best way to drill large holes in WAD cases?

[Greg.]

Hi Kenny,

You don't say the diameter of the holes require, but generally I would recommend the drilling is done with a good engineers pillar drill for an acurate and neat finish. If you or an acquaintance don't have access to such equipment, use yellow pages to search out small back street metal fabricators on engineers who will probably do the job for you while you wait for a couple of quid into their tea kitty.

Best wishes,

Greg

[pre65]

Kenny-Greg is right

you need to hold the piece being drilled ie in a machine vice or clamped to the drilling table,and dont try to drill the final size first.
start with a small pilot drill and work up to the final size.

using a pillar drill and clamping the piece to be drilled is the way.

Philip

[lt_texan]

only we could have a 2 page thread on drilling holes! This is a great hobby.

[Richard]

Ha, it all comes round, got to about 4 pages last time, here's a pair of stepless taper cutters, poor pic but you can see the flutes. Work great on bean cans to 3/16" steel, very clean hole without chatter. Pillar drill is best, they can wind themselves in to thin sheet with a hand drill. One does up to 25mm and the other 35mm or thereabouts and these are Sykes Pickavant high speed steel from a car body factors maybe 30 years ago but probably still around,

[Richard]

One of these is also very handy when say you just need to enlarge a mil or so with a new pot or somesuch,

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?...FG11M&DOY=16m3

[david counter]

don't last too long when you put them in a drill

[Richard]

Nope only carbon steel for that money but they do work OK by hand

[KennyK]

see I'm learning already.


what I'm hoping to do is to add a separate power switch for the phono II. I got the idea from seeing someone's (The Shadow?) post on the old WAD board. now that there's a chance that I'll be able to get hold of a spare chrome knob I'm wanting to make sure that I don't make a real mess of the brushed aluminium panel if I attempt to enlarge the LED hole for the second switch and drill another for the LED. I'm not too worried about the chassis, as that will be hidden, but I'd like to make a reasonable job of the front. it doesn't look like a kit at the moment, but if I bodge it, it will.

[Greg.]

Hi Kenny,

Now you've explained exactly what you want to do, the pillar drill has to be the way to go. Using a rotary on/off switch, you hole in the face plate has to be fairly large to clear the nut that secures the switch to the front panel of the chassis, exactly the same as on the front plates of the Pre II and PSU II. I seriously suggest you take this to a small engineering shop as I originally recommended above. The bigger the hole, the harder it is to control the cut and you need to rigidly clamp the plate for a tidy hole.

Best wishes,

Greg

[KennyK]

thanks for all the advice guys. I'm going to cop-out and see if I can get someone to do it for me. I'd rather that than make a mess of it.