🚀 go-pugleaf

bonobo@Ingres.COM (David Victor) writes:

>I'm trying to make a nice-looking aluminum front panel for a project,
>and I'd like to be able to use rectangular switches, possibly other
>squared-off displays, etc.  How do you cut a perfectly-squared-off hole
>in an aluminum panel?  Is there some home-brew method I'm not aware of?

>Also, what's a good way to do the lettering?  I've got a LaserJet, but
>how do you transfer what's on paper to what's on the panel?  

One way that I like a lot uses a laser printer and clear overhead projector
film transparencies.  As always, MAKE SURE YOU'VE GOT THE KIND OF TRANSPARENCY
DESIGNED FOR PHOTOCOPIERS/LASER PRINTERS, not the thermal stuff that will
turn black and gum up your LaserJet.

Anyway...what we've done is draw up the whole front panel, with all labels
and markings for where holes will go, etc., using a graphics program, in
our case AutoCAD.  Then we use the software to mirror the drawing so all the
text is backwards.  Then we print it out on a LaserJet using the transparency
film.

Now...take your transparency and spray paint the side that has the toner
on it.  (Let it cool off first or it may smear.)  After the paint dries,
you'll have a piece of plastic where you can read your letters from the
back side, only they read OK because you reversed them to start with.
Obviously, you want to choose a paint color that the black toner will be
visible against - we use gray.

After the paint is dried, you can use trim adhesive or other glue to stick
your front panel on.  The way I prefer to do this is put on the label
before I drill and machine the holes - that way my drawing can also show
me the exact place to cut and drill.  The downside is that the plastic
layer can kind of gum up your drill and you sometimes have some ragged
plastic edges to trim afterwards.  Still - you end up with extremely
durable, good looking labels, because the print is on the other side of
the plastic and can't wear or wash off.


--
===============================================================================
paul marxhausen                              \/               grace 
university of nebraska - lincoln             /\              happens           
===============================================================================