Drilling a CP...

[sirhcman]

When drilling for a cp that will have lexan or plexi do you usually drill the wood first or the plexi or what is the best way to go about it?

[AlanS17]

It depends on what material you use. Lexan can be drilled seperately, but plexi must be drilled with the wood for stability.

[sirhcman]

I am using lexan...So either way should be fine then?

[JoeB]

The proper way to do it is to drill all the holes out first, then attach the lexan to the CP (small holes all around).

Lastly, you drill pilot holes in the lexan right in the middle of the holes for the buttons, at which point you use a router (with a laminate drimer style bit attached) to route out the hole.

The above method assumes you have all the tools, but it results in the cleanest and most professional looking job (since lexan button holes are nice and smooth and perfectly align with the CP holes).

[GSXRMovistar]

I have plexi on top of my cp and what I did was first drill all the holes in the wood/mdf, then attach the plexi to the top (just used a lot of masking tape to keep it all held together).

I then flipped the cp over a supported it underneath with a scrap peice of MDF. Then I drill through plexi using the original holes as a guide. Also not that I had my drill on reverse so the hole cutter actually melted its way through the plexi instead of cutting it.

[grafixmonkey]

When I drilled my panel, I did the holes in the wood first and then got lexan.  I kind of wished I'd drilled all the button holes at once though, seems like it would have been easier than shoving a hole saw down through an existing hole that was made with a spade bit.

If you mount your joysticks on the top so that the square part sticks through, or if you have a trackball, you'll have to do those square holes in the wood without the lexan attached, so you might do those big square holes before adding the lexan and doing the others.  If you're using the score-and-snap method of trimming the lexan to fit your panel, I think that's best done with the lexan firmly attached and possibly bolted down, before any other holes are drilled.