Pedal Enclosure help Slider?

[The Rocket From The Tombs]

I'm making a Wah pedal enclosure and I'm placing the DPDT switch in a different place than normal. I posted pictures below so you can better understand.

I'm placing the switch in the right corner next to where my heel would be, so I can just turn my heel a little and hit it, I'll also be cutting a little chunk out of the top part (the part that moves), So the switch can fit there.

I liked that but, I thought it was kinda ugly, so I had another idea.

I could take a piece of plastic and either melt and bend it or glue pieces to make an edge to replace the part I cut out. Next, I would cut a ridge into the bottom part of the enclosure that contains the guts, so the piece of plastic could slide down when pushed on and push the DPDT switch on or off.

So, here's my dilema, I need some sort of way for that little piece of plastic to be held in, slide down when pushed on and then pull back up level when the pressure is released. It would also need to be mounted on the pivoting part of the pedal and not the main enclosure.

Here are some pictures to help explain what I mean:

I was thinking like some kind of slide mechanism of some sort. All help and ideas are welcome and greatly appreciated!

[HOTTUBES]

That seems like alot of work .... but i like your desire to create something new !

link below to a standard case :


http://www.mammothelectronics.com/4SWah-Enclosure-p/500-1008.htm

[The Rocket From The Tombs]

The enclosure I've already built built but, thanks for the suggestion.

[Jdansti]

If you got this to work, the distance you'd have to move the square piece would vary depending on whether the foot plate was up or down.  So sometimes it would be a long way to get the switch to toggle, and other times a short distance.  How about attach the square piece directly to the metal actuator of the switch and just let it stay in one location instead of riding up and down on the foot plate?  You could pin them together.  You'd have to prevent the square piece from rotating and interfering with the operation of the foot plate though.

[rogerinIowa]

If you are interested in making a plastic part I have had really good luck using a product called shape lock plastic

http://shapelock.com/ easy to work with , easy to reuse the scraps, and if you dont need it for use in temps above 150F it is pretty awesome. can be drilled, tapped, etc.

dont know if that helps.

godd luck

r

[artifus]

been curious about that shapelock stuff. there's also http://sugru.com/ which i haven't tried either but remembered seeing that some folk had made their own: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-Your-Own-Sugru-Substitute/ called oogoo.

i wondered if some bright spark had tried anything similar with shapelock and google says: http://letsmakerobots.com/node/1206

[rogerinIowa]

I bought a pound of the shapelock pellets a couple of years ago and still have a bunch left because you simply re-claim any waste you have when using it...it melts in water at 150F (if i remember right) then you can shape it and when it cools it hardens.  So you just throw all of your cut-offs of the material into the water the next time you melt the pellets and there you go. Ihave had super good luck with it by employing some techniques normally used for polymer clay like sculpey....We have a hand cranked pasta machine that my daughter uses to run polymer clay thru to produce even sheets of various thicknesses for her clay work. I do the same with the shapelock before it hardens and i get small sheets of up to 1/2" thick to work with. less sanding and grinding that way and it is really uniform. when it cures to temperature ihave been able to shape it with a dremel or my spindle sander station, run it on the drill press, even tap it for threads and then use metal parts to fasten it to projects. I have also made some pretty great plastic rods out of it by pressing it thru a clay extruder before it cools.  pretty cool stuff, and no I dont work for shapelock

i think that by incorporating different materials such as plastics, woods, other metals, whatever, we can really expand on DIY engineering projects. For me that really means mostly pedal work, but the skills I have learned in pedal building in the last 15 years have opened up all sorts of other project possibilities too.

[The Rocket From The Tombs]

I'll look into the shape lock plastic, thanks for that. Attaching the plastic part to the switch was something I considered but, I want the plastic part to move with the pedal. I think I figured it out though, I can take some very thin scrap metal and make a little slide rack (like on desks that have trays that slide out) and attach it to the foot pedal, then I'll add the other rack part onto the plastic and slide the two together. Now, the plastic can slide up n down while still being attached to the foot pedal. Next, I'll attach a thin, flexible strip of metal to the bottom to act as a bumper (to keep the plastic level but, still allow it to be pushed down with enough pressure). Lastly, I'll add a few springs around the foot switch which will shoot the plastic piece back up, once the pressure is released. I might need to tweak it a little but, I think that should get the job done. Anyway, thanks for all the help everyone.