Drilling a finished enclosure - hints, tips, and how tos please!

[Willybomb]

So I'm building a multi on order for a friend. It has a madbean kingslayer, gainster, and a boneyard etch. The enclosure is possibly the best I've done. It's taken a lot of work and some interesting techniques to get it where it is now, but that's for another thread. The holes are straight and the image with the lacquer clear coat looks stunning. There's just one problem.

I forgot to drill the hole for the kingslayers diode selection switch.

I REALLY don't want to put the finish at risk but I have no choice. It must be done. I'm thinking I would do it asap before the lacquer hardens too much but I don't want to damage a soft coat with bits of aluminium nor do I want crazing in a hard one.

I'm thinking some masking tape over where I want to drill is about the only thing I can do to save it.

Help me guys...

[flanagan0718]

I would drill the hole in the top and wire the switch to the back where the jacks are (if they are top mounted).

[Haberdasher]

i like his idea^^^

[lincolnic]

Tape over the entire enclosure before you drill. All of it. You're going to get little metal chips flying around, and they're going to scratch the one place on the enclosure you didn't tape off.

Also, when you're done drilling, if there are any metal bits left on the enclosure, do not brush them off with your fingers. It'll scratch. Pick them up with a piece of tape instead.

Why yes, this has happened to me, why do you ask?

[peterc]

I did something similar once that worked OK.

I marked the position on the switch hole and before drilling, I took a craft knife (xacto?) with a sharp blade and cut a circle into the finish slightly larger than the hole required. I then scraped away the finish till there was bare aluminium where the hole need to be. Took a bit of work, but it worked out fine.

Centre punched and drilled, no problems. There was a millimetre or so of bare aluminium around the hole, but this was covered by the washer and nut.

Hope this helps
Peter

[Willybomb]

Thanks guys. I was in the lucky position of finding out about this before I'd boxed anything.

I ended up taping the enclosure.  I pulled out the drill press and did a pilot hole, and then used the step drill to get the width I needed, clearing the debris after every step.  The tape residue was the worst thing, plus a small thumbprint I left in the top from too much pressure holding everything (I'd caught that early though, so not much damage).

A quick cut with the wet and dry cleared up the tape.  This lacquer is soft enough that I was able to rub most of the print out, but I cut the rest of the top anyway and gave the whole thing another coat.  The switch hole is pretty much where it would have been if I hadn't missed it in the first place.

After drilling with switch on to check placement against back wall, and the two enclosures I'm working on.

Thanks again everyone.