Drilling and gluing Lego plates - Key Holder

[RednWhite]

I want to make a key holder out of Lego using 1 x 4 technic bricks of various colours to attach the key ring to and a plate on the wall to attach the bricks to. My first thought was to drill through a largish plate and attach it to a flat piece of wood (of the same size) with screws which would then be attached the the wall. I could then place another plate on top of the first one to hide the screw heads and then attach the bricks to that. However I wondered if it would be easier and less messy to simply glue a plate to the wood with strong adhesive and forget the screws.

Can anyone let me know what experience they have had of drilling through Lego plates, e.g. what drill bit to use etc. and what sort of glue to use. The glue will have to be strong enough to hold the plate at 90 degrees with various heavy sets of keys hanging from it via bricks.

[Saint]

I think LEGO did this a couple of years ago... Perhaps some one smarter can find it for you.

I think the basic Idea is getting a board , a plate and key chains with some 2x4 bricks.

Cut the board ( I guess that MDF will do ) the same size as the desired plate , and before you use some kind of industrial glue ( I would try Bison ) , you make some holes for the screws with a small reces for the head.

Now you have a plate , with screw hole's , but sadly no hole in the plate, well, you can pry a small hole from the back, and place a 2x2 stone on top, and with some kind of very very sharp knife , edge out the 2x2. Remove the 2x2, Glue the plate and the board together, and voilá, ( or é presto ) you have a keyholder . Add some extra plates along the edge and over it, creating a frame, and some 4x4 plates over the screwholes .

The only thing against it is the clutch power ( hmmmm sounds familiar who is that ?? ) of the plate and the 2x4 so a 2x4 will wear out faster than the plate, because of the 2x4 being all over the place.

Just my 2 cents on that idea, I hope this helps a bit .

grtz Saint

[kermit]

Drilling holes in lego!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! . Wouldn`t the drill fracture the plate piece along the middle of the studs?

[Xyver]

You could always try screwing some technic plates to the piece of wood, as they have the holes pre-cut, then attaching the other plate to them.

So this means no drilling (and thereby no comprising plate integrity), no gluing, and you can rebuild it whenever you feel like a change.

We've screwed some 2x4 technic plates onto our wooden table, then attached a baseplate to the back of them vertically to serve as a sky/background on our train layout and it holds up fine, even with extra plates on the baseplate to simulate clouds. So clutch power should not be a problem provided the screw sits flush enough with the plate.

[RednWhite]

Hi

Thanks for the suggestions.

This is the picture I saw that gave me the original idea.

I have the 1 x 4 technic bricks and lots of different plates. I like the idea of using some technic plates and screwing threw the holes into the baseboard. No gluing or drilling is defintely a bonus.

I will try and post some pics of the end product.

[zux]

I did some glueing and drilling recently. I suggest you to care when drilling. And don't drill at full speed, as lego brick are very soft - single wrong move and you have bigger than needed hole.

When glueing make sure not to use too much glue and your fingers must be clean from glue, as these both could make your bricks look awful.