i found this site http://www.emachineshop.com/
has anyone here used these guys or does anyone know someone good to deal with
i really don't want to spend more than a hundred for this shell, kinda sad how much of a break i'll get if i get ten....sigh
if only i had 10 extra nintendo's layin around
:-D
and as far as i can tell this site makes you use their cad software
and i'd honestly prefer to make it in inventor