Messages

Apis is no longer available. Check out pickdroppers stuff, it's tops!

Just to illustrate using multiple colors -- here's a vibe pedal I did with four coats of powder.  First I applied the black chrome on the bottom half, cooled it, taped it off with high-temp masking tape and then shot dormant burgundy base coat on top.  I let the dormant burgundy heat up slightly then pulled it from the oven to cool.  I removed the tape and cured the dormant burgundy base coat.  After that cooled I masked off the beltline stripe, shot that with bright red, cured that and then cooled.  Final coat was clear over the entire box -- it activated the dormant burgundy and did a nice job of smoothing everything out.  You can't even feel the stripe with your fingernail.

Lots of good info and technique tips here -- http://www.powder365.com/forum/ -- a lot of those guys are hardcore pros but there's a lot of good information to be gleaned over there.  Check out the CUSTOMER PICTURES section to see some of the gorgeous work these guys can do.

Super smooth! Curious how high did you let the temp get to? Did you let the burgundy flow or just warm?

I'll second everything fastocker has said. I don't get that glassy smooth finish with decals 100% of the time, but it's better than 90% I think he is spot on concerning the moisture content of the decal, once I learned to really "smash"the decal with a paper towel and let it dry over night my success rate jump drastically, using the Eastwood gun.

Personally I don't advocate hot flocking for transparent coatings, especially ones with a tint. It is really hard to control the consistency and thickness, often producing a framing effect. It is possible to multistage coat with the Eastwood gun it's just a little tricky. All that being said I have now moved on the a variable voltage gun as well (hyper smooth powder systems) and multistage is significantly easier.

Tutorial by fastocker Powder Coating Tutorial

I have the harbor freight rig and I've had mixed results. More often than not I get orange peel so I've reverted back to PPP for now. I don't know if the issue has been bad powder coverage or my toaster oven sucks. I even put an oven thermometer in to verify temp, but still the varied results.

check this for orange peel issues http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=1785.msg34412#msg34412

Thanks for the compliements fellas

The switching board is almost as big as the Zen board!

Their are a couple of extra components that normally wouldn't be used, to properly terminate the floating opamp.

That's amazing!  How did you achieve the raised lettering and graphic?

I didn't get it quite right this time, so it normally looks better. I have a vinyl cutter that i layer the same design over about 6 times, the power coat over it. its a tedious process that you have to lower and extend your cure time for the power to prevent the vinyl from melting, like it did here

Nice layout! Is it shared?

Got any left??

I have one left.

A friend asked me to build a zen for him, this was the result. I left it in my oven for too long, so the embossing effect i was going for was ruined, not happy with finish but he is getting it for free 

The circuit is a stock zen. The 3pdt pcb is a switchable buffer wired for buffer only. I used a dual opamp with the extra opamp terminated, just because i have lots of extra duals

Really nice! I like how you created a depth effect using only a limited monochrome palette. The layout isn't today bad either

I saw in a previous thread (I think ) you were building a zen with a buffer switch, that would fit the description.

Pretty cool!

That layout is intense!

I clear powder over decals fine. I'm not sure if it was just my mix but I've had envirotex yellow pretty significantly over time on light colors.

Durability on both have been great on my attempts.

Very nice!!!

what bypass board is that?

Great stuff man!!!

If you had various color options, common box sizes, and non-etched enclosure pricing comperable to PPP or Mammoth, I would be in to order some.

The main question I have is, what of us guys who suck at designing graphics? If you could supply some templates we could work with, I feel that would take most of the guess work out of it for me. I can handle copy and pasting into a template.

I think a basic template would be a requirement. I could probably do some basic formatted designs for people that just wanted a ready to go enclosure. As far as actual design, that is something i cannot help out with, my artistic skills are limited and surely aren't broad enough to help others.

I think this is a great idea.  There would be a bit of a learning curve for purchasers in figuring out what would look good as an etch and what wouldn't, but I think a guide could be put together to help people figure that out.  I'd probably be willing to help, depending on my available free time.

That would be awesome.

My enclosure prices and powdercoating would be on par or better than PPP. I won't have the selection of enclosures, just the standard sizes.

International shipping is still something I have to figure out.