Help w/ plexi CP!

[brain21]

OK, I purchased a CP box and I have a slight conundrum here...

Attached is a simple pic of the CP surface viewed from the top.

The black is the wood.  THe blue is the plexiglass, and the grey is where the wood has been routed or sunken so that the plexi can lay on top of it.  The dots are the bolts holding the plexi to the wood.  Essentially the grey is the "lip" where the plexi sits on the wood.  Because of this, the plexi is flush with the black wood around the outside of it.

IOW, the light blue area is the plexi glass with NOTHING behind it.

My first problem is this:  Is it plexi?  Lexan?  I don't know.  Is there an easy way to tell?

2nd: the underside of the plexi is painted grey.  I would like to remove that paint so that the plexi is actually clear (at least for now), without the paint-remover cloudying up the plexi glass and ruining it.

3rd:  It is just 1/4" plexi, so mounting controls on this thing might not be the best.  I can see if a joystick is just mounted to the plexi, jerking it around during gameplay could eventually crack the plexi, whihc I don't want.  Ditto w/ buttons, plus it is thin.

So I was thinking of trying to cut a piece of wood essentially exactly the size of the light blue portion, and somehow attaching it to the plexi from underneath.  Then I would be essentially mounting the sticks & buttons to the wood, and the plexi would be acting as a std plexi CP overlay.

So what would be the best way of doing this?  Drilling thru both the wood & plexi and bolting the 2 together like the plexi is bolted to the lip?  Glueing the wood to the plexi?  IF I glue it I would image you would see the glue globs thru the plexi though...

Additionally, I would like to have a pattern (CP Overlay) show thru the plexi, so I could paint the wood, or put an overlay on it and then attach it.

What's the best way to drill through this stuff w/o cracking or ruining it?  I'm guessing slowly?  Are there special techniques to use (or drill bits) to get a nice drill hole?

Lastly, just bolting some wood to it would increase the weight of it, and hence the pressure on the lip of the lexan.  So would the best thing to do be to bolt a pice of wood to it, and then attach another couple "braces" underneath that that attach to the wood, and also screw into the actual black wood part of the control panel?

Thanks!

Brain21

[AtomSmasher]

What's the best way to drill through this stuff w/o cracking or ruining it?

[jedi27]

Hmmm..  you've actually purchased this?  Do you have an actual photo of this box?

Don't know about the type of plexi -- some of that is more or less branding more than the actual product itself.  At their heart, they are all acrylic (i think) based - some are perhaps more resilent to cracking - others to UV rays (to prevent yellowing) as it's usually used as a replacement for glass...

I would strongly recommend not trying to remove the paint - any chemical strong enough to remove this paint would surely disfigure the plexi.  I've honestly never tried it - perhaps you could test on a small area first?

Are you sure it's paint?  Some plexi ship with a plastic scratchguard film...  mine had lettering though, so it was pretty obvious.

I've heard others say that cutting / drilling this stuff is best when the plexi is placed between two peices of scrap wood.  This helps cut down on exit wounds.  I can tell you from personal experience that spade bits are notorious for this regardless of material.

Unless your panel is pretty small, I don't see how this plexi would not bend due to the force of the users...  just an epinion.  Most of the panels I've seen use the plexi as a nice finishing touch to show off their artwork underneath - which is actually over a wood or metal cp.

Good luck!!!

[brain21]

The bottom is definitely some sort of grey paint.  The top has the blue plastic film on it, and you can tell it's film.  THe bottom is paint though.  It's grey, like primer or something.

Perhaps I can get some sort of thinner and test it in a small corner...

I'll take pics probably on Friday and maybe post one up here...

Brain21