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| Cutting through control panel overlay? |
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| Hoopstar:
I have not done it myself (yet) but I will be following the lead of TheJohn (full credits and ownership of the piccy) as seen below: |
| Sylentwulf:
Side-post I've been meaning to make. I just sent my order in to mamemarquees as well, and I asked if he could use the template on a separate layer to print out on plain paper so the template I use, and the overlay I have are exactly the same. He's printing it out for $10 more. Yes, it's $10 for about $.05 of ink, but I'll have a full size exact scale visio-style template to use for cutting out my control panel, and I'll KNOW that it WILL be a perfect match for my artwork. Worth it IMO. |
| sofakng:
Ok, I've done the same thing... Scott (from mamemarquees.com) sent me my control panel overlay as well as my template (for lining up the holes, etc). So now I need to cut holes into three things: MDF, Plexiglass, Overlay itself. For cutting the MDF I'll use my forstner bit; for the plexiglass I'll use forstner bit in reverse; for overlay I'll drill a pilot hole and then cut off pie shapes. However, I only have one template. Do I tape this down onto the MDF and then just drill my holes right through the paper? Remember that my template printout will end up being garbage is only used for alignment. However that still leaves me cutting holes into my finished overlay. If I drilled/cut holes out of my template printout, how do I know where to cut the holes on my overlay? I guess my question is this: In what order do I cut everything? Remember that I have my finished overlay as well as a junk overlay with gridlines (my template overlay used for alignment only) Sorry for so many questions :-\ |
| Nannuu:
This is assuming that you only have forstener bits and not a circle cutter or flush router bit, otherwise JAMMA Guy had some nice options. If you don't want to pay 10 dollars for a template (which seems a bit high btw) I do my artwork leaving either a .1 dot where the button will go or a 1" dot with two centerlines in the middle. That way you can use your overlay as the template. I like the CPO as a template as that IS an exact copy of the CPO, there is NO chance that a template was scaled wrong at printing. Place the template (or overlay) on the MDF. Place a drill bit punch (comes with most drill bit sets) in the center of the template hole. Smack it with a hammer. It will dent through the template and place a nice mark into the MDF below. Remove the template. Now when you start to drill, place the forstener bit tip into the dent and drill away. Next place a piece of junk material down. Lay the plexiglass (or lexan) on it. Place your drilled MDF on top. Line both up nicely and clamp it all together. Now use the drilled MDF holes as a guide for you plexiglass. Drill plexiglass. Once you have the plexi all drilled you can put your CPO on. If you are using concealed T-nuts make sure you have them in there. And if you are placing the dust guard under the artwork make sure it is on there as well before you lay down the CPO. Then cut the holes in the CPO as described earlier. Now place the plexi over the CPO. As most paper templates probably are accurate you can also just tape it down and drill through it. But it will be kind of ruined after that. I am a big fan of the drill bit punch. You can still use a template over and over this way. If you don't have one you can just as well use a finish nail or a screw or whatever is pointy. Just make sure you have it positioned correctly before punching because if you put your drill bit down it is going to slip into the dent you've made. The only cpo cuts that are important are the joystick holes if you have the dust washer under the artwork. |
| Sylentwulf:
The biggest problem with the drill bit punch method, is that it assumes your control panel overlay has every button, joystick, and trackball printed on it, which IMO is just weird :) My overlay, personally, has an image for under the controllers, but NO markings at all where any of the buttons and trackball should go. |
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