The panel for the holding the coin door

Loyal readers of this blog (or those with a lot of patience)  will remember the disaster that occured with my cabinet back in July 2012, where when moving the cabinet with a neighbour, the wooden panel for holding the coin mechanism snapped and broke.

As the original panel was not repairable I  had a new wooden panel cut and in the photo  you can see that I have finally painted it. The panel is shown with the backside visible, and from careful examination you can see that this was only the first painted coat.
However, I've decided not to further sand and paint it any more as I noticed the wood has become warped (probably because the hole in the panel is so big) and won't sit flat. I tried putting weights on the panel to try and make it flat over time, but upon removing the weights the panel always springs back to  a warped shape.

Anyway, my mate with access to a CNC machine has come to the rescue (again) and is cutting a 4 mm thick Perspex black panel with hole cutout to sit on front of the wood panel. With the wood and Perspex together there should be the strength to support the heavy coin door mechanism (a concern especially when the door is fully open) and the Perspex front end will show as a flat finish.