Drilling a hole in the dashboard

[tvrbob]

I need to fit another switch into my wood dashboard. I see that it is backed with a thin aluminium sheet. Has anyone drilled through this pairing of wood and aluminium? Is there a good tool for this job? Holesaw, flat woodbit, drill then file, auger, etc. Damage limitation here, I don't want to damage the wood.

[shpub]

It's actually steel. The veneer will be damaged. There's a thread on the Griff forum (don't worry we don't bite) discussing this at the moment.

See here:-
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=93132&f=9&h=0

>> Edited by Big Al. on Thursday 15th April 15:00

[wrinkly]

The only succesful way to drill through veneers without damage (In my experience) is to firmly clamp a piece of scrap mdf to the surface, and drill through this and the substrate in one operation. It prevents the breakout normally associated with drilling into this type of material. It will mean in your situation, removing the panel from the car, unfortunately. Make sure you use a new (or sharp) drill bit, at slow speed.