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so after a little booze and settling down,  i can understand where a lot of you guys are coming from.  Youve done business with these folks before, you know them on a first name basis.  I'm sure they have their hands full- running that kind of business and knowing which parts to supply etc and getting everyone's order straight has got to be mind numbing.  On the other hand, it's nothing personal, it's business.  I didnt go to college for applied physics or electrical engineering.  I build pedals because it's fun, it's cheaper than paying for overpriced boutique crap (there are exceptions), and it's something that i can do as fast or as slow as i want.   Having said that, if i pay money for something, it's gotta be right.  I spent a few hours converting all the caps to uF from pico and nf, compiling the list of mats that madbean so graciously supplies us with...you know THE LEGWORK...it's fun, i dont mind doing it.   It's just really frustrating to have to put my build on pause because some guy in a warehouse didnt take 1.5 seconds extra per part and write the name of the thing he was putting in the baggy.   Just frustrating is all.  Am i gonna have to source parts from smallbear again? im sure i will...and im sure the small bear guy is a really nice guy.  everyone in this building community seems to be (except me apparently )..but again, business is business.  i paid for it.  it should be right.
just my opinion.

So...ive finally assembled all the parts for a dig dug build ive been planning for 6 months or so.  not a cheap build.  sourced parts from PPP and small bear.  first time using small bear and never again.  the vactrol was a bout 4 bucks more than mammoth, everything was more in all honesty.  the shipping took 2x as long as the good folks at pedal parts plus....AND here's the kicker:  after spending 45 bucks on about 30-40 resistors and caps- not a single one was labeled and i am missing a couple resistors.  so my next 3 hours are going to be spent going through all the parts and finding out their values and running by radio shack after that,  because apparently theyre too busy at small bear to label the components of your order.  AWESOME.  Pedal Parts Plus, if they can get more inventory and variety, will have my business everytime.   I just bought some knobs from mammoth so we'll see how they score on my scale of customer service.  your comments are welcome.  anyone else have crappy experiences?  

Melonhead

congrats!    68.

With all this talk of board-mounted pots, what tips or tricks are there to getting the drilling spot on?

just a thought:   populate the board, including the board mounted pots, color in the ends of the pots with pencil,  press the attacked pots down onto a plain sheet of paper leaving circles on the paper.  use a center punch to transfer the paper template to the enclosure.   OR  use the template that madbean provides on the PDF.

this was a good start for me.   BUY A CENTER PUNCH.  seriously the best 2.50 ive ever spent.

soooo, i just about crapped my pants yesterday when i saw that the site was down, since i just bought a board from haberdasher and rely heavily on brian's super awesome (seriously.) how to on pedals.  anyone know the scoop or if this has ever happened before?  maybe i should just print every pdf now.

melonhead

hey neil your enclosure looks pretty sweet.   did you just buy a pre-powder coated enclosure and use water slide decal paper for your "Dig Dug man"  graphic?.

i also noticed you chose to side mount the "4-6-8" step switch instead of using the template'd top mount.   what's up?  just wondering because im getting ready to source out parts for this build. thanks man.

i bet with a proper graduation of steel wool and wet/dry sanding you could really buff a lot of that pitting out.  of course without holding the thing in my hand there's no way to be sure, but just a thought.

here's a link to a video demo of the pedal.   feel free to comment on you tube.  thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qduldK68FgI

Melonhead

hey guys.  some tones and my general opinion about the King of Tone clone named Dorothy (why dorothy? because of it's sparkle red paint job)

lemme know what you think, feel free to post on the you tube site as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qduldK68FgI

thanks,
            melonhead

hey thanks guys!  yeah the paint job was a lot of fun to do.  Testor's Laquer for model airplanes works fabulous.   i roughed up the bare metal enclosure before laying down Translucent red (which looked quite nice on it's own i must say).  the next part was a little sketchy and i wasnt sure it was gonna work but it turns out it DOES:   glitter glue!   glitter glue an even layer over the top using something to spread it evenly.   i used a foam polyurethane cheapy brush.  please note you can only spread the stuff when it's fluid.   so hurry, the second it starts to even get a little bit sticky, it starts to get "frosty" looking on the peaks and that's not what you want.  you want to maintain the clear nature of the glue base.  ANYWAY.  after all that a coat of clear laquer (testor's laquer again)  then decals, the two heavy coats of clear over that.   and voila.

thanks for the compliments on my amp.  it's just a DC-3 with a mark IV grill.  i bought it that way.  thanks for your comments!

didnt take pics of the guts yet.   not too bad for a first timer, but it was a cramped build.  only made a couple of mistakes - which were easily reversible, but overall, went quite smoothly and it was FUN.  the pedal plays well and all adjustments/ trimmers work as they should.  not sure if  all trimmers are this way but, the 3 pole was orientated on the right side of the pot, so they had to be mounted on the underside of the board to match up the silkscreening on the pcb from madbean.  anyway. they work correctly so i assume this is how they were designed to be mounted.   im proud of 2 things:  the paint job, and the fact that it fired right up.  Thanks madbean, you will have more of my business soon.

Melonhead

I'm all for it.   Now i personally dont know what your financial situation currently is-  i have no idea how much it costs you to make another batch, but regarding other's requests for more new pedals i would say this:  cant you do both?  i mean it's not like you have to juggle figuring out new circuits along with figuring out the sunking's.  As a brand spanking new builder (currently almost finished with my first project- an aristocrat named "Dorothy" ) i must admit that the SOLE reason i stumbled upon madbeanpedals.com was because i was looking for a Klon board.  this is the first (and perhaps only)  site i've found that is both extremely easy to navigate, reasonably priced, and above all else  LEGIT.  so i say let people have their cake and eat it too.   But dont let it stop being fun for you madbean.  if it gets to that point then i would rather you pull back on the reigns a bit, ...of course, what the hell do i know, you could be making bank off of this! lol.   anyway, i look forward to more builds whatever you decide to supply us with.   thanks for having me.