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This one has been a long time coming (just ask Forrest).  I do some custom building and repair work for a local shop, so I was able to barter my services towards a brand new Mesa MkV:35 amp.  We couldn't figure out why it was taking so long for Mesa to ship it, but apparently they had lost (or never received) his order.  Because of that they offered a free custom color tolex/grill upgrade.  Since I'm boring, I stuck with black taurus but I did upgrade the grill cloth to the gold jute.  I'm excited about this as it fills a bit of a gap in my amp collection, especially at home.

Amp in good store lighting:



Amp in bad office/music room lighting:

This isn't a very complicated build, but it's been a while since I've posted anything.  It came out fairly clean because there are so few parts.

A buddy of mine asked me to build him an AMZ Mini Boost.  It's actually a pretty cool circuit (I had never built one before).

The laser etching got a bit messed up, so I'm going to have to cut another plate.  It works for now, however.









Hidden LED under one of the circles (dig that sexy carpet)

I decided to redo the layout for my mini muff board.  I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.  The first build i did with it is a miniature Violet Ram's Head.

Since I did a mini Bluesbreaker layout for the 2-in-1 build, I had an extra board kicking around that I had used for verifying the board.  I decided to box it up so I could play with it a bit more.

A buddy of mine wanted a Klon and a Bluesbreaker circuit in a single box.  I didn't have a mini Bluesbreaker PCB, so I laid one out for this.  It's still not one of my favorite circuits, but I think I like it better paired with a Klon than a second Bluesbreaker.

The theme of the pedal was not mine, but I find it pretty funny.  He picked out the graphic as well.  I basically just implemented his vision, although the layout of plate graphics was mine (but fairly obvious, really).

Sorry for the lousy pictures.  I only had a short time before delivering it to him.  It was bright and sunny, so any direct shots had way too many reflections.  Thus, the weird side angle shots.

Came across this on Anderton's YouTube Channel.  Wow, I would never have expected this.

https://youtu.be/_PoQgv5ufls

This one won't be the most interesting build report as it's very similar to the Jan Ray build I did a while back.  I did the Timmy layout a year or two ago but had never boxed it up, so I used the same artwork from my Jan Ray build (since they are pretty much the same circuit).  I just changed the color so I didn't get mixed up.  Red makes more sense for a rising sun theme, but oh well.

This is actually the second one of these that I've built.  Somebody asked me to build a CE-2 with a boost (EP Booster in this case).  They also happened to be a huge Smiths fan and wanted the cover of "The Queen is Dead" on the pedal.  This was a fun learning experiment for me as I haven't done a lot of photo etching (I usually do vector graphics).  It was interesting to find that higher resolution looked worse, and the importance of proper dithering of the image.  As you can see, there is some speckled noise to the image, which is part of that dithering process.  Too smooth and the detail disappears, which is somewhat counter-intuitive.

This build was done as a favor for the local guitar shop owner.  He's not only a good friend, but he's given me a lot of work over the years.  In fact, this was the final piece in a bunch of work I did towards a Mesa MkV 35W (NAD coming soon).

It's a rehoused DanEcho delay pedal.  I've always considered rehousing a PITA, and this was no exception.  I think this is the last one I'm going to do.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a gutshot before giving it to him, so this is all I've got to show.

This was sort of an unexpected NGD.  I recently sold my R8 and was vaguely looking for a replacement Les Paul when I came across a '63 Reissue ES-335 in Sixties Cherry.  I already have a 2015 Memphis ES-335 Figured Top but I've always wanted the '63 (specifically in Sixties Cherry).  No flame or anything fancy, just a transparent red plywood top.

Neck is nice on this one.  It's thicker than my 2015 (which I wanted) but not so beefy as my old R8. 



I haven't decided yet if I'm going to sell off my old one and pursue a Les Paul or bring it to work and use it there. 

A while back, a friend of mine asked if I would do a mini Jan Ray Vemuram.  Since I had already done a Timmy layout, I agreed to modify it and get a few boards made.  I finally got around to making artwork for it and building one up.  I really like the way the build looks, I'm still not sure I'm sold on the circuit yet.  So far, I prefer the Timmy, but I haven't played enough with this yet.






FWIW, this is my etching fixture for laser engraving.  The box screws to the fixture to hold it in a defined place.

Got a couple of new tools this week.

The first is a new set of wire strippers.  For years, I've used the Ideal Stripmaster, which has served me well.  But it doesn't have a wire stop for setting length and it can't strip ribbon cable.  I had a chance to try the Phoneix Contact Wirefox and it seems really nice, so I grabbed one:





I also finally found a good price on a single blade tip for my Metcal soldering iron.  I've long wanted one of these for desoldering pots, but the price scared me off (They are over $80 per tip).  I found a new one on eBay for $20 and grabbed it.  It's one of those things that's really handy to have when you want it.



