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Looks like it's in USD after all.  Still pretty cool, ordered mine.  I like the idea of reduced scratch-ability.

Ok- good to know.  Makes more sense now, was wondering why it's sold either 6 or 50 sheets.  Find a good one and stick with it.

Ours are adhesive transparent paper (it's more of a film, quite a bit thicker than waterslides and no water involvement) with Envirotex over that (an epoxy coating) which is less messy and more durable than clear coat.

There's a photo tutorial on my site for how we do it. But the method works really well for custom one-offs (which is all we do really).

Would you mind sharing what type/brand of adhesive transparent paper you use?  I'm also looking for something thicker/different than water slide paper

Thanks!

I've also been really pleased with BLMS.  I get orders in two days  (San Francisco) from him and his stock continues to improve and has good pricing.  As always, it's tough to expect a one stop shop for all your pedal making needs but these days I'm down to him and Tayda with an occasional special order elsewhere. 

Oh and his bare and powder coat enclosures seems to be consistently good.  I got fed up with inconsistency from Mammoth. 

Looks beautiful!  I like how the rays bend over the top.

Thanks- seems straightforward enough!

I have not tried an enclosure without the baseplate, but it sure is awesome for aligning.
We made the cutout with a circular saw and a big wood drill for the corners. Stefan insisted we need to route the edges and sand the plate, to stick to his standards (he just made a wonderful crib for his newborn). The baseplate is screwed to the acrylic feet of the laser.

Following this thread has been really interesting.  Though it looks like quite a challenge, I'm pretty close to heading down the rabbit hole with the rest of you.

@pickdropper and @m-Kresol:   The alignment baseplate jig looks like an important add-on.

pickdropper- how did you make your acrylic alignment plate? 

m-Kresol- how was your wooden baseplate made?  Looks like the board was cut with a router bit to create space for the laser head?  How does the laser connect to the baseplate?

Following this thread has been really interesting.  Though it looks like quite a challenge, I'm pretty close to heading down the rabbit hole with the rest of you.

@pickdropper and @m-Kresol:   The alignment baseplate jig looks like an important add-on.

pickdropper- how did you make your acrylic alignment plate? 

m-Kresol- how was your wooden baseplate made?  Looks like the board was cut with a router bit to create space for the laser head?  How does the laser connect to the baseplate?

To Cody's point about attention to detail, I'd say that's something I keep in mind all through the process.  It bugs me when things are off and I'd prefer to get it right, even if it means stepping back a bit in the process.   Worst case, the enclosure gets the belt sander, no regrets!  In my experience so far in this hobby, it's hard to cover mistakes later.   I learned a lot from reading your prior posts here, meticulous sanding of enclosures grit by grit, and also a lot of patience, focus and progress checking during the etch.  As well, I'd say its pretty common that I end up redoing the application of the etch mask step a couple of times to get it just right. 

I also picked up a couple of key etching tips along the way I wanted to (re)share.  First, for standard etches, cover all area you don't want etched with enamel (fingernail polish).  This really helps to prevent pitting due to wearing through the etch mask. 



Second, for reverse etches, after etching and painting, I use an exacto knife to carefully scrape the paint off of the embossed areas to expose the aluminum.  I found that sanding, even with a block was not accurate enough and tended to dull the areas around the embossed areas.  The scraping technique takes practice but it's very effective.

Thanks for all the great feedback guys!  Really appreciate the encouragement.

@matmosphere:  Glad you noticed the U2!  It was my first guitar in the mid nineties.  I hadn't played it in a long time; I guess I got biased over other  "better quality" guitars.  But, it just plays and sounds great!  The tuning machines are getting worn out though...I need to look for some replacements.

Here's one more project I finished this week, a rabbit hole pcb populated as a violet ram's head.

PM me. 

Nice build- good paint and decal work!

Congratulations!  Your wiring is super tidy and a great color scheme. 

