easy knob fabrication

[Ansil]

i was thinkin the other day.  knobs are not cheap. what if you want to have the bass middle treble gain etc on the knob.  the little seven day pill boxes.  but they make a larger one. you can make a mold out of them and a good knob.  engrave the top of it with what you want to say and make a nice fabrication of it.  you can use rubber or polymerclay  or plaster of paris.  plastic . what ever your heart desires. once the agent starts to thicken you can put in a small dowel rod to keep the thing from cracking that way you can drill it out later to the exact size you need.'

just a thought.  hope that helps someone out there.
ps if you have a dollar tree in your area. there is a great little sewing box in there that makes a heck of a stompbox shell.  its plastic so you would have to shield it. but i made a nice pseudo organ.

[R.G.]

Good thought. I suggested that to the amp community several years back when there was a scarcity of chicken head knobs.

Even neater is to bust up old knobs you don't like that have the brass inserts in them with the set screw, then cast them inside neato shapes of knobs you make out of polymer clay, polyurethane, boddy putty, whatever.

[Rodgre]

The scale modeling community often casts custom parts out of resin. You can make a mold with a kit, and then fill the mold with the resin. Let it harden, and voila, custom knobs.

You can also try it with epoxy, but it's not cheap.

How about carving knobs out of wood?

Roger

[petemoore]

!/2-34/ inch dowels with holes about the right size for potshafts..either they press fir right on or I use [whateever toothpick paper or leather] shime ad goue to make them tight.
 I also cut a piece of thin leather to a fine taper, then glued and wrapped it around a [knurled with big wire cutter insulation stripping notches on the blades]  to a fine taper [the top part of the knob is tapered].
 Seems like bondo could be used somehow...say in thimbles?

[bwanasonic]

Maybe I'm not sure what kind of knobs your talking about, but smallbearelec.com has a nice selection of knobs that only run about $1.00 @. I think I'll leave knob fabrication to Davies Moulding.  :wink:

[runmikeyrun]

I made some knobs for a pedal a while back, out of FIMO polymer clay.  Since no one i knew of made knobs shaped like body parts, i went to it.  I used the brass inserts out of some old knobs and molded the clay around em... bake in oven and then a coat of the FIMO clear gloss... came out great!

I would recommend doing it for a nice added artistic touch.

[Mike Nichting]

Anybody have pics of home made knobs??

Mike

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Someone on an e-music list made a huge lo fi mixer, used wooden beads (from one of those massaging car seat things that Greek taxi drivers seem to like).

[AL]

Ansil,

Good idea but I wouldn't use plaster.  It's really brittle and scars very easily.  If you have a dental supply shop near get some Dental Stone or Hydrocal or Ultracal.  All of these are much harder than plaster and are made for molding purposes.  Just a thought.  Thanks for the suggestion.

AL

[Ansil]

thanks for the replys.  i just thought it might be a good idea  i tried the plaster and through in some epoxy,  then tried another one and tried some rubber spray undercoating for truck beds.. that really seems to do t he trick.. i don't know just something to try...