My original plan was to use a pair of dual plastic binding posts for speaker connections. I drilled appropriate holes in the panel for them, then decided that I'd rather use nicer (single) gold posts. All the ones I found online required smaller diameter holes than the ones that I already drilled. They also all seem to have cheesy plastic isolation washers. To replace those and make up for the large holes in my panel, I decided to make my own insulation blocks out of scrap Ipe. A simple block would float on the panel surface, so I needed a block with built in shoulder washers. Perfect job for a milling machine...
I started with blocks about 7mm thick and milled off about 2mm of thickness except where I needed the 2 donut shaped shoulders. The workpiece is mounted in a vice and moved under the milling bit using X/Y screwdrive knobs. Milling a circular pattern with X/Y knobs reminds me of drawing circles on an Etch-a-sketch. I guess it's good for the hemispheres of my brain to work together once in a while ;-)
I finished the day by doing the final chassis sanding. First, I used a pad sander with 100 grit on all surfaces. Some joints also needed some leveling with a hand block to match their connecting piece. I then rounded all corners with a long strip of glue backed 100 and 150 grit stuck to a work board.
I finished all surfaces with 220 grit. Finally, I can clean up all that nasty to breathe Ipe dust. Love the wood, hate the dust.
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