Finally found a few vintage-style enclosures for some Tone Bender MKIII / MKIV circuits that I’ve built and had sitting around waiting for the right enclosure. Can’t wait to clean these up and get them up and running - currently wrapped in plastic and covered in oil, as they are raw steel after all.
I'll try and document my success and/or failures finishing these (I've never done steel before). Thinking of running with a polish and clear coat on one, and maybe a bit of bright colour on the other two.
Here's the finished product - it's D*A*M Fuzz Sound MKIII. I like yellow so much I made two.
ROTOSOUND FUZZ / VOX STYLE TONE BENDER ENCLOSURES
Yes, I know - it's technically not a Sola Sound Tone Bender enclosure, it's more like a Rotosound Fuzz or a Vox Tone Bender, but it's as close as I could get.
Painting: Just getting a couple of light coats on. Ignore the patchy bits; they’re mostly shadows. I’m trying some automotive spray paint, as I’m assuming it should be hard-wearing, and the colour is pretty cool (so long as you like yellow).
I’ve patched up the extra holes with epoxy, and they should be covered by the pots and knobs anyway (these are to secure the pots using those little tabs that are usually broken off)
The automotive paint needs some time to cure, and don't go too heavy on the coats. More is not better...
For the base, I decided to use a clear coat, which is the same as what I normally do on hammond-type enclosures after applying waterslide decals.
STEPS FOR PAINTING THE ENCLOSURE
- wash in hot water with detergent to remove oil (dry it very quickly to avoid rust)
- sand with 400 grit wet and dry, followed by 800 and finally 1200 (in the same direction)
- wash again in hot water with detergent, then wipe down with paper towels and isopropyl alcohol (again, don't waste time, or this will rust before your eyes)
- apply two coats on one side, wait an hour, then on the other side. Repeat.
Nice! Looking forward to see how it turns out!
ReplyDeleteWhere can I buy these raw enclosures....
GapCo in the UK. I had to use a shipping forwarding service, as they normally don’t post to Australia. For some reason they also have a small hole next to each three holes for the pots. The knobs only just cover them. Still, minor flaw to deal with.
Deletehttps://www.gapco.co.uk/vintage-pedal-enclosure.html
Cool!
DeleteOrdered,they were fairly cheap too!
I gave them a call, and the person I spoke to was surprised how popular they are. Not entirely cheap for me, shipping kills us here - 30 pounds to Australia, which is $53 Australian dollars. Still worth it.
DeleteHey fuzzhead - don't know if you will see this comment, but anyways... I'm chatting with a supplier to have some Tone Bender MKI enclosures made. They seem pretty interested, so see where this goes. It's sunetec_au on eBay. I bought a few wedge enclosures from them, and they're pretty well made. It's not a special order for me, they will sell on eBay if it happens.
Delete