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How to hide bolts?

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fallacy:

just use these

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=70&products_id=317


What I did was practice on a spare piece of wood how big the drill bit needed to be and how far I had to go down. When I found the right size drill bit and the depth which I marked off with a piece of tape on the drill bit I was able to finish the control panel pretty easy.

You have to find the right size drill bit. If the whole is too small you will crack the wood when you screw in the bolt. if the whole is to big you might end up striping out the area.


LeedsFan:

Looking at that trigger stick.... why couldn't you route out ~4mm of the wood panel and then sit the plate in that? Simply use normal headed machine screws and then the heads won't be above the surface of the wood panel. Then just two pieces of 3mm plexi to sit in the gap you have left. You'd need to cut little bits out where the machine screw heads sit, but the rest of it will now be flush. You need two pieces of course because you need to put them together round the base of the stick (with a hole cut out when they meet together)

You may need to adjust the measurements I've said here. For example I'm guessing that the mounting plate is 1mm thick. And I'm assuming that the stick will still function correctly if the plate is recessed by 4mm. If the plexi isn't perfectly flush (I'm a bit anal when it comes to this sort of thing  :P) then I just place bits of card under the plexi until it is.

I've done this method before with joysticks to get the ball-top at the perfect height for my personal preference. Then I just fill the recess above the plate with a piece of plexi to make the whole panel flush. Once artwork is put over the top it's no different to any other panel.
Just don't permanently affix the artwork so that you can get to the screws if you need to do any maintenance later. I use small bits of double sided tape to hold the art in place. It's firm enough but easily removable later if needed.

EDIT:  I just had an afterthought... I take it the handle of that trigger stick is easily removable yes? (I've never used one before to be honest). Because if not then applying artwork is gonna be a ---smurfette---! And if it is removable then you can fit one piece of plexi in the recess with a hole cut out... no need to make it two pieces.

Breaker:

Hi all,

I had this same issue when it came to mounting my joysticks and other elements. I had a couple of Wico 8-ways, a trigger joystick and realized
that under-mounting with the ability to remove if necessary along with my plans to laminate and have no bolt holes was going to be tough.
After some head-scratching I picked-up some 1/8" aluminum sheet and began playing around with the idea of mounting plates that I could route into the
top of my control panel. I eventually found that the idea could work.

Essentially, I created aluminum mounting plates for my joysticks which had bolts epoxied into them for easy installation and removal. I then routed my control
panel to mount the plates flush, filled the gaps with wood filler and voila! I've attached a few pics of the process but I can get into more detail if folks are interested.

This method is more work (but not much) and requires a drill press. The only issue I found was that while the epoxied bolts could handle a ton of
torsional pressure (ie. you can really tighten the bolts without breaking the epoxy) they were a little delicate from a lateral stress point of view.
Once installed though they have been super tough and strong.

Breaker

LeedsFan:

lol... look how clean and neat that routing is Breaker. That's why I stopped making project threads with pics.  :P  I was gonna post pics of how I did my Seimitsu LS32-01 sticks recently but I just did my routing by hand (you aint gonna see it anyway) .... and then I see your pics. I'd have been shamed.  :lol

pinballwizard79:

Breaker that is too much work

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