I am putting a new rear car stereo in the bedroom area. it is installed on the back wall of the rear closet above the headboard. the old stereo plate needed redone so i could put an ipod cable and take out the inverter switch that i no longer need with my new inverter. i decided to make the panel myself. the old one was plastic over .060 aluminum. i needed to make the new plate larger to cover a hole in the wall and to incorporate the ipod cable.
i got some .060 aluminum cut at a aluminum shop and then designed the plate and went to a trophy shop and had them use their laser cutter to cut the black plastic to size and then put the labels on i wanted.
then i cut the aluminum with my dremmel to get the holes for the stereo and switches. then i taped the alum and plastic together and sanded them together to make them the same exact size. then i used 3m trim adhesive to glue them together. then used my drill press to drill the mounting holes and the hole for the ipod cable that i put in with a rubber grommet i got from harborfreight.
it turned out quite nice.
here are the pictures of before and after.
tom
here is the old plate
here is the old one again
the old and the new
front of the new panel
new plastic and alum backing
new plate
final plate all done
__________________