Panel too thick for pot

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floid
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Panel too thick for pot

Post by floid » Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:59 am

Hey all,
I have some correct value pots with a D- shaft that accept a matching knob, but they're designed for a 20ga panel and i'm trying to mount them on a 1/8 panel - the nut barely catches. The knob is kind of oddball, finding a match in a different style plus pots to go with would get a little pricey. So I'm trying to find a nut with some kind of extension flange that would run partially into the panel to grab more thread, but am having trouble finding anything. There's something called a t- nut that has a flange, but it has teeth, not a hex- head for tightening.
Has anyone encountered this before? Is there a name for the part i'm looking for? What did you do instead?
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Post by vvv » Sat Jan 14, 2017 9:02 am

Jeeze, by the title I thought this thread was about a government inquiry into the benefits of ganja. :twisted:

I just (last month) need such a nut for an effect pedal, and found a few different pedal-sites and electronics sites carried 'em by googling for "flanged nut", and "insert nut", and "ferrule nut"; first try, "hex head insert nut"

Look here for what I needed:
http://amprepairparts.com/jacks.htm
3/4 down page: "JACK NUT/FERULE, CHROME, GENUINE CLIFF UK"

Inside threads:
https://www.allparts.com/EP-4923-001-Ni ... _1466.html
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ubertar
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Post by ubertar » Mon Jan 16, 2017 6:10 am

If you can't find the nut you want, you could use a rotary tool with a tungsten carbide cutter bit to grind away a circle around the hole for the nut to go deeper.

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floid
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Post by floid » Mon Jan 16, 2017 5:37 pm

I'm always amazed at what Allparts charges. There's no way I can justify $38 for 10 nuts. That's just the thing I need, and I've searched until my eyes glazed w/o turning up anything else that would work w/o modification - retapping, hacking down, filing etc. Wish I still had access to the university engineering shop.
My Dremel skills are such that the kind of surgery Ubertar suggests would probably put at least one nasty gouge on the face. It'd be nice if they made a unibit that went in 1/4" steps...
I filed down one face of each panel nut so that the thread is flush with the face rather than slightly recessed. This allows about 1 1/4 turns to grab the pot. Used red loctite and put epoxy in the keeper lug holes, hopefully it will hold.
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Post by vvv » Tue Jan 17, 2017 3:46 am

Man, I'd look for those at Ace Hardware or Home Depot or Rat Shack or sompin' ...
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Post by floid » Tue Jan 17, 2017 5:13 am

Yep, and Fastenal too.
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Nick Sevilla
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Post by Nick Sevilla » Tue Jan 17, 2017 6:23 pm

You can do a recess on the INSIDE of the faceplate, instead of on the outside.

Use a Dremel tool, which you can hopefully have on some sort of rig like a routing attachment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqu-Ni12oic

Clamp down your faceplate, and then SLOWLY bring down the dremel into the area to be removed.

It helps if you also have a dremel attachment such as this one, if you do not have the plunge routing attachment:

https://www.dremel.com/en_US/products/- ... utting-kit

The point being, you can preadjust the DEPTH of cutting, and then just let the tool do the job properly.

NOTE: use a metal cutting bit which is a 90* angle of cut (shaper 90* cutting edge).

If you were in the Los Angeles area, I'd invite you over to help you do this.

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floid
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Post by floid » Tue Jan 17, 2017 8:19 pm

This afternoon I was playing with the idea of getting a cheap set of forstner bits from harbor freight, possibly using a small section of dowel in the existing hole to see if it stabilized things if that became an issue. I think the main question would be whether one bit could survive to the end of the job.
But using the depthset attachment on the Dremel, I could make a template to clamp to the panel, controlling my cut both vertically and horizontally. Probably the best option since it's free 8)
Thanks guys for helping me think this through.
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Post by Drone » Wed Jan 18, 2017 10:34 am

Maybe you should just make a new front panel, for the gauge of the pots?
The previous statement is from a guy who records his own, and other projects for fun. No money is made.

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Post by vvv » Wed Jan 18, 2017 4:34 pm

Well, I just bought a cheap set of those step bits from there to help me build Kurt Ballou's distortion pedal, so thanks for that idear!
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floid
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Post by floid » Wed Jan 18, 2017 7:50 pm

Drone wrote:Maybe you should just make a new front panel, for the gauge of the pots?
But i've already made this one :oops: Lesson learned for the future tho.
HF's step bits actually seem to hold up fairly well. Just keep your rpms low and use 3n1 or wd-40, mine have held up for a few years now.
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Drone
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Post by Drone » Sat Jan 21, 2017 8:26 am

Not knowing what this is exactly, could you cut part of the panel out, and bolt a thinner panel for the pots, a panel within a panel. It might look cool, again, not knowing what this is :D
The previous statement is from a guy who records his own, and other projects for fun. No money is made.

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floid
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Post by floid » Sat Jan 21, 2017 11:18 am

That's a really cool idea from a cosmetic standpoint, actually. But i've already gone the dremel route. On that note, i've got my five things I do with a dremel and forget how versatile it can be, thanks again to Ubertar and Nick for helping me figure this out.
Final assembly sometime today and i'll post pics.
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