Emma shows you how to make a laser cut retro-style-radio enclosure for our Stereo Amplifier Kit, with Perspex Sweet Pastels acrylic. You can make this enclosure with any acrylic you want but we think that for the best results possible, the Sweet Pastels range is the way to go.
As always we've included our designs as a free DXF download. Use the designs as is, or add your own design flourishes. Let's, get to it!
We Used:
- Perspex Sweet Pastels 3mm x 600mm x 400mm.
- Mirrored Acrylic.
- Kitronik Stereo Amplifier Kit.
- 4 x 6mm plastic spacers.
- 4 x 10mm pan head m3 screws. (Board Mount)
- 2 x 6mm M3 Pan Head Screws (Battery Door)
- Soldering Iron.
- Solder.
- Plastic Glue. (Such as such as Superglue or Plastic Cement)
- Laser Cutter.
- This DXF File.
Perspex Sweet Pastels Retro-style Radio Enclosure:
First, grab the DXF File and either take it straight to your laser cutter software or pop it into your CAD program of choice for some tweaking (shown above in LibreCAD).
Step 1: Laser Cutting:
Laser-cut your parts and attach the small decorative pieces using a suitable adhesive such at plastic cement or superglue. The image above illustrates how the pieces should be cut and engraved.
The picture above shows how it should look when the decorative pieces are all attached in place.
You can customise the engraving (just in case you don’t want your radio being Kitronik branded) and you can use whatever colours you like! We just loved how the pastel colours looked with this retro style.
Step 2: Build the Kit and attach it to the base-plate:
Solder the kit together, making sure that any cables or components that won’t fit through the enclosure after they are attached are threaded through in advance - this includes the jack cable and speakers.
Screw the board down to the mounting plate using four 6mm plastic spacers and four 10mm pan head m3 screws.
Step 3: Assemble the enclosure:
Close up the kit! Using an adhesive to strengthen the joins, slot the sides onto the base first and as you do so, slot the tabs on the speaker mount into the holes in the sides. Once this is in place and the adhesive is dry, pop the front on over the speakers, and then the back. Once all sides are dry, slide the top on and you’re done!
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