Wow- thanks so much for all the great feedback, it means a lot!  The funny thing is, my work is a direct product of what I learned from all of you here.  I've combed this forum for the answers to so many questions (and a bit elsewhere) and built upon your inspiration, great works and lessons learned. 

Of course, even after getting all the tips on the right printer, paper, iron temp and etch techniques, there were many failures and redos (including full belt sanded scrubs back to step 1).  Just as hard was keeping the motivation to follow through to build enclosures and box up all my built up boards as my mind shifts focus across the various disciplines of this hobby.

But with *time* and effort and most of all patience I could do what I set out to. 

Here was my build area in February after ordering my first madbean boards:  (firing up my naughty fish and green bean boards)


And now, after too much soldering in the house I've been kicked out of the back bedroom and into my outside studio.  I built a workbench and kitted it out, which isn't a bad place to work after all


Happy building and glad I can pass some inspiration forward!

I got the pedal making bug early this year and have been on a tear!  It all started with me getting back into guitar and having a vision that I could make every pedal on my board to-be something I made with my own hands (minus the great madbean & other PCB designs).  So, I drove right in, built up some boards and then realized I needed some decent artwork and enclosures, which proved much harder than I realized.  I admit that I've always been weak on my graphic design skills.  However, after combing the madbean forum I realize that there is a wide spectrum of examples, from amazing custom designed art to "found" and borrowed images on the good 'ol Net.  This helped me be ok with borrowing from some other designs and grabbing ideas off google images as starting points.  All in all, I think the artwork stage takes the longest for me, maybe because I suck with Illustrator.

Anyhow, here's a few that I've got decent photos of.  Perhaps I'll post others later.  Oh, some I don't have gut shots handy for...I didn't realize this was a thing (sorry still getting the hang of this!)

1.  Current Lover (May)
This was my second build, first was a Pork Barrel chorus).  I saw all these awesome etches around and figured I'd give it a try.  I always loved the sound of the electric mistress (especially The Police) so I thought I make one.  Was a little hard, some debugging had...learned to pay attention to the BOM and learn my resistor color coding!



2.  Hipster (June)

Next I did a fuzz face.  Never had a fuzz before...figured I'd need at least one.



3.  Green Bean (June)
I realize that I needed an overdrive as well.  Seemed to be a good place to start.  Tried a reverse etch following Cody's guide but it was a lot harder than I thought.  Mostly it came out ok.



4.  Kingslayer (July)
Read a lot about the Klon and it seemed to be something on the must-try list.  I'd never seen or played one so this was kind of just a total what the heck.  I like it a lot and use it with mild settings and for gain staging.  Figured I keep to the original art style, though I get a lot of feedback from friends on the (unintended) placement of the stomp =\





5.  Runt (July)
A friend recommended The Rat, like it's a must have.  I've found that I like it for saturation when I have loads of effects on...not sure It's my style using it solo.  I had this idea of the rat holding the cheese, why not the IC?





6.  Doubelganger (August)
This build was hard for me.  I had this crazy problem which turned out to be a bridge hidden under some flux, preventing one of the LFOs from working.  I couldn't debug it for the life of me even checking voltages and all the posts I could find here (oh the hours sunk :-( ) Finally wisened up and went back to basics:  scrubbed the board with a toothbrush and isopropyl alcohol.  Magically, that was it!

Anyhow, I really loved the doppelgänger artwork Cody (@selfdestroyer) used on his build so I tracked down the New Yorker magazine image and asked Cody if it was cool to use his design idea.  I chose an Art Deco type font which seemed to go well.  Oh, yeah.  I nearly started a fire with this etch too- it's a lot of surface area to etch on that big 1790ns enclosure...I think some of the packing tape I was using to mask the sides dipped into the hot enchant and it flared up...scared the crap out of me.  Lesson learned to go slow on this part of the process!





Well, that's all for now.  I'll try to remember to post a few more after I get another round done.  Thanks again to all of you for the inspiration, ideas, knowledge and support!