It is quite robust and neater compared to my previous one, which was literally tied down using hanging wire.

I used the backing board from the previous frame (which is solid cork) to mount the motherboard.  This sits atop the LCD panel, thus I added little quarter-inch wood spacers on the underside and cut various slots to let the LCD panel cables to come through, to make room for the hanging wire, etc.

Here is the motherboard screwed-in on top of the cork board.  The CDROM drive is on the bottom left which I fastened using some tape and a screw to prevent it from sliding out.  The compact flash PCMCIA adapter is on the bottom right.  Power connector and switch is on top just above the bare CPU surrounded by thermal gunk.

I used the backing board from the frame to seal it all in.  I cut a couple of slots for the hanging wire and a slot to allow access to the power connector and screwed it onto 4 elbows that I mounted on the frame.  I used styrofoam as spacers between the backing board and the board mounting the motherboard.  This not only keeps the backing board straight and firm, but also keeps the motherboard snuggly sandwiched in between.  The PCMCIA eject "button" peeks out from the bottom of the frame allowing easy access to the compact flash card.

I think it is solid enough (and neat?) to ship across the country to the intended recipient.

One potential problem with this frame is the lack of cooling for the CPU.  There is no heatsink and I didn't connect the fan either (couldn't figure out a nice way to do it).  It is an old 233 MHz CPU (doesn't heat up like the new chips), but it does get hot.  I set the CPU speed to low in the BIOS and it isn't too busy, so it should hopefully hold up.  There is good convectional air flow through the back of the frame with the CPU sitting right on top - I hope that suffices.  I have it running for the last 5 days and it hasn't lost its bearings yet, but if there is a simple way to cool it without the fan I am all ears.

A couple of folks mailed me inquiring about the condition of my previous frame.  It continues to hang in my study faithfully displaying my photos.  I recently replaced its hard disk since the old one was driving me batty with the noise, but besides that I haven't touched it.  It noticed that it isn't as bright as the new frame I built, partly because of the dust buildup[*] on the inside and partly due to either the lamps or the LCD going a tad dimmer (it has been running continously for almost 1.5 years now!)  Here it is.

[*] To prevent dust buildup in the new frame I sealed the gaps between the frame and the glass and between the matte and the glass with tacky glue.  I also sealed the LCD panel to the matte with tacky glue.  Only time will tell if this works as expected.