BYOC - Large Beaver...

Sat Sep 09, 2017 3:58 pm

I picked up a BYOC (Build Your Own Clone) kit that (from the videos I've seen) seems to capture the classic sound of a 73 Big Muff. I've been gathering bits and pieces here because I wanted to do a custom enclosure similar to the ones found here. So I picked up the primer and paint today and planned to paint and prime the enclosure, and if I have enough time to lay out what the artwork will look like when I do it...

First up - here is what the enclosure looked like out of the box - before I took the steel wool to it (prior to priming)...

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This took about half an hour, after which it looked like this:
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At this point I wiped it down with a baby-wipe, so that it was ready for the Primer. I used an Acrylic Lacquer primer - It'll work on metal - just have to be sure you use the right sealant/finish when you're done. I'll be using a clear coat, but that comes later: My primer is a gray, and there

is not much difference in looks between it and the freshly steel wooled look, but it is what it is.

After the primer was dry (I did three or four coats), I started off with the white. I used a Canadian Tire version of "Toyota super White II" - which sounded the most promising for $10. the Nozzle was "spitty" - if you've done any spray painting before, you know what I'm talking about - big spits of paint every now and again, ruining your efforts so that you have to wait for it to dry, then buff out the spots, and try again. Not sure how many times I had to go at this - but here is what it looked like when I finally decided that was enough:

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Actually this photo was taken in my basement under some poor lighting giving the enclosure a creamy color - but trust me it's not creamy in real life - it looks pretty glossy white.

I have to put a coat of clear on before I print off the decal, but I wanted to see if I got the decal size right, and printed off a test copy of what the final decal will look like...ish. This is just cheap printer paper, and a black ink only facsimile, the final will be in color on transfer paper, which I will bake onto the enclosure, then seal. but for now, this is just a size test.

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Still in the basement under bad lighting, but you the size test looks good. You get an idea for how the graphic is going to look. The images, obviously are derivative of Gerald Scarfe's work from the movie "Pink Floyd - The Wall". I downloaded them this afternoon and modified them in order to make them work on my template. I am not profiting from the artwork, so as far as I know my use falls under the fair use clause for the copyright (not that anyone besides me likely cares).

The last test is the knob test - I don't want the words on the decal to be covered by the knobs - so I place the knobs on the enclosure where they would approximately go, and that seems to be okay with me (see below):

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I will do a decal on the back plate as well - where I plan to credit the artist, etc. - and include my "return to if lost/stolen" credentials. I don't have a color laser printer at home, but I have one at work, which I plan to use to print off the decals. Probably have the enclosure done by Tuesday. I'll post some pics when I have it done - and then I'll get to work on the electronics.

Stay Tuned -- I plan to update this post when I have the enclosure done, and make a second post for the electronics.

Although the pedal does a great job with Hendrix's fuzz sound - it apes Gilmour's sound from a bunch of albums - including the wall - so I went with that theme. I didn't come up with the idea to do a Pink Floyd themed chassis - rather I am copying someone else's cleverness, and just trying to make it a wee bit more "my own". So if you think it looks cool when it's done, don't think I'm to blame. What I am doing is more like a paint by number than an original, so if it turns out awesome, it'll be only because I copied someone else's great idea well.

Sept 11 - printed out the colored version of the decal on decal transfer paper - I'm going to put it on the enclosure tonight - along with several coats of clear finish. Here is the colorized version of the decal:
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Sept 12 - I'm done with the enclosure now.

The decal goes on much like you'd expect. After printing my design on the water slide decal paper - I cut it out, and put it in water for 60 seconds. Then I carefully slid the decal off the paper and onto my waiting, pre-moistened enclosure. That's an important step in the process because you are not likely to put it on perfectly the first try, so there needs to be some moisture under the decal to allow you to slide it into place.

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When I had it centered where I wanted it I carefully and gently swept the air bubbles and wrinkles out from under the decal. Gently, in my case meant wetting a piece of card stock paper to soften it, then just as you'd sweep a broom across a floor, I swept the surface lightly and watched the wrinkles disappear. It's difficult to describe, but when you do it, you quickly get a feel for it. I was careful to keep the surface moist as I went along, dipping my fingers in water and lightly rubbing the water on the surface where I was sweeping to get the wrinkles out.

