Pictures!

[Stompin Tom]

Holy crap, Mark! Nice! I see you have quite a few flangers/phasers and choruses... How about a shootout of some sort? Your favorite chorus or phaser and why?

...and where did you say you got those $2 enclosures???

[Mark Hammer]

1) The plastic enclosures are made by Pac-tec.  Very sturdy and not much give if the stompswitch is mounted near the end of the box.  Here's an example of what the inside is like: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/mhammer/Pedalpix/Woody2.jpg  You can see the end pieces made from copper board and the hunk of shim for shielding.  The batteries give you a sense of the internal space.  I have no idea what they cost new.  The surplus place near me got in a crate of them a couple years ago and I go back for a half dozen now and then.  I certainly LIKE cast aluminum boxes, and have no problems machining them, and like how they look painted up.  I've been really impressed with what many of the people here have been able to do with a simple1590B or BB.  These plastic ones are just more convenient, plus the places I usually buy Hammond boxes from locally either have none or only have the ones with flange ends for screw mounting to surfaces.

I have a frac-rac type unit I made that looks very much like one of those old PAiA boxes for mounting synth modules.  The surplus place near me was selling these great little pre-machined, black-anodized aluminum plates, 4/$1, a while back and I bought a couple dozen.  The frac-rac units I made will house a dozen modules. in two rows of 6.  The long-range plan is to stick my favourites into those module spaces, with a master power supply and some sort of switching arrangement.  Pity that white rub-on lettering disappeared from the market.  Would have looked bitchin against the brushed anodized black surface. I'll see if I can throw up a picture or two of the modular unit.

2) I have to confess the String Damper is a bit of a sham.  Yes there is a box with stompswitch, and yes I made the board and populated it, and the board is even inside, wired up to the pots, but no I have not finished wiring it up inside and have not tried it out.  Soon.

3) I had (and still have) plans to sell a bunch of pedals locally to raise a bit of cash to meet some current needs (the ad was supposed to read "My kid needs college tuition more than you do!").  The numbering scheme was to be able to set up a Q & D website with a couple of pictures and numbers to direct the prospective customer to text descriptions.  Just one more of those things I "have to get around to".

4) All the choruses are nice and all sound a little different because of their design and mods.  That being said, you could probably make any one of them sound like any of the others with a few simple parts changes.  Note that the Washburn is "stereo" in that it has a second jack hardwired to the input jack.  Don't be misled by its location.  It could be used as a second input jack if you felt like it.

The real collection to look at is Rick Lawrence's.  He had a large number of examples posted on someone else's website a couple years ago but I've long since lost the link (and imagine the link/site has long since disappeared anyways).  Rick's a hard-working guy, and well-organized, and has the luxury of having a well-equipped fabrication shop at his workplace.  So when there is some spare time, he has a nice clean spacious government-supplied workspace to use.  That, industriousness, curiosity, and a decent nearby industrial electronics distributor (I think he can actually walk there from work) doesn't hurt.  Unless he has had a huge warehouse fire, a vengeful spat with his wife, or has had the garage sale of your dreams, I imagine his collection dwarfs my own many times over by now.

[markm]

Quite the collection there Mark,
Nice 

[Snuffy]

I have a question for Mark -I see a couple of fOXX tone machines there - nice
Is it possible to build one with a stomp switch for the octave?

[Pushtone]

I have a question for Mark -I see a couple of fOXX tone machines there - nice
Is it possible to build one with a stomp switch for the octave?

I'll take this one. A switch is a switch is a switch.

Sure its possible. In fact that's just what JD Sleep did in his FTM build at GGG.

Check out JD's build http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=86

See, two footswitches. Ah but it gets even better.

Scroll down the page to the inside view links and you will see that JD not only installed a FS for the oct but he also gave it its own LED.
JD used a 3PDT for the oct and LED, but a cheaper DPDT switch would work too. A SPST would work but without the oct LED.

Note that the Parts Layout and Wiring Diagram on GGG does not show the bypass or oct LEDs.
That is trivial enough to figure out yourself.

For the bypass LED, look for another GGG project layout that shows the bypass LED and apply it to the FTM.
As for the oct LED, well its just using half of one pole as a SPST switch for the oct (green and brown wires), and another pole to make or break a ground lead to the oct LED (black wires).

