Cutting holes in sheet metal and other dangerous tales

I'm trying to mount some VGA, sound, and USB headers onto a single piece of sheet metal. Any thoughts on the best way to cut out those holes? The sound holes can be done simply with a drill, but the VGA and game port holes are going to be a *****.

I would like this to be pretty clean, so let me hear your ideas on the best way to approach this.

You need a Dremel with a fine cut tungsten bit. That would do the trick

you can get special punches that make exactly the right hole. i think there is a company called Greenlee or Greenleaf or something like that that makes them. They will be much cleaner than if you do it with a dremel but the punches will probably be $20 or more each.

You can also try a PC backing template and cut a rectangle into the sheetmetal for the template and place the template into the rectangle.

Many motherboards come with a custom backing template to accomidate special ports.

brrman - That's most likely how I'll do it. I still have the original metal brackets that they were connected to so I can just use them as templates.

StationRocket - That's a good idea about the punch, Station, but waaay too expensive. http://www.mouser.com/catalog/618/1258.pdf Maybe there are cheap alternatives out there.

LESLIEx317537 - If I could cut a clean rectangle, then I could just cut a clean hole for the VGA and game ports.

I used a drill to start all the holes, tin snips for the larger areas, then a dremel as brrrman suggested for the edges for my aluminum faceplate.

To do the square hole for the USB port, I just drilled a starter hole, then taped the old steel mounting bracket for the USB port in the proper place to the aluminum face plate without the wire in it and dremeled the hole out until the edges were perfectly even.

Wow, nice work on the hard drive mount. That's the most elaborate one I've seen yet.

try this at compusa
http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...srch1&ref=goog

Holy crap. Have you used it before? Do you know how well it works?

i have one of those

it's called a nibbler. it's what i used to make the holes in my case for the power entry and the other stuff that wasn't included in the plate that came with my epia motherboard.

Just like using a dremel it will do alright if you work slow and have good hands.

i'd try out your skills on a spare first