Control Panel Work

My original plan was to have a go at restoring the control panel with some Bondo.  After a closer look at it and removing the plexi overlay, I decided to try and reproduce the panel from scratch. 

Another trip to Lowes and I was ready to have a go at it.  As typical, I was able to find (almost) what I needed.  The only 5/8 material they had was a piece of particle board shelving material, not likely to last long but worth a go for now.  I can always make another one if it doesn't work out.  There are several areas on the control panel that had to be routed out for the back edge and the joystick mount.  Rather than attempt to do this work with my fixed base router, I opted for a router attachment for my Dremel tool.  It worked perfectly, It was a little slower than using a full sized router, but much easier to handle and perfect for small projects like this one.

Here you can see I'm routing out the back edge that fits into the back support.  It is only an 1/8 of an inch smaller and runs across the entire back length.  So I used a strait bit, and clamped a guide for the router along the length of the panel.  I then had to work through and remove the remaining outside material.  When I was finished I had a perfectly smooth stair step look that I then test fitted in the back support. 

I don't have a picture of it here but the original control panel has a rectangular recessed area on both sides for the joystick to mount into.  It was a little more difficult to do, but not hard and took only about 15 minutes to knock out.

After that I used the original panel to mark off where the buttons would need to be mounted, and used a forstner bit I had from a previous project to drill those out.  Naturally they were a bit off from the original which had me worried.  So I grabbed the control panel overlay and the buttons and test fitted
the whole thing.  Since the buttons holes were slightly

larger than the buttons it had enough play in the layout to get the alignment correct.  Here's a picture I took while test fitting.  Now all I have left to do is route out the slot along the front for the t-molding and drill out each of the mounting holes for the 8 carriage bolts that hold the overlay on.  Then I'll give this a good coat of paint followed by a coat of Polycrylic and hope for the best.