[R-390] How to finish a front panel (more)

[Norman Ryan]

Hi, Scott,

The panel looks superb!  I like the softly rounded edges.  Lettering
looks perfect.  Some questions:

Did you run the panel over a regular woodworking router table at the
router's usual high rpm?  (Fed slooow and eeeasy, I expect.)

What kind of bit-- carbide tip?  HSS?

Besides feeding slowly, did you take off a little at a time?  

Would you skip the disk sanding step?

Whatcha think?

Martha Stewart would be sooo proud of us-- this attention to detail is
right up her alley!  She could do this for us in the prison metal shop,
provided she has made her daily license plate quota.  :-)

73 de Norman KG4SWM


scott wrote:
> 
> What I did not mention in this first post is how I dressed the panel edges.
> This may be getting a bit carried away for some but it sure makes them look
> better!!
> The panels were sheared from aluminum plate in the factory and the edges
> were never dressed.  The shearing leaves the edges rough from the blade
> cutting through the plate and compressing the metal on the edges.  I used a
> disk sander to straighten the edge then I ran the panel through a router
> table with a 3/8" radius rounding bit.  It is a nice soft radius for the
> edge.  I needed to then sand starting at 120 grit up to 220 to remove a few
> chatter marks and give the panel a perfect edge.  Take a look at the
> pictures of the edge that I added:
> <http://home.earthlink.net/~polaraligned/_wsn/page2.html>
> 
> Let me know what you think.  Am I nuts?  Well...let's not go there
> 
> Scott