Friends with benefits...

[yotsuya]

Or should I say the benefit of having friends with cool stuff.

The shop teacher here has some scraps of metal and offered to cut a control panel plate for me:



The plasma cutter was awesome. I drew up my CP idea in Illustrator, exported it to Plasmacam, and watched the machine cut out exactly what I needed. Can't wait to clean it, paint it, and install it!

[Nephasth]

Nice! Gotta love square holes for carriage bolts!

[yotsuya]

Yeah, but the only carriage bolts I could find were 1/4. I had to drill the holes bigger to accomodate them, but they are too big for the joystick. A 1/4 drill bit fixes everything.

He has some more scraps. I might have to cut a metal panel for my OTHER cab 

[elkameleon]

carriage bolts are a ---smurfing--- pain, you might be able to find some #10, maaaaaybee, some #8 carriage bolts. Don't count your chickens though... All I want for Christmas are some M3 carriage bolts!

[yotsuya]

Thanks for the link, James. I might have to look into those.

We just cut another panel. This time, I made sure to square the holes for the carriage bolts that I have. Now I'll have a regular plate AND a backup! 

[Gray_Area]

http://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?sku=CPNINBOLTSET

 

Use to find these at skate shops. I don't see why the hardware store wouldn't have them.


Still, japanese cabinet panels have under-mounted studs. Them's the ticket.

[elkameleon]

http://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?sku=CPNINBOLTSET

 

Im fully aware of these, let me rephrase that. All I want for Christmas are some M3 carriage bolts that AREN'T a dollar a piece because somebody likes to price gouge. Oh yeah, and then the shipping ends up costing more than the actual product, no thank you sir.

[yotsuya]

I just stopped at Ace Hardware and bought some M6 carriage bolts as well as some 3/16 bolts as well. The 3/16 bolts have a much smaller head, which might work out nicely. I'll play with them and see.