Steve of BMOW has done several amazing hardware projects including a homemade CPU from logic chips and CLPDs, Mac floppy emulators, and more. Rather than link them here, browse the links on his sidebar and read the descriptions of each project.

Schematics? Forget it. Everything was built incrementally, one wire at a time, while staring at chip datasheets. It’s an organic creation.

Yeah, that's real hardware hacking right there.