[eekimus]

Hi,

First off- hello. Been a long time unregistered reader..3rd post here I think.

Anyways, been building stuff recently and there's one thing I still can't get my head around. I'm about to mount RCA jacks, power switch and 3.5mm stereo socket to a 19mm thick pine panel. First off, the material is way to thick, so I will need to thin the panel down to just a few millimeters thick.

Since I can't afford forstner bits, I'll just use spade bits on my press drill. Since the threaded section for the 3.5mm nut to turn is about 2mm long, my main concern is the strength of the panel when it's only 2 mm thick. Can't really add a washer, thought it would be useful, because there isn't much thread length to use.

What happens when I stick my earphones in there? Pull them out? I can see the jack tearing a nice big hole with splinters everywehere. I guess the alternative would be to use a bigger 1/4" jack+adapter for my earphones....which just seems impractical.

So...suggestions? I was thinking I will need to mount it to an aluminium panel of some sort, then secure that to the timber panel. The problem with this, is that the jack will be recessed quite a bit, and if you have right angled connector on the end of your earphones, they might not reach (like 1st gen iphone problem).

 

[Uncle Erik]

Have you thought about mounting the aluminum panel on the outside? You could use a chisel to recess the aluminum panel into the pine so it sits flush. It wouldn't have to be the prettiest recess underneath since it would be covered by the aluminum.

I wouldn't risk a 2mm thickness with pine. It's soft and likely to splinter if it sees a lot of wear.

Another option would be to create a recess from behing that would bring the aluminum panel closer to the front. Then use a vise to bend the aluminum into a square U shape with a couple of extra bends to make wings on the sides. That way the aluminum panel could slip into the hole in the pine, come back for the depth of the wood, and have two wings that sit flush on the back side. You could put screws through the wings to secure it to the thicker part of the wood.

I hope that makes sense. Um, I'll take a shot at doing an ASCII pic:

__ __
|______|

Something like that would let you mount it from behind and not have a problem with a recessed jack or thin wood.

And post some pics when you're done!

 

[Billyk]

I did something similar to Uncle Eric but searched about and found a nice shiny brass plate. I drilled, sawed and chiseled the wood and covered the mess with the plate. I came out nice and was easy to mount the pot and jacks on too.