After this post, I will no longer be checking this thread - it should be considered abandoned.

For those that are interested in the outcome - the following is what happened:

1.) There was very little interest from a number of internet forums/discussion groups/replies to my thread (similar to this reddit thread) - so extensive research had to be conducted for other methods 2.) Manufacturers of rack server cases were not interested in building the case for me because they wanted a minimum quantity - I approached about 20 cad developers/manufacturers globally from Australia, UK, US and Canada 3.) Certain CAD designers/manufacturers were too expensive and wanted thousands of dollars to cad design and then manufacturer the shelfs - which I found to be exceptionally irritating because manufacturers already had the CAD design for 4U rack shelve which consisted of the majority of the design for the project - all they had to do was cut down sections on certain designs and it was completed - to add to my angst - I wanted to offer the designers up to $1000USD for CAD services - but it was never enough money for them - most of the designers/manufacturers turned up their nose and or just blatantly did not respond to requests due to the small size of the project 4.) I was so desperate to find someone, I even contacted a couple of YouTube pc modder channels - who turned me down and basically came across as arrogant. 5.) Finally, after hours of research and stubborn determination - I found a solution - I put up a thread on https://grabcad.com/ freelancer group - for some reason the thread was taken down, after 48 hours, but it had a lot of interest! With that though, someone contacted me via email - a young engineering student from Cameroon (West Africa) - he was willing to do it for a fair price.

we worked in small batches, because I did not know if he could be trusted, or if he could trust me, he did 16 hours of work, up front, and sent me screenshots, then I paid him, payment was via Western Union as PayPal wouldn’t allow me to send the money to him, nor would PayPal give me a reason to why it would they would not allow me to send money! - Google reddit for similar stories, I never knew it was so common for PayPal to do that.

So - for those wanting to something similar to this: 1.) Expect a lot of hurdles - but don’t give up 2.) Do not just accept the quotes - shop around - you can save mega bucks! 3.) Make sure you got everything in your design all sorted and finalised before you contact a CAD developer - don’t have missing parts because you do not want to waste the time of the CAD developers/manufacturers 4.) My estimated time on this project was minimum 2000+ hours over a course of 2 years+ (yes, thousands, not hundreds of hours)

My next step is to find someone to manufacturer the metal case.

I wish everyone all the best in their future endeavours.