If you ever try this yourself, I would caution you with the knowledge that at this point it is terribly easy to scrape bits of your image off the decal - so err on the side of patience and gentleness, or you may easily mar your image and have to do the whole thing over again.

At that point, I wasn't sure if I should bake it first or cut out the holes (since the decal was draped over them). I decided to cut out the holes, and carefully (oh so carefully!) cut the moistened bits out with a razor knife.

Here is what it looked like at the end of the process. The light reflection on my table ended up yellowing out the color in the original photo, so I did my best to color correct it so that it looked as white as it really was:

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At this point it was ready for the oven.

Now, just a word here: Water boils at 100 C, and what you want is get the water out of the decal, and seat it nicely on the enclosure without burning it. So I put it in the oven for about 12 minutes at about 110 C - here is what it looked like coming out of the oven:

Image.

I put a few coats of clear acrylic lacquer on after that, and didn't bother taking photos of the process. This is where I made my first mistake. I should have put a very, very light/thin coat on for the first coat - let it dry, then put a few more equally light coats on, allowing them to dry, before "going to town". The end result was that the color ran a bit on the flowers. It isn't so significant enough to trash it and start again mind you - but as a perfectionist I was irked by the err my own haste introduced.

Next up is the electronics. I won't be able to get to them tonight, as I have a meeting in the evening that'll take up my leisure hours. But I'll certainly get on that this week.
Last edited by DanDoulogos on Tue Sep 12, 2017 8:33 am, edited 3 times in total.

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Sat Sep 09, 2017 4:41 pm

:happy0065:
Wow...I'm envious of your large beaver :mrgreen:
Nice work !!

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Sat Sep 09, 2017 5:46 pm

Thanks Elwood. I won't know for sure how it's going to turn out until I get the colored decal. I've already decided I need to rework the decal a bit - I don't need to print the white of the bricks, so I'll go back and mask that out - It'll probably look better in the long run, since there won't be any discrepancy between the white of the pedal and the white of the wall.

I wish I had a color laser printer at home, I'd probably be ready to get the soldering iron out by now!

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Sun Sep 10, 2017 10:32 am

Nice look Dan. I'm 3/4ths of the way finished with my BYOC Green Pony electronics and plan to post about the process too. I did not attempt to do the enclosure artwork cause that's a big weakness of mine. I like the Pink Floyd concept and Gerald Scarfe has always done amazing work. IMHO though, I would drop the flowers, or at least reverse them so one is the input (open flower) and the other is the output (not open) for obvious reasons. This might look off however just because of Aesthetics. Make the hammer logo bigger to make up for that and because it's cool. When I was forty, after wanting a tattoo all my life but being undecided on what I wanted on my arm for the rest of my life, I look up at my patch of the hammers and decided that was it. I, at forty got my first tattoo of the hammers and love it.

Anyway, just my tuppence, either way, you have done a great job on the artwork even if you did more or less cut and paste. What's the rule, three bars before it's plagiarism?

Looking forward to hearing more on the project and comparing outcomes, so far mine has been reasonably smooth.

Tom

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Mon Sep 11, 2017 5:41 am

Tom - I didn't even consider the in/out from that perspective, but that's a brilliant take on it, and I wish I had thought of it first, and implemented it before I printed off the decal. I'm sorely tempted to change it, but I'mma keep it as is, because printing off the decal is a hassle, since I don't have my own color laser printer, and have to use the one at work. If I mar the decal installing it - I'll flip those flowers around for my next attempt - and there is a real chance that it will be marred, since I have to cut out the holes for the knobs once it is seated. I hope I get it on the first try, but I am too old to be optimistic in that way.

Either way, I'll probably post something more tomorrow morning or late tonight. I added the colorized image I'm using as my decal to my original post.

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Mon Sep 11, 2017 9:32 am

Dan, just noticed, is there no switch on this box?

Tom

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Mon Sep 11, 2017 9:57 am

I thought the same thing, Tom. The hole is in the metal box in the top pictures. It looks like the sticker just hasn't had the hole poked through yet.

Chip

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:47 am

Tom, what Chip said.

