Ceramic stompbox enclosures?

[Processaurus]

I woke up this morning wondering if there were any synthetic clays (is that even possible) or symilarly pliable sculpting material that would work for handmade enclosures, and not be too delicate?  Imagine being able to squish together funny looking pedal enclosures in all kinds of shapes. 

Or anyone tried putting clay or bondo or something over a hammond box to get organic shapes?  I remember seeing some neon green thing like that, maybe a 4ms pedal a while back.

[caress]

you can use artist gels to get some interesting textures.  i've tried it a little bit with mixed results...but i'm sure with practice you could develop a good technique.

[R.G.]

Polymer clays, like Sculpy or Fimo are kneadable plastics until you bake them at about 275F, when they set up. You can also roll them out into a thin covering and drape them over other stuff, moulding as you go. Put "polymer clay" into google and see what you get.

Bondo is a good one for covering other enclosures. The Bondo covering was first mentioned in the Guitar Effects FAQ in about 1998. Use disposable gloves if you mold Bondo by hand, as some people have allergic or chemical reactions to the epoxies.

[Processaurus]

Good to know about the gloves with the Bondo. 

Some kind of rubber might be nice for dipping a stompbox in for a unique finish.  Or that spray on truck bed liner.

Sculpey and Fimo, when I'd used them, have been somewhat fragile, and would sort of crumble under stress.  Though I well might  not have baked them right because I was a kid.  They might make good knobs though (is that a Geo article?).  That would go great with an organic shaped stompbox augmented with other material.  I'm thinking about pedals that look like the vidieo game controllers in Croneberg's Existenz.

[R.G.]

Ah. I see.

You want castable urethanes. Look up micromark and browse their catalog for such.

Some kind of metal box with a cast-on cover will work. You may want to wax-sculpt the shape, pour casting plaster over it, then brush or cast in either latex layers or castable urethanes. Latex is easy, urethanes last a long time and have many durometers. Urethanes are expensive.

[brett]

Hi
I've had a little experience with kiln-fired cast ceramics.

The ones that I made were designed to be porous (wrt water), but the principle remains the same.  I used ordinary "slip", a naturally-occuring clay (like pipeclay).  Fist I made a plaster cast, which was easy.  Poring the slip into the mold results in the water in the slip being absorbed by the plaster and the plaster forming a semi-solid layer around the inside of the mold.

After drying for a day or two, it's time for firing.  I can't remember the exact temperatures, but the concept was that too low a temperature simply dried the clay, and gave it little strength.  The right amount of temperature (1000 C) results in the formation of a molten crystalline framework that is very strong.  With some colourful glazes, those are the items we see at craft markets or have in our cupboards.  Too hot (1100 C ?) in the kiln and the whole thing mets into a formless synthetic rock.

It seems like a really cool idea.  Screening could be easily achieved by embedding some copper wires in the box just before firing.
cheers

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I can see two possible problems with ceramics, 1. fragility and 2. trying to keep things dimensionally stable while drying & firing. But I'm not a ceramicist, so.....
Personally, if I was into weird-ass enclosures, I'd be going for fiberglass & resin.
In fact I'd be making a wood core & fiberglassing over it.

[coitmusic]

I've made a few ceramic enclosures for projects (I'm a studio potter full-time) in the past, but I don't think that I'd ever use ceramic for anything that you would have underfoot. Everything that I've done is for tabletop use. There's nothing like the depth and interest that you can get with a high fired stoneware glaze and the infinite flexibity of clay is wonderful. Some caveats: most pots, switches and other components have very short threads for enclosure mounting. I had to carve out the back side of the wall for each pot very carefully. Most pottery shrinks from 10-12% from wet to fired, so you have to plan for lots of extra space and make your holes slightly bigger than normal. Also making a lid that can be easily removed to change the battery or do repairs is very difficult. I finally ended up gluing in plastic wall anchors that I could screw into. Anyway...here's a pict of one of a series of triwave picogenerators that I made a few years ago:

[John Lyons]

That looks very nice!!!!!!!!!!
I'm totally impressed.
John

[coitmusic]

Thanks, John!
That means a lot coming from you! I love your woodwork and the recent copper plating experiments.
Chester

[mac]

I was thinking the opposite way, to use clay to make a mold for aluminum boxes. But Al melting point is at 640ºC so I forgot about it.

mac

[coitmusic]

You could probably do that if the ceramic was only bisque fired (lower temp. first firing) but would be a lot of trouble to make. Easier would be to use a sand mold. My wife is taking some foundry casting classes and they mostly do damp sand molds for aluminum casting. The processs is way more complex than this, but basically you use the sand to pack around a wood or metal or plastic positive and then remove the positive and pour into the void. Check out your local community college for classes. I'm working on making a mold for her to cast me some knobs.