How much did you flush mount the bottom of your Control Panel

[Negativecreep0]

I am using 3/4'' mdf and i flushed out about 1/4'' of the wood for the joysticks, now after that i went to flush on top for the t-nuts that left about little less than half inch of wood left for the t-nut.... now when i banged the t-nut into the hole THE MDF BROKE!!!! and i have to do my control panel all over again...........any thoughts guys thanks

[dema]

If you have to do it over again, see if you can use 5/8" mdf. Then you won't need to route the bottom of the CP.

[markrvp]

Don't "bang" the T-nuts in.  Gently tap them in with a hammer.  To pull them in all the way, go ahead bolt the joystick bases from underneath.  Tighten the bolts until the T-nuts pull down into the MDF.  Then you can take the bases back off to finish the panel.

[pointdablame]

Don't "bang" the T-nuts in.  Gently tap them in with a hammer.  To pull them in all the way, go ahead bolt the joystick bases from underneath.  Tighten the bolts until the T-nuts pull down into the MDF.  Then you can take the bases back off to finish the panel.

exactly.

And be sure to route out a little circle for the Tnut to sit into so that they don't sit above the top of the CP.  And if you want to cover up the T-nuts with putty or the like to get a perfectly flat surface, be sure to put the bolt in before you putty so you don't fill in the T-nut hole