> I have a couple questions for those of you that have built
> all aluminum instrument panels (not inserts) for LNC2 aircraft:
>

Hello Scott,

We made an aluminum panel for our 320. It has worked out great. I highly
recommend this route over the factory molded panel as it offers several
advantages the greatest of which is flexibility in design. For example, our
radio stack is right of center. Impossible with the factory panel. We also
made the bottom of the panel higher to give more shin room. Although I'm
highly biased, I believe that it looks  better too.

We attached phenolic mounting brackets to the fuselage sides and the panel
is bolted to these brackets.  Our radio stack is centered over the right
side of the nose gear well. A hefty support bonded to the gear well supports
the radio stack and adds considerable strength and stability to the panel.
The entire panel is removable. We mounted our panel 13 inches from the aft
face of the header tank and have adequate room for a full UPS stack. Our
panel is constructed of 7075 T6 aluminum powder coated with labels silk
screened on. I believe that the 3/4" angle around the perimeter that you
mentioned would be unnecessary and take up valuable space.

The only advantage that I see for the molded panel is if you're using really
old radios. These were much longer than today's equipment and the
"extension" in the molded panel allowed for these long radios.

We're down in Florida right now and don't have access to our photos. I'll
send you some pix when we get home in a couple of weeks.

Bill
harrelson@erols.com
N5ZQ  LNC2  O-320  VA42  Fredericksburg, VA