Paint before drill

[adstrum]

I've always drilled the enclosures before starting to paint them. However, I have a stack of boards that I want to box and I'm looking at ways to get through them a bit quicker. I thought I'd try painting a number of boxes together in one go before I drilled them. Then I could simply add the decals and a coat of clear.

Anyone got any thoughts about drilling pre-painted enclosures?

[toddvirgil]

I buy most of my enclosures prepainted and then I drill them myself -- haven't ever had a problem. You just have to be careful not to scratch it with the drill bit, but with my drill press, I've never had an issue. Sounds like a great way to speed up your process to me.

[GoranP]

Do you get them pre-powdercoated? Where from?

[toddvirgil]

GoranP wrote

Do you get them pre-powdercoated? Where from?

I get them from mammoth -- I think they are just painted, not powder coated, but they do a pretty decent job... Their enclosures are a reasonable price and its only a couple extra bucks for most colors. They have a pretty wide range of colors too.