Checkout dano12's tech notes on basic switch operations...
http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/Switches/

[Hiwatt25]

Nothing real shocking to add but figured I'd keep the train a rollin' with this.  It's a Mr. Clean and was my second build.  I've got a Gus Smalley boost to add but it's not quite done yet.  In case you're wondering, yes it's sitting on waxed paper.  It's been humid here and the clear coat stays real tacky (think, pedal covered in frosting).  It's still sticking to everything so I put it on the waxed paper hoping it won't stick to my counter tops. 

A bad finish is one thing...an angry wife is quite another.



I try to keep the finish simple because I'm lazy and because it's cheap.  Once it's on my pedal board, it's easy to keep them straight.  Even without lettering. Cheers.

[jonathan perez]

after sanding the pedal, try using metallic hobby car paint...youll find that even with just one coat, it will look GREAT no matter what. if unless youre " REALLY lazy", then dont bother painting. 

[Cliff Schecht]

I'm entirely too lazy to paint. I just label with Sharpie, stick on the velcro and go at it! I still have a full can of Bix industrial grade stripper that I was going to use to clean off my Russian BMP that I stuck a Robote Delay and CE-2 chorus in, but I know what all of the knobs and switches do and just don't care right now. It also needs to be rewired badly, as I left all of the wiring long on purpose, but never got around to cleaning it up. Too busy using the stuff I've built 

[Mark Hammer]

I have a question for Mark -I see a couple of fOXX tone machines there - nice
Is it possible to build one with a stomp switch for the octave?

Pushtone's absolutely right.  In fact there are often toggles that can be converted to stompswitches.  The key question to ask yourself is whether they make enough of a difference in your sound, or represent a desirable-enough and used-enough change in sound that you would need to accommodate that function into a box with a stompswitch.  Though I don't have it myself, I can see that the octave switch on a FTM would be a good candidate for a stompswitch.  It is one of those tonal changes that I can easily see a person using mid-solo.  Heck, I could easily see someone installing both a toggle AND a momentary footswitch to be able to get riff-wise tone changes or set-and-forget changes.

[Lp_man]

I'm bringing back this thread

I finally got arround to painting my fOXX tone machine I built, was originally going to paint it sparkle orange but the hardware store didn't have any so instead I got 'brilliant copper'

[markm]

I like the copper color, it looks great.
I have one I painted copper but, I haven't seen it since January.
I loaned it out for "acouple of days" and it's still out there.....somewhere 

[disto]

I'm bringing back this thread

will this thread ever die?!

looks nice Lp does it sparkle/glitter its hard to tell from photos!

[Lp_man]

It is a really bright copper colour, more shine than sparkle! I've had to start over because I got greedy and did too many coats without letting the primer dry properly and it messed up the layers of paint! *slaps self*

[disto]

lol everyones done that you just get carried away and can be bothered to wait for it to dry, then you end up ruining it, all you can do is learn from your mistakes

[newbie builder]

Some of my builds are in other places, but as soon as I can get them together I'll take a family photo and post it here. I'm too lazy to paint anything....I know some artists though and either plan on having them paint some pedals for me or taking them to a local powdercoater and having them thrown in with somebody else's batch of stuff. At first it worked to just use different knobs to distinguish pedals, but I'm running out of new knobs! Now I start using wierd combinations of different knobs to tell them apart

[wiplash]

 This is my Tycobrahe octavia pedal clone, make with aluminium plate(2mm)
kitch!!

[zeta55]

wiplash, nice to see some homebent pedals. Looks nice.

[Morocotopo]

To all: nice work, guys and girls!
I borrowed a digital camera, so here´s some of my work. This is to encourage people who think "my work is not as nice looking as these, I better not show it!" If i show, so can you!! 
Geofex parametric EQ, non modded values. Shakaboost at the output, to be able to vary output level. Hand bent enclosure from 2mm aluminum, lots of bending, filing, sanding, cursing, riveting and gluing. Painted metallic bronze, doesn´t show very well in the pictures. Adhesive labelling semitransparent paper for laser printers (APLI brand, it´s a bit thick) for graphics. Water lacquer finish, semi matt. Cheap plastic 2P2T switch, millenium 2 for the led.



This is how NOT to do your wiring:


I promise, my other builds are neater!!

[christobean]

Morocotopo-that is an impressive handmade box you have there!

[Morocotopo]

thanks christobean, it´s a bit untidy (glue showing up in some joints, not perfectly square edges, etc), hard to tell from the photos,  but it works. Bending and sawing 2mm aluminum is hard work, but ends up very strong!