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!
(https://i.imgur.com/lXMuhMQ.jpg)
2. Hipster (June)
Next I did a fuzz face. Never had a fuzz before...figured I'd need at least one.
(https://i.imgur.com/1TEQxrz.jpg)
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.
(https://i.imgur.com/X0sEV9N.jpg)
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 =\
(https://i.imgur.com/xpexGo7.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/SeE2hV6.jpg)
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?
(https://i.imgur.com/QgEzThB.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/OccBdXg.jpg)
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!
(https://i.imgur.com/avAGr6G.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/OrkigmB.jpg)
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!
Holy hell, you're punching well above your weight for someone who's only just started. Your etches (reverse and otherwise) are fantastic.
your first round? really?
10x better than me ;D
nice build
Nice work!
And yeah, that centaur is hung like a centaur...
:o
I wish I could produce work that nice at that rate. A pleasantly surprising "new at this" post.
Those reverse etches are really nice. Good lookin' builds there. 8)
I think you found the right hobby man. Nice work! You'll never be able to sell any as boutique. Way too pro looking for that.
Your stuff looks fantastic.
killer builds, dude
Nice to see the Doppelganger PCB still getting built and shame you had the issues with the build.
These are all fantastic. I have so many builds I want to finish up! My time has been so limited in the past year but this post is inspiring.
Quote from: playpunk on October 20, 2017, 02:26:47 PM
These are all fantastic. I have so many builds I want to finish up! My time has been so limited in the past year but this post is inspiring.
That's kind of how I feel. Did some soldering yesterday for the first time in way too long. It felt so good.
Damn dude, nice work!
*mic drop* I'm done, thank you, goodnight!!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I love them all, especially the rat!
I like them all but the Double Ganger is awesome!
wow, great work all around. Impressive etching skills too. My first attempts were not nearly that good.
Very nice pedals! I think your etches are top-notch. It's not an easy process
and I'm always excited when I get one to turn out well. You've got some "advanced" builds in
there which is impressive.
My favourite artwork is on the Rat build. That's very cool seeing him hold the chip!
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)
(https://i.imgur.com/nbq6rOY.jpg)
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
(https://i.imgur.com/Gg0PHxN.jpg)
Happy building and glad I can pass some inspiration forward!
Those are some great builds. Very nice etches.
I like that work space. You have a some nice gear there and it looks like a good place to work.
I wish I had an outside studio to get kicked out to!
These are some great builds! The proficiency of your first builds makes me want to throw my first pedals in the trash.
Great reveres etches! Love the attention to detail.
Cody
First off, your work is great looking for someone just getting into this.
Looks like you have some cool gear in your studio to plug into those pedals.
I used to have that exact same blue danelectro U2. I remember buying it when those reissues first came out back in the nineties. They're great guitars.
I hope to someday be as weak on my graphic design skills as you are...
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.
(https://i.imgur.com/4zbxSE1.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/rMHyCA3.jpg)
Good grief....
Totally beautiful builds, congrats. As with the rest of the class, i can't fathom this being your starting point- looking forward to where you go from here!!
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.
(https://i.imgur.com/zHYp98y.jpg)
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.