Cubby switch plate idea

[OsageJJ]

Howdy, y’all! I wanted to share an idea to make the cubby pocket in the dash a little bit more useful. If this sounds intriguing to you, keep reading for my how-to guide. (I included pictures to help illustrate what I did, too).
One of the challenges I faced was wanting to add a bass gain control knob and an on-off switch for a dash camera into my dashboard (photo 1), but without cutting any new holes for the switches, so I could return the look to stock at any time. The cubby is notorious for being almost worthless for anything useful, so I thought I’d turn that area into a switch panel.
Unfortunately, the cubby is not square in the twins that have the ignition switch in the dash. It curves at the top left. After trying to fabricate some mockups to fit exactly, I figured I’d do the next-best thing: make a square switch plate to cover the cubby instead.
An old stack of business cards provided plenty of fodder for experimenting where the cutouts for the switches should go (photo 2). After that, I found an expired credit card that was stiff enough to hold the switches, but easy enough to drill out the template holes with a Dremel (photo 3).
Once I had the holes in the right places, and at the right size, it was time to dry-fit the switches (photo 4). After verifying that they fit, I needed some black fabric to make the plate look a little nicer (photo 5). Thankfully, my wife had plenty of scrap material, as well as a glue stick that I used to adhere the fabric to the plate (photo 6).
Not shown is the Velcro that I used on the backside of the plate and on the lip of the cubby to make the plate stay in place. The advantage of using Velcro is that I can still get to the wiring behind the switches if I need to.
It may not be the prettiest switch plate in the world (photo 7), but it works (photo 8), and it cost me nothing but a little time. If anyone else thinks this might be useful to them, fantastic. We’re all in this together, right?
¡Salud!

[soundman98]

nice.

2 tips for future versions:

replacement cubbies are easily available off ebay, so you can cut, hack, and melt to whatever form you'd ever desire, while still keeping your original intact for the future.

knobs like that volume control are usually friction-fit, and have a threaded mounting post on them. just drill a small round hole, and bolt it up, tends to make for an even cleaner install.



i put a scangauge in that spot with some non-compatible plastic epoxy...