Holes in CP - before or after overlay is attached?

[megashock5]

Hello,

I'm at the point of drilling the holes in my CP, and I have an overaly on order with Andy at mamemarquees.com.

My question is, should I go ahead and make the holes now, or should I wait until the overlay arrives and make the holes with the overlay attached to the wood? Not sure how the overlay material is to drill through.

Anyone have any opinions on what would be better?

thanks!

[Jabba]

In my opinion, I would wait until you get the overlay back from mamemarquees before drilling the holes. Basically, use a centre punch where you want the buttons to go and then drill the wood, then use a exacto knife to cut out the button holes while the CPO is firmly attached to the wood panel.

[Rocky]

You definitely want to drill the holes without the overlay attached.

But, as Jabba said, use the overlay as a template to make sure that the holes in the CP line up where you want them.

[Jabba]

When I designed my CPO artwork, I added button holes where I wanted them to be and added cross-hairs so I could locate the middle of the button. A centre punch on the corss hairs leaves a dent on the wood you use later to drill the hole. These cross hairs really help to make sure you are drilling exactly where you need to. I'm not sure if mamemarquees does this on their "off-the-shelt" CPO's though...

[Sephroth57]

In my opinion, I would wait until you get the overlay back from mamemarquees before drilling the holes. Basically, use a centre punch where you want the buttons to go and then drill the wood, then use a exacto knife to cut out the button holes while the CPO is firmly attached to the wood panel.

i agree with this 

[megashock5]

OK, thanks for all the great advice.

The thing I forgot to mention is that my overlay is pretty much just a background design and doesn't have any of the controls marked or labelled at all.

So that being the case, would there still be any reason to wait for it before drilling?

thanks!

[Minwah]

I'm soon going to be in a similar boat (have made the holes already tho ).

What I want to know is do people get the CPO printed to the exact size of the CP, or oversized and trim down after it is affixed?  I would think the latter, but that must make positioning exactly more difficult.  Any tips?

[Jabba]

Minwah: I made the overlay a little bigger than the actual size of the wooden control panel. That way I was able to bend and glue the overlay around the edges of the CP. After that, applying T-Molding into the already glooved slot firmed it up quite nicely after I cut the CPO. There may be a different way, but thats how I approached it...

megashock5: I guess you could go ahead and drill the holes first and then cut out the CPO using the drilled buttons holes as your template. Cut the CPO very carefully using a pie type cutting pattern and bend the triangular shapes into the hole, then attach your button. Thats how I cut it out. The jacket on the button is about 1/8 of an inch and would cover up any minor mistakes made.

[megashock5]

minwah,

I ordered mine an inch bigger on all four sides than I needed it. I guess I'll find out how hard it is to position, but I wanted to be covered for any variance between what I measured and what I actually cut.

I'm wondering if the holes were drilled first, could I then put the overaly on and poke holes in it where the drilled holes are - and then stick an exacto or something in the hole and cut the rest of it out. Does that make sense?

EDIT: Jabba, good suggestion on cutting it into triangles. Anyone else do this too?

[Minwah]

Thanks guys,

I'm wondering if the holes were drilled first, could I then put the overaly on and poke holes in it where the drilled holes are - and then stick an exacto or something in the hole and cut the rest of it out. Does that make sense?

Yes that would be OK I think - that is exactly what I plan to do.  I've done this with Happ vinyl before and it worked fine.  I suppose accurate placement is not quite as crucial if you have no button/joystick surround graphics (neither do I).

[quarterback]

I'm soon going to be in a similar boat (have made the holes already tho ).

What I want to know is do people get the CPO printed to the exact size of the CP, or oversized and trim down after it is affixed?

[megashock5]

Here's a mockup of what it should look like when it's done. No control labels or anything.

[RayB]

I thought I read (in another thread) that mamemarquees oversizes the CPO by ~.5" on all sides to account for slippage while applying it to the CP.

I read that too, but I thought Scott said he does that for HIS CPOs. I didn't interpret that to mean he also did it for his client's CPOs. I guess we should ask if he meant his personal CPO's or not.

[GGKoul]

I thought I read (in another thread) that mamemarquees oversizes the CPO by ~.5" on all sides to account for slippage while applying it to the CP.

I read that too, but I thought Scott said he does that for HIS CPOs. I didn't interpret that to mean he also did it for his client's CPOs. I guess we should ask if he meant his personal CPO's or not.

He doesn't add the .5" on custom pieces.