In order to know if the decal will fit - I had to print a "practice" decal - that's what you see in the photos with the painted enclosure - a black and white "practice" decal printed on normal paper.

As a stencil, the practice decal lets me see if the real one (when I print it) will physically fit the enclosure. But in order to know if any of the labels I printed (in, out, scoop, flat, hump, etc.) will be covered by knobs, I put the knobs on top of the practice printout, in the place they would go. That's the photo you see with the knobs on it. They aren't connected to anything, as I haven't built the circuit yet. The knobs are just placed there to verify that when I do connect them, I will be able to see the labels on the decal.

The switch, unlike the knobs, can't sit on top of the paper for a photo and look like it's connected, and since there isn't any label close to where it is going to be, I didn't need to verify that it wasn't going to obscure a label.

Hence the visual effect of a pedal without an actual switch. When I affix the color decal and sufficiently clear coat I'll take a picture - at which point the hole in the enclosure for the switch won't be covered up.

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Mon Sep 11, 2017 1:02 pm

Very cool! I can't wait to see the finished product!

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Tue Sep 12, 2017 5:26 am

I put up a couple of pictures showing the (more or less) finished enclosure. I've been impressed by two things so far:

1. The process for skinning the enclosure was straightforward and didn't really require much skill (though patience and care were necessary), and
2. That the end product doesn't look like a hack job. It looks to me as sweet as anything you'd see on a store shelf.

I'm going to skin the back plate too, but I won't bother putting the details in here. When the pedal is finished I'll show the pics, but for now I want to move on to the guts.

Now where did I leave that old soldering iron?

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Mon Sep 18, 2017 6:16 am

All right. I got it put together and made a very lame and quick video highlighting how she sounds.

NOTE: My kids were asleep in bed when I made the video so I'm talking rather quietly - my apologies for that, I don't say anything really interesting so, you won't be missing much if you can't make out what I am saying.

phpBB [video]



Code:
I'm providing a link in case that doesn't embed right:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDcqI38CyP8

It worked on the first try - which I'm thankful for. It took about four hours to put together - but I swear half of that seemed to be sorting out the resistors, and figuring out which caps were which. ;)

I'm playing clean through my Blues Junior - master volume is at about 2, and volume is set to about 9 - so the tubes are warm (It was Friday night, and the kids were in bed, so I had to keep it down) I think I have the bass, mid and treble all set somewhere close to the middle. I'm playing on my 2008 Comanche, mostly on the neck and bridge pickups. I couldn't tell you which now, but some of the dynamic range has to do with switching pups on the fly.

It was a fun project, and I'm surprised out how versatile the pedal is for fuzz tones - It promised a high quality sound, and that is (IMO) what it delivered. With compression I expect the tone will deliver a more satisfying feel, but I don't have a compression pedal at the moment. That might be my next project.

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Wed Sep 20, 2017 5:37 am

you did a great job Dan, impressed with your detail,, well done,,
G

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Wed Sep 20, 2017 8:51 am

Hey Dan,

nice job there :thumbup: That one has a good overall tone, not too buzzy.

Could just be the guy playing guitar. :evilgrin:

Re: BYOC - Large Beaver...

Thu Sep 21, 2017 6:16 am

Thanks guys. I really liked how it turned out.

I was pretty sure I would be able to make it look good - as I am fairly handy with imaging software, and most (cough... all ....cough) of the detail comes from the printed decal. All I needed to do was design something, then print it with a color laser printer on printable water-slide decal "paper" - the rest was all arts and crafts. I'm "okay" with a soldering iron, and I can read a schematic, so I wasn't really concerned with building the guts. My main concerns were that it looked at least a little better than "okay" - and that it sounded the way it was supposed to sound.

I am quite happy with the way it turned out - it looks better than I thought I'd be able to pull off, and sounds exactly as I expected it to sound, so to me, that's a double down win. ;)

I'm toying with the idea of making my own suitcase pedal board next. I want something highly portable and easy to pack up - with a detachable lid, a built in ground fault circuit interrupter, and an XLR out alongside the regular out so that I can use my amp as a monitor when I'm plugging into a mix. I've already priced it out, and think I can do it for under a hundred bucks. It's probably not the most economical thing to do - but would definitely scratch my tinkering itch - and if I do it right - it'll look really cool too.