From Firebomb to improvised explosive deVice

[Marv Mod]

That is the tits! Amazing, a real masterpiece!

[GhostofJohnToad]

brilliant on so many levels

[fish22]

wow!
Awesome on so many levels.

When I saw the pop-can part the first thing to enter my mind was "prison shank"
Anyways, man that art is sick!

[midwayfair]

I know I already said something to this effect on DIYSB, but, as always: WOW.

[davent]

Thank you everyone! You made me blush.

As to how the background is done, it's pretty haphazard. I wanted an old, worn looking base like the concrete floor of my basement (that helps limit colour choices). Put some paint on, maybe wipe or rinse some off while still wet... let it dry, sand more off, scrape some off just chew it up. Add more paint, same colour or different, mess it up some more. Repeat...

Anytime i get a layer i want to preserve i airbrush on a coat or two of GAC200/Airbrush Medium (GAC200 is too viscose to spray as is) before moving on to the next painting/abuse. The GAC200 dries surprisingly hard and does a great job of protecting the underpainting from the next round of abuse. GAC200 is also the medium i use for doing toner transfers.

It's all about putting paint on and taking lots off. Sometimes put on with a paint brush, airbrush, dip pens, toothpicks, pallet knives, splattered with toothbrushes/scrub brushes, shot from a syringe, pushed around with compressed air, just grab whatever is handy on the workbench and put it to use applying or taking the paint off.  Playtime in the paint box, anything goes. Scrub with alcohol, throw rock salt onto a very wet thin coat of paint and let that dry before brushing the salt off. Play, play, play... never really know where it's going to go, what i envision when i start and where it all ends up are usually worlds apart.

If there's specific info you're after let me know and i'll do my best to try and fill in the holes!
Take care!
dave

[jkokura]

I actually showed this to my wife, and while we were looking at the pictures closely, we both agreed that the base layer looked just like a cement floor. Soooo good.

Jacob

[billstein]

Dude! One of my all time favorites! How did you do the fake silkscreen on the pcb? Love it.

[hammerheadmusicman]

Looks like tore transfer, like the etch mask to me..

Also, I w literally the other day thinking, I'm going to make a wooden jig for wiring up a certain pedal, as I have a batch of stuff to do.. Beat me to it!

[davent]

George is right it's toner transfer, but i use acrylic medium and not heat to accomplish the transfer, same thing i do to transfer to the enclosure, no more decal.

The tough part was figuring out a way to register the silkscreen art to pcb.

Story so far...

Design a pcb layout in ExpressPCB. Etch a board.

When i do the final sizing/shaping of the etched pcb i get it as close as i can to the border that surrounds the layout, don't want to obliterate the border just touch it

From ExpressPCB open up the Print Box and select Silkscreen layer (component outline), also for printer select pdf printer=> print. I've got Bullzip PDF Printer, freeware, no complaints.

Open the silkscreen pdf in Inkscape then save as an .svg file. I don't like the ExpressPCB font so i relabel the components and add any other legending that's needed using more interesting fonts.

So far you have a silkscreen border that matches perfectly with the etched border on the back of the pcb but no way to see whether they're aligned when you do the transfer.

The simple trick that seems to be working well so far is to draw a new border around the silkscreen leaving a small equadistant gap between the old and new borders. A this point i'll make a copy so i have two images, group one of them set it aside. The second one you delete the original silkscreen, unless you want it to transfer to the pcb, group the new art, mirror the art and (laser) print to regular cheap paper. Photocopy would work too, long as you have toner artwork.)

You now have your silkscreen art and an etched/sized pcb that will lay within the border of the silkscreen art. Because you sized the pcb perfectly, well close, when you lay it on your art you can trust your eye to see that the white gap between the pcb and the art is equadistant and therefore everything is going to line up aces.

I paint the pcb with acrylics and use an acrylic medium called GAC200 (by Golden) for the transfer. Spread a good coat of medium on the top of the pcb board, lay it aligned onto you artwork, there's not much wiggle time here, they grab well. I'll secure the board to paper with a bit of masking tape, flip it over and run a brayer over the paper to squeeze out the excess medium and ensure good contact. Not too hard because the wet paper will stretch over the edges of the board and you might get some minor distorting of the art.

Let it dry, rewet the paper and rub the papre off with your fingers. Never going to get all the papre off in one go so let it dry again, rewet and rub, takes a few goes but it will come off.

I've found it much easier to do all this messing about and then drill the holes. Always drilled the holes first and then with all the paint and medium had to go back and redo them all, live and learn.

Only pictures i have are from the initial efforts with the method, a fail but gives you an idea of the toner transfer bit. Sanded this one off and did it again with better results











Better... but still a ways to go.



dave

[hammerheadmusicman]

That pseudo silk screen Is such a cool touch, kudos!

[billstein]

Wow! Thank you for the detailed answer.

[billstein]

Hey Dave. What kind of wire are you using for your shielded cable?
The amazing thing about this pedal is the quality of every detail. The more I look at it the more impressed I am.

[davent]

Hi Bill, The wire is a Teflon/Kapton insulated coax i picked up on ebay, very stiff and can only get away with a gradual curve, no 90° bends, very small diameter package. Put 1/8" Techflex over it. Really like the teflon, no worries of creating a short when soldering to shield. To attach a wire to the shield all you need to do is strip of the insulation, wrap a piece of wire around the shield, trim off the excess shield then solder the two together, cover with heatshrink.

He also has longer lengths available.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/10-feet-26-AWG-Shielded-Silver-Kapton-Teflon-Wire-Coax-/230824758424?pt=US_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item35be3a4c98#ht_500wt_1203



This one was soldered before trimming off excess shield, try it both ways, never created a short with this wire.



dave