[Hiub1]

You know a router works very well for removing exess CPO. I did half of the buttons on one of my CP's with an exacto knife and it was ugly, then i tried the router with a flush trim bit and it worked like magic.

[Scanner]

I'm wondering if the holes were drilled first, could I then put the overlay on and poke holes in it where the drilled holes are - and then stick an exacto or something in the hole and cut the rest of it out. Does that make sense?

I have done this on 3 control panels now with good results.

[Minwah]

OK so lets say if I were to have it oversized all round, would I be able to neatly trim off the excess with a knife afterwards?  How thick/strong is the CPO from MameMarquees?

I don't really fancy taking a router to it if it can be avoided!

[GameOver]

   YOWZA!  That sur iz a purdy panel megawatt!  uh...I mean megashock!

That blue is AWESOME, and the other colors look GREAT.  Very nice design!  I also did not have button 'markers' on my CPO, so I found the centers for da buttons using my design from PaintShop Pro, then transferred these centers to my CP and started drillin.  I slapped the CPO onto the already drilled CP, pressed down reeeal hard all over (use some type of squeegee approach, but careful not to scratch the CPO).  Once firmly applied, I flip'd 'er over and used a utility knife to cut the holes out (you can't miss 'em).  Then used the same utility knife to cut the excess.  It worked great for me.  See the pic below (nice holes!)....click on the earth under the big red guy over there to see the finished CP (I think you've already seen it).

[Hiub1]

Ok, for those of you who don't trust me, I will be finishing my new CP this coming weekend, and I will show you the results that a router yields. This is from one of the Capcom CPO's that a guy was selling on the board.

[RobopedeII]

Ok, for those of you who don't trust me, I will be finishing my new CP this coming weekend, and I will show you the results that a router yields. This is from one of the Capcom CPO's that a guy was selling on the board.

Yes, please show us the results - I'm also at this same point, and planning to use an exacto knife. I'd love to see your router results. I'm not too concerned about the button holes because of the button lip, but the trackball hole needs to be as perfect as possible.

[Flinkly]

well, with the trackball holes and the joystick holes, don't you need to take a much more precise approach.  i've always heard that you router out a small circle around your joystick hole on your cp panel, insert your dust washer, and then put your cpo over the top of that...so wouldn't you need to find the center, drill and router, then cut a perfect circle out with an exacto knife, and then glue down your cpo over the dust washer in the routered hole....i hope that all makes sense, and hopefuly someone else backs me up on this one.

it makes sense since you never see that dust washer on commercial games.

[shawnzilla]

Prolly not the smartest way to do it, but I drilled the holes on my cp first, then applied the overlay.

Then I sandwiched the overlay with a scrap piece of wood and drilled through the existing holes. Be aware though that with this method you'll be pulling sticky pieces of overlay backing off of your drill bit and it gets the overlay quite dusty.

[megashock5]

Flinkly,

I think I remember reading in Saint's book that the process you mention is the correct way but that it isn't vital that the washer be sunk into the CP. Above it would work too (not counting any asthetic preferences.) So I guess it's a personal call. I'll have to take a look again to make sure.


GameOver,

Thanks for the kind words! Design I can do, wiring is what has me worried...

[Reaper]

Thanks for the kind words! Design I can do, wiring is what has me worried...

I am the other way around, cant design anything - but wiring is fun

Look forward to seeing how yours turns out

[megashock5]

I'm looking forward to that too, Reaper 

So far it's gone very well (seeing that this is the first thing I've ever really built). That's probably what scares me the most; it's looking good to this point, I don't want to mess it up now!

I'm taking things pretty slow right now to try to avoid major mistakes. But I'm excited to see if it comes out as good as it is in my head. 

[Minwah]

it makes sense since you never see that dust washer on commercial games.

Actually some commercial games do have dustwashers showing...I believe many of them use metal CP's, and some sticks are not suited to having the dustwasher under the metal.

[Flinkly]

just a thought, but with some of the happs sticks, could you just stick the dustwasher under the whole cpo between the cpo and your joystick base?  most of the happ joysticks i've seen have had indentations on the top of the base that seems like it would work for something like this, and then you wouldn't have to screw around quite as much to do it.  also, to me, it seems like you would really scratch up your cpo after a bit if you had the dustwasher on the top of the cpo...

p.s.  sorry about this being slightly off topic...

[Minwah]

just a thought, but with some of the happs sticks, could you just stick the dustwasher under the whole cpo between the cpo and your joystick base?