Messages

Thank you for the replies. So the already finished enclosures, I'll put in a toaster oven? For how long and what temp? I do spray light coats but I don't dry them directly on sunlight. I've tried that and the decal warped.

Hello everyone. I don't know if this has been asked before or not but here it goes.I just use in cans.  I've noticed that my top coats are not fully dry. They look and feel dry but after I leave them sitting on the shelf and decide to use, when i lift the pedal the bottom kinda feels like it was sticking with the wood of the shelf. The surface has dents and dirt sticking on it. I also noticed that some of these were pedals I made like 4-5 months ago. They are still wet-ish. How come? I usually spray 1st coat and dry for an hour then 2nd coat and dry for 24hrs. take note that the climate here is hot and humid. how do I fix this? Thanks for any help and advice.

Hi guys, sorry for reviving this 2 month old post. I used the vinegar trick on a decal I applied on a 1590bb. As usual it wrinkles and bubbles so i pressed what I thought were air spaces and left it to dry while I went to work. When I got back most of it flattened but there were lots of bubbles left. How do I flatten those? Can I dab a little vinegar on them to flatten? It's already dry.

I just noticed I called the topic Be-OD. lol nope I must've been half asleep. this is for a green russian muff. What the hell was I thinking?! It's a muff. Green russian. Sorry. lol.

Jack: I took it off. it measured 59-62k kept going up and down even when not turned. nope this doesn't sound like oscillation. But yeah, I've also built that BE-OD. And no noise too.

I probed and i first thought it was the pair of diodes at Q3. It went silent for a while then came back again. So after probing, I caught it at Q1. Very faint scratching at the background. At Q1 base, it is quite but when it goes thru 470p cap and 470k resistor it is there. just really faint. gets amplified I guess after it reaches Q2. I've changed Q1 with another 5089 and even a bc550c but it's still there. Scored between strips and still there.

Jack, no noise at all except for noise when you crank the sustain knob. I'm curious because I don't have that much experience yet and I've read it a lot of times, but what is oscillation in dirt pedals? What does it sound like? Maybe I've encountered it but didn't know.

But another update: I played it earlier for about 5-10 mins and unfortunately the scratching came back but not as loud and as much as before. Kept playing it and then signal suddenly went very low. You'd have to crank both pedal and amp volume to hear it sputtering like a pedal not properly biased or something. Also, I found out that my tone pot is not exactly 100K. More like 59K. Never buying pots from that local store again. Going to probe this today. Hopefully I can get to who ever is giving me this buttache.

Okay, so update: I took the vero off and found no trace of any cold solder joint or accidental bridge and was grounded correctly.  Put them back in and I was about to check the power jack if it was faulty when I noticed that the ground and 9v wires touched, BUT only on the insulated part.  I separated them both and... I don't know why the heck but the scratching/buzzing stopped!  I sticked them back and buzz was there again... Probably cold solder joint on either/both the ground and 9v lugs? Reflowed the two lugs and sticked the wires and buzz again.. So I just shrink tubed and separated them both. Could it be a faulty dc power jack? Faulty wire insulation? lol  But it works perfectly now.  *sigh*.. Just like my dev problems. Code doesn't run: Why won't it run?!  Code runs: Why did it run?!

Hello everyone, this is a vero problem and hopefully a lot of you have encountered it.  This is the 2nd time I've built this pedal and the first one had no problems. This is the layout I followed: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2012/06/ehx-green-russian-big-muff.html?m=1

Problem is that after a day of not playing it, it works fine. Then after a minute or two it starts.  It's a scratchy sound like when you have a loose jack on your guitar.  The sound can be heard only when turned on.

Is this a grounding issue?  This happened to a Ts9 clone I made but the sound did not go back for some reason.  I noticed that the sound will be there when I box it, but was not there before when I tested it before boxing.  This has only happened twice to me and this time the sound doesn't go away.  Any ideas?

edit: changed the title to Green Russian Muff Troubleshooting. Sorry. Omg Mods I am so sorry, I am actually talking about this green russian vero I am fixing. And at the same time I am also troubleshooting a BE-OD vero.. But this problem is about the green russian not the BeOD. My apologies. Sorry to Jack for the confusion.

Worked out pretty well.  See attachment. It smoothed out and after drying the glue for 24 hours, coated it one thin coat at a time. Going to use this method now, very effective. Thanks to you all!

By the way, any one tried using mod podge for image transfer? How did it go? Is it possible to get a smooth finish like on water slide decals?

You can try and squeeze this in there. https://www.motleymods.com/collections/box-mod-diy-kits/products/1591b-20700-green   

If there's enough room for two batteries though.  Looks like the biggest part of that list.   

With vinegar as a softener, there is always a temporary period of oh-shit-what-have-I-done anxiety where the decal looks like a bubbled up mess.  It has always smoothed out for me afterward.  Don't be in a hurry to topcoat it though.  Give it 24 hours for the glue to fully cure and all the moisture to really be gone.

Yup, I really thought I messed it up.  Left it to dry and see if I can just relic it or something.  When I came back I noticed it smoothed itself. lol. Will probably spray coat it this weekend.  And will try not to spray a lot, just 2 or 3 thin coats. Thanks!

Thanks.  Found that picture somewhere in the internet and she looks exactly like our pet dog who passed away 2 years ago. I miss her.

Yours is cool too. Weed pedal, weed guitar.  He a reggae guitarist? hehe I like it.  That input jack it's way up near the pot.  Pcb mounted? Have you tried image transfer using mod podge?  Has anybody done it? Does yours leave a smooth finish after?  I made one last month for a friend bassist and I didn't get a smooth surface (Maybe because I only have inkjet printer). Cool thing about it is that it made it look worn, like I relic'ed it or something.  I wonder how I can get it like decal smooth..

Well I'll be damned, for some reason it smoothed out by itself on the enclosure.  Whoa! Hopefully they don't wrinkle or get wobly after applying topcoat. Wow, thanks for the tips guys.

@jimilee, that's fine. That's an old build and that's what I was talking about before.

See the 1st attachment.  I used the vinegar added in warm water trick.  I don't know if it's supposed to look like that but I think I f'ed it up. It's still wet and I'm waiting for it to completely dry. The 2nd pic is just dipped in warm water then applied onto enclosure. If you look closely, you can see the wonky black line to the left.  PS, I don't sand my enclosures except for those that have deep scratches.

@ddj3891 what did you use?  How did it go?

@benny, thanks for sharing that info.  I don't know if I understood it correct but based on |v|ark's layout I need to put a wire somewhere after 1n from 2399 pin13 going to blend3. Then add 100n cap before fback1. Then after fback3 place 10k resistor then connect wire somewhere after 22K resistor coming from blend1. Don't know if I got it (obviously i didn't lol) but I want to confirm first before I try.  I still haven't tried marmora's suggestion but will try both ways and see w/c I prefer.

I'm definitely trying that when I get home. thanks!