Bolts for mounting Happ j-sticks

[elfman12]

Ok, I'm getting ready to mount the Happ Supers in my CP - what's the best type of bolt/nut to use to mount them? It's a 1/2 MDF panel, and will have artwork put onto it later, then 1/4 Lexan on top. I'd like to have it as invisible as possible.

I thought about countersinking the screw holes from the top, but then the screw would just rotate in there when tightening from the bottom - unless I could drill a square countersink hole (haha) and use a squaretop bolt!

What other options are there?

[u_rebelscum]

Ok, I'm getting ready to mount the Happ Supers in my CP - what's the best type of bolt/nut to use to mount them? It's a 1/2 MDF panel, and will have artwork put onto it later, then 1/4 Lexan on top. I'd like to have it as invisible as possible.

I thought about countersinking the screw holes from the top, but then the screw would just rotate in there when tightening from the bottom - unless I could drill a square countersink hole (haha) and use a squaretop bolt!

What other options are there?

Counter sink a round hole and use a carridge bolt.  The square part of the bolt will be pulled into the wood when you first tighten them with a nut on the bottom, preventing any spinning.  If it's not pulled in all the way, you can hammer it down with another bolt on top, and tighten again.  Since you're going to put artwork and then lexan, you don't need to fill the top of the countersink with putty, but you can if you want.

[spidermonkey]

To bad you didn't use plywood because you could have just screwed the sticks from underneath instead of throughbolting them. Can't do that with MDF because its just not hard enough and the screws would eventually work themselves loose after a few intense games of Robotron . My control panel is 5/8' plywood with 1/8' lexan and with the exception of my Tron stick, all my other sticks are screwed from underneath. I'm pretty rough on my controls and they haven't come loose the slightest bit. If you feel more comfortable throughbolting then do exactly what u-rebelscum stated. Like he said, if you countersink them you're not drilling all the way through the wood so the square shank on the carrage bolt will just catch the wood that is further on down the hole and won't spin. If it does start to spin then lightly teach it a lesson with a hammer using another carrage bolt as a punch. I'm basically just repeating what u-rebelscum said and he is right.
Good luck

[OSCAR]

Ditto.  Carriage bolts will compress the MDF and hold without turning.  If you snug up the nuts tight and use toothed or split lockwashers, you'll never have to worry about them coming loose.

[elfman12]

Counter sink a round hole and use a carridge bolt.  The square part of the bolt will be pulled into the wood when you first tighten them with a nut on the bottom, preventing any spinning.  If it's not pulled in all the way, you can hammer it down with another bolt on top, and tighten again.  Since you're going to put artwork and then lexan, you don't need to fill the top of the countersink with putty, but you can if you want.

Ok, thanks for the tips, guys. That sounds easy enough - time to get crackin'...