DIY mod for a chocolate vibrating table. Help needed

[Holy Handgrenade]

Hi Everyone.

Looking for assistance as thus far I'm full of fail. But that's part of the fun isnt it? ;)

I ordered a dental vibrator, it's a small 4" round top that has a rubber/plastic piece used in the dental industry for vibrating molds and impressions to get air bubbles out.  After doing research, these do have the appropriate vibration frequencies for chocolate molds as well.

However, I've been failing at trying to attach a bigger piece to make the vibrating platform bigger. The plan I'm using is having a half-sheet pan, drilled holes in that, and removed the plastic/rubber cover for the vibrator.  This exposes a small metal plate. I've drilled holes in that as well and attempted using some bolts and machine screws to hold them into place.

However, no matter what I do, I cant get the vibrator plate to make solid contact with the aluminum pan.  I know I'm probably doing something wrong or using the wrong tools. Could anyone point me on the right track?

The screws are not mounting flush to the pan, and there's a gap between the pan and the vibrator plate.  I'll need to fix that in order for this to be usable.

I've attached a few pics. Sorry they're blurry. the pic titles are descriptive to show how everything goes together.

[Aaron Hicks]

You're using screws instead of bolts. You want to draw than pan down onto the plate and secure it there.

Quick-and-dirty fix: put a washer (or washers) between the screw head and the pan.

More elegant fix: Use a bolt (which will probably mean drilling a slightly larger hole) with a washer and nut to cinch it down. Be careful not to use too much force as that cast aluminum plate may not do well.

You could also drill and tap, which is a bit too involved to describe a quick email.

If you re-drill the hole with a 13/64" bit, you could use a 10-24 or 10-32 bolt.

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/misc/tapsizes.html

Probably something in the 1/2" length, if I had to guess from your images, but a shorter one might fit.

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[JR]

You might be able to get away with just switching from flat head screws to pan head screws- which are flat on the bottom.

It might also help to clamp the 2 parts together before inserting the screws- once the screws cut their thread any gap is probably going to stay there.  If the pan is thick enough, you could file part of the threads off so they don't engage in the pan, but only in the base.

I'm assuming that the pan is flexible enough to absorb any irregularities in the surface.