I also found somebody selling a whole bunch of Metcal tweezer tips for significantly discounted pricing, so I grabbed a couple sets of tweezer tips and dual blades in 40mm, 50mm, 60mm and 70mm.  I should be set for years now.

This one was a bit of an interesting build.

A while back, the schematic was posted for the BEOD.  While on vacation in August, I decided to try and cram it into a 1590a because, well no reason really.  Just for fun.  I built one up and it worked straight away, which is always nice.  It's a nice sounding distortion, although with everything jammed tight in the box, I have to dial the trimmer down a bit or it oscillates.  With the gain on the trimmer dialed back, it still sounds good without the oscillation.  I don't have access to a real one to know if that's common because of the metric ton of gain, or if it's part of me putting too much stuff in a small area.  At some point, I'll compare it to the real thing (probably).

The etch turned out clean, but the contrast with this color isn't very good.  I did a backfill, but when I wiped off the acrylic, I was surprised to see the black staining the powder coated part of the enclosure.  I've never seen that before.  I tried removing all of the paint, but the stuff on the enclosure won't come off.  As I cleaned, something funny happened.  The paint stayed in the corners of the etch, outlining the graphic, which looks pretty cool (in my opinion).  The paint that stained the top looks like smoke coming from the phoenix, which also looks pretty cool (in my opinion).  So, in the end, I'm pleased with the graphic, although I probably couldn't recreate it if I tried.

I've built a number of Tube Screamers over the years with various mods, but I can't remember if I ever made the exact Clay Jones overdrive version, so I decided to give it a go.  Contrary to my normal modus operandi, I went with almost zero extra features.  My only indulgence was an internal header to change the clipping from LED to Si diodes should I choose.  It's actually a great sounding Tube Screamer variant.  I see why people dig it.

This is another Tayda enclosure.  It's not perfect but it's significantly better than the black ones.  For whatever reason, their black and white enclosures are really rough and the other colors have been decent, if not spectacular.

I need to clean up the backfill a bit on the etch at some point.

This isn't my cleanest enclosure work as I was out of the normal black enclosures I used, so I used one of the Tayda ones I had kicking around.  They are mechanically solid, but they really laser etch kind of weird.  The finish is uneven and rippled as well.  But they are less expensive, so if the finish issues aren't bothersome, they are fine.

This is a bit of a tight fit, with the four knobs and a side toggle switch, but it does get in there.

This both reminds me of my childhood and confuses me greatly.

https://youtu.be/-PgTjhx1VLw

Ok, I'm going to be honest.  I only built this because I wanted to use the reverse centaur graphic.  It came up in a thread about somebody on TGP (Outlaw), thus the Outlaw themed pot labels and "winch", which is a running TGP joke.

The board is an old layout I had in the bin of random boards.  I wasn't planning on boxing it, but it was there, so I put it in this box.

I did a build report for one of these a long time ago, but it was configured slightly different (and the pics kicked the Photobucket) so I decided to post this one.

It's a Zen drive mini for a local friend/customer.  He needs the jacks inverted from how I normally do them, so it was safer to run the wires above the board instead of below like I normally do.  Not as clean, but should be reliable, which is the most important part.

The good news is that outside turned out very clean and I'm pleased with it.  My previous version had two knobs on top and two on the side for aesthetic reasons, but this is much more practical for a gig situation and still looks decent.

Just finished this for a gentleman on TGP.  It's a TB MkI with a voltage inverter circuit in a 1590a. He wanted it a more traditional build with simple graphics similar to the original. I couldn't fit Tone Bender in a single like like the original, so I staggered the Tone and Bender. I used a Pewter Vein enclosure for the first time, which has a cool textured look, but has basically zero contrast when laser etched (the text is basically invisible). So I had to back fill with black acrylic paint and then clean it up with alcohol.





I actually did two boards, one with adjustable bias and one with fixed bias. I built both to verify. Soooo, since I had an extra populated board, I threw it in a Bowie-esque silver sparkle enclosure I had kicking around. I went with period-incorrect graphics similar to the Tonebender MkII, because that's what I wanted to do. ;-)

It's been a long time since I've posted a build report, but this one was sort of interesting, so I thought I'd throw some pics up.

Somebody contacted me and asked if I'd build them a 3-in-1.  He wanted an etch of The Great Wave off Kanagawa on it. 

I suggested using acrylic plates for it (which I still think look better) but he wanted it directly etched on the enclosure and seems very happy with the results, so it's all good.  I didn't get very good shots of the inside, but there is one gutshot.

This is the final build:



This is one of the acrylic plates:



This is a an acrylic plate with a reverse etch:



And this is the gutshot (obviously):



The circuits are a FF + EA Trem + DBD