Transfer plans to MDF

[georgemcfly]

I can't find a wood CNC place close. Want to do this myself. Buddy has a drill press, i have correct bit.

How do I transfer my plans to the wood?

[shmokes]

You're a little light on the details there.  What type of plans are you transferring.  The side panel of an arcade cabinet, or joystick/button placement on a control panel?

If it's the latter (which I kind of guess it is since you're talking about drilling, rather than cutting), just poke a hole with a pushpin through the centers of all the button-holes on your plans.  Then lay the plans over the workpiece and color over your pin-holes with a sharpie.  That will put little dots on your workpiece everywhere you need a hole drilled.

It's a little tougher if you want to transfer a shape from plans to a piece of wood.  What I did was got this colored pencil, that is like halfway between a pencil and a crayon, and I scribbled it really thick on the underside of the plans, making sure that my scribbles went over the outline/cutline on the other side of the paper.  Then I taped the plans to my workpiece, with the side I just colored facing down, and I traced over my plans something dull, that I could press hard with.  I used a wall-anchor, as you can see in my second picture.  This caused my line to transfer pretty well from my plans to my workpiece, as you can see in the third picture (the third picture is from different plans than what is shown in the second picture -- they're just used to illustrate the process).

[georgemcfly]

yes I'm doing my CP. Nothing fancy, just can't stand crap not lined up or done half way. Want stuff centered and done right. didn't think about poking thru the paper... was over thinking it with transfer paper or something... not sure.

[Muerto]

Hey..

I made the plan (Nintendo Cab) in AUTO CAD, with messures, and transferred them to a 6mm pine board, then i used a jigsaw to cut exactly at the lines so i got an excatc mold.
I placed the mold ontop on a piece of MDF, drawed with a pencil, and used a jigsaw, but this time i cut aprox 5mm of the mark, so that the router bit could do the rest..

I did it like this:

http://spaceinvaders.7.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=1132