who makes the wah enclosures?

[R.G.]

I noticed they all had the same casting numbers inside the base of the shell... which made me suspitious... someone is making these and supplying the big guys.

That's absolutely true - and the "someone" is - whomever currently owns the casting die and contracts for it to be used at a die casting contractor.

"Die cast" metal housings are made by a process where a very skilled machinist working for a high-tech machining firm cuts blocks of solid steel into an inside and an outside die, with clearance only where the cast metal goes between them. Once the dies are machined, tested, finished, and so on, they are used as masters in the mammoth diecasting machines that squirt molten aluminum, zinc, pot metal, etc. into the die where it cools and sets. It's dumped out and then the process repeated.

Getting dies tooled costs about $100K for starters these days. No problem at all if you make 100K to 1M parts from it, but pretty expensive if you make 10.

The die owner and casting contractor are likely to be under exclusive-use and non-disclosure agreements as well. That's common in the cast metal and plastics industry.

[ExpAnonColin]

Jesus @#$% guys-let's all make proxi wahs, like Z vex.  Transmografix did it and the application is quite simple.  I'd be doing it if I didn't have PUs, IFs, and GT-2's to build...  And if I understood the antenna better.

-Colin

[puretube]

the other, more on topic thing is: I bet nobody wants to hear one of the saddest stories of my life,
and how this accident turned pitiful me into having hundreds of prewired cogwheel-equipped 100k neg-log volume-pedal pots lying around...

Au contraire, mon ami!  I want to hear all about it!  I also know how to take away your pain.  How about if I just take some of those objects of your sorrow right off your hands?

Well, that sad sad story has something to do with the posting R.G. just wrote....

I`ll come back to that, later....

The sponge-thing (great idea - x/y/z expandable)
and the antenna-thing as well as my FSR-thing,
share the same problem: to stay at some fixed point
without "modulating", or getting a cramp,
or taking your foot away, leaving the thing at a certain setting
is a nono...

[gez]

The sponge-thing (great idea - x/y/z expandable)

There was a little idea and schematic in a magazine recently (EPE?) which involved a sheet of anti-static sponge (the stuff that gets supplied with CMOS chips) sandwiched between a couple of copper plates (circuit board?) to make a proximity switch/variable resistor.  Resistance decreases as plates come closer together.  Might work for a wah, just don't know how long the sponge would last.

Anyone know of a heavy-duty replacement that would stand up to multiple squashes?