Ideas for securing swappable CPs

[goldenageofarcade]

Hi,

After looking around for a while at all the cool stuff people are up to these days, I've opted to remove my gigantic 4-player panel (4 8-ways, 1 4-way, 1 firetop 8-way, a trackball and an Oscars modded Tempest spinner) and instead go with a total of 10 (so far) swappable panels that specialize on specific games/genres of games.  I find that when I play, I prefer to pick a game and play it for a while (I have a handful of original games to keep some variety going), so I don't necessarily want/need to be able to swap panels on the fly.  Generally if I have people over to play, I'll get a vote on the "featured" game and we'll run that one for the night, mostly 'cos I get tired of my un-tech-savvy friends trying to switch games, figure out what buttons do what, etc.

So with that in mind, can anyone who has done similar CPs give me some ideas for how to mount the tops down such that they're solid enough to handle enthusiastic play, yet removeable between sessions? 

I've seen a few designs, the one that looks the easiest is to use dowels mounted in the fixed base as pins that fit directly into the wood on the panel, but I worry that over time the wood will wear down and the fit will get sloppy. 

Are there any cool metal pins that fit into metal sheaths that can be locked somehow that anyone knows of?  Or any other method that people have used that work well?

Thanks,
Ryan

[EwJ]

You could press fit tooling pins and bushings (liners) and use some panel clamps to secure from coming up. Or use quarter-turn thumbscrews, T-pins, tons of possibilities.  Look for tooling hardware - for jigs, fixtures, etc. 
Glance through something like McMaster-Carr for a whole pile of ideas.

[goldenageofarcade]

Panel clamps, that's a great idea!  No reason I can't use 4 instead of the standard 2...  Not sure why I didn't think of that.  Thanks for the ideas, I'll research those items you suggested and see what I see.  Excellent!
Regards,
Ryan

[EwJ]

Some fine examples to look through:

telengard's

TheShanMan's

Paul's

You could use some of these ideas and utilize 1/4 turn screws, thumb screws, or maybe velcro.  If you check out the thumb screw link, check out things like locating pins, quick-release pins, bushings, etc while you're there.

for connections, etc

rdagger's
rototron


Have good time.

[TheShanMan]

Hey EwJ, thanks for pointing out my solution. I'm always interested in better ways of doing it (easier yet still looks good). One thing I've thought of... You know those lapel pins that has the fastener on the backside which slides onto the pin's shaft effortlessly but you have to squeeze to pull off? Something like that, but a little more robust and durable, would be cool in this scenario. I would love to eliminate the need to screw off and on a few nuts like I have to do now.