It actually took me two tries to get this right. These pictures are from my first try. The second time I drilled the hole for the joystick in both the 1/8" hardboard and the laminate prior to gluing. I just lined up the holes with the hole in the mounting plate.
I had to drill holes for the mounting plate bolts so that the hardboard would lay flush.
A little bondo to fill the holes.
There will be T-molding on the front of the CP. Because of the laminate the T-molding does not quite cover the entire front so I used an 1/8" roundover bit on the bottom. I also applied a little black spray paint ahead of time to cover any areas the T-molding misses.
Here is a shot of the front portion of the CP. They were made with scrap pieces of plywood.
Here is the finished product.
These turned out well but have a number of drawbacks. For one I used regular size start buttons because they were labeled and I was trying to avoid artwork. Because of this I was unable to fit a second action button which made a few games unplayable. Also the whole assembly ended up being very tight for space. I'm not sure I can easily remove the joystick if it needs replaced.
When I build mine I'm considering using metal control panels. For this project these worked well because I had extra laminate and could save my friend a few dollars.