Best way to cut a panel in place?

[Kooshball]

Originally Posted by JonJay

Same here but a manual nibbler. Takes more time but it is what I had in my shop.

Do you recall which nibbler you have? I thought I found a good one online but it can’t handle the panel thickness.

[JonJay]

Originally Posted by Kooshball

Do you recall which nibbler you have? I thought I found a good one online but it can?t handle the panel thickness.

Adel - it will handle up to .063, which is Vans standard panel thickness, or at least used to be. Spruce sells them.
It?s slow but quite accurate when used properly and easy to manage the chips.

Be careful if you buy an air nibbler. Make sure it is indeed a nibbler and not a rotary cutter calling itself a nibbler.

[Kooshball]

Originally Posted by JonJay

Adel - it will handle up to .063, which is Vans standard panel thickness, or at least used to be. Spruce sells them.
It?s slow but quite accurate when used properly and easy to manage the chips.

Be careful if you buy an air nibbler. Make sure it is indeed a nibbler and not a rotary cutter calling itself a nibbler.

Thx; I will check it out.

[PittsCondor]

I recently cut out a large section of my instrument panel and had great success using electric metal shears (Dewalt is what is have) used for metal roofing. No chips are produced and rolls out a nice 1/4" wide strip. You can also come back and fine trim as needed. This was the cleanest method I found. If you already have instrument holes you can use them as your starting point or drill a 1/2" hole to get the cut started.

[JonJay]

Originally Posted by PittsCondor

I recently cut out a large section of my instrument panel and had great success using electric metal shears (Dewalt is what is have) used for metal roofing. No chips are produced and rolls out a nice 1/4" wide strip. You can also come back and fine trim as needed. This was the cleanest method I found. If you already have instrument holes you can use them as your starting point or drill a 1/2" hole to get the cut started.

I have that tool. Never thought of using it for a panel cut. How did you handle the corners after you stopped the cut?

Other than it being a bit bulky, it?s not heavy, is variable speed which gives it great control, and would be fast!
I have the battery version. The corded one might be less bulky.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-2...E&gclsrc=aw.ds

[gmcjetpilot]

Old school time honored drill and hand tools works. Lay out pattern. Use spring loaded center punch to drill 1/8" to 3/16" holes inside your pattern. Space the holes (2) diameters apart (leaving 1 Dia material or less between holes) and half hole Dia. + 0.032 inside your trim line. The holes will be near but not over the trim line. The center punch locations must be precisely located. If that is done properly the rest is drilling, cutting and filing.

Open up a few holes in a row and use a hacksaw blade with a handle and by hand connect the dots (cut tabs between holes). Use a hand file to smooth the edge. If done carefully it result in a good cutout with minimum dust. Power tools rotary files and cutting wheels will spew aluminum dust. Drilling holes produces chips but they don't go flying all over. Hand hacksaw and filing creates dust but it tends to fall straight down not fly all directions. You can mix this with drilling holes and powered cutoff wheel to cut the tabs between holes, if you are skilled it. Be careful in the corners; you want a small radius not a sharp notch.

If you go powered tool route, tape the area off really well to keep dust getting into avionics, switches, connectors. If you lay out the holes carefully with your center punch, drill straight and cut out the tabs between holes you will have an accurate cutout.

This is old school but it has been done for a long time and works and still works. Free hand cutoff wheels works, if you have a steady hand and is faster. However fast and a big Doah!, is not time saved.

[JonJay]

Having cut up in place panels a few times, if you do need to drill or make chips-
Wad up small bunch of tape into a random ball so there is plenty of the sticky side exposed. Stick that ball on the back side of the hole you want to drill.
The tape will catch most of the chips as the bit goes through. Most of the chips will be on the front side anyway, but this helps to catch the few random chips that go with the bit as it breaks through.

[Ed_Wischmeyer]

Make sure when you do your cutting, by whatever means, that the instruments in the panel can tolerate the vibration -- especially steam gauges, double especially gyros.