Sometime ago a thread about control panels included a guy who said he used a print-out of his track plan under plexiglass for his control panel. I’d like to try the idea with holes in the plexiglass for toggles at appropriate spots on the plan. The silly thing I can’t figure out is how to make nice holes for LEDs and toggles in the paper? A hole punch won’t reach the interior, drilling leaves a ragged mess. Anyone done this?
Thats what I use for my panels, except they arent under plexiglass. I have printouts glued to the fascia of my layout with the toggles in the appropriate places. If you have the paper glued to something, very thin plywood in my case, when you drill through it the paper will hold up and just leave a clean hole. If you do this pick up some spray can adhesive so you get a nice even, thin coat and your paper doesnt get all wrinkled.
I used 8.5" x 11" label paper. Then you just peel the back off and apply it directly.
Here’s one thread relating to control panels:
http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/854767/ShowPost.aspx
Tom
I glue the printout between the plex and the masonite(plywood). The holes are printed on the printout. I then drill the whole thing from the plex down on a drill press with a sharp brad point drill bit. If you do not drill too fast or too slow, there will be very little clean up needed. If you use a fresh backer board for each hole, there will be little splitering on the back. There is a learning curve for this, so you may want to practice on some scrap, if this is the final panel and you want it showoff perfect.
Looking forward to some pics of the result.
You might be talking about mine. I didn’t drill through the paper. I clamped the two plexiglass peices together with the paper in between and marked the hole locations, then removed the paper to drill. I found it can help to actually run the drill in reverse for less splintering, but in any case, drill slowly, high speed melts the plexiglas and makes it chip. Once drilled, I put the paper back in and used a knife to cut out the holes in the paper. I also used rather heavy paper, about the most my color printer could handle, not ordinary printer paper. Off hand I forget the weight of the paper.
–Randy
Hi
I am going to build a modle railway soon. What I am going to do for the controal panel is use red and green E L wire for the scamatic (track plan) cupled with studs probes and capacitive discharge system for turnout controal.
The idea is that the track that the train wil travel on will glow green. Others will be red.
Have done some worke on the controal panel with few problems so far and these i have been able to sort out.
hope to have some feedback and comments.
Hey thats a great idea! I’m going to abandon the plexiglass look for this solution. I’ve got a great printer and have adobe software, so it should look cool. And if I don’t like it I can simply change it on the computer and print again.
I used Visio but almost any good graphics program will work. Need bigger than 8.5"x11", use more than one sheet. Mine is two sheets wide. If you end up scratching it up over time, just print another sheet(s). The nice thing with this method is that you can get creative with colors, if you have a color printer. I stuck to black and white. Of course I am modeling Norfolk Southern … Now where did that horse get to ?