DIY FX pedal artwork advice please.

freakboy1610

I've just got back into pedal building after a long break and I was hoping to get some tips on creating the artwork. I've previously just used Word or Libre Office to draw a box to the right size, cut and pasted pictures from the web, then added text by trial and error. This was OK up to a point but I wondered if there is an easy way of drawing an accurate template, most importantly showing the correct size and position of the knobs and footswitch? I like knob functions to be labeled and so I also want something where I can correctly place wording etc. My latest build has 4 knobs so getting the text in place by trial and error could be a PITA. I'm not a computer wiz but could get my head around something with a shallow learning curve. Thanks in advance!

oaf

I've scanned the box top and the knobs I'm using in the past! You can then drag them about and see how much clearance you have to give each knob/switch/whatever in an art package. You could try GIMP (free, open source, multi-platform).

You can put the knobs on a different layer and then fade the layer (make it less opaque) so you can see where the hardware is going to go without totally obscuring what you're working on. It allows you to be more precise with labels, e.g. the Fuzz and Vol here:

When it comes to printing you just hide the layer that shows your switches, LEDs, knobs, etc (though I tend to make Xs on a different layer which show the centre of each piece of hardware, makes it easier to line things up). I use clear water slide paper and a colour laser printer. Hope this helps!

freakboy1610

Thanks @oaf. That's very helpful. Did you literally sit the box top on the scanner? I've got a scanner at home so that could work. Will also look at Gimp.

SteveF

@oaf that looks great.  What have you used over the top? Some kind of clear varnish? 

oaf

Yes, I just put it down on the glass make sure glass/box is fairly clean and don't drag it around too much (you don't want to scratch the glass).

Scan at a reasonable DPI (say 300 or 600) and try to make sure that your box is square to the scanner (though you can always tweak it so that it is truly square in the graphics software).

Make sure that when you print you select a 1:1 or 100% size output (no scaling) obvious I know but... ;-)

There are lots of free fonts online, https://www.fontsquirrel.com/ is quite good (and has a nice matching feature where it looks for a similar font to a logo you have).

oaf

@SteveF I used clearcoat from a rattle can. You have to put it on in very thin layers, but it does work. If you go too thick then it can lift the ink and it goes a bit blurry (or it lifts the ink from my HP laser printer anyway). It probably depends on the clearcoat and the ink I suppose but light coats work fine. The other alternative is Envirotex.

Re layouts you can get some nice results by putting the controls in a slight arc, like this:



It's easier to do stuff like that (for me at least) in a computer rather than trying to calculate a curve by hand. You can then get the labels to follow the curve path too (you can just about see enough of the labels above the knobs to get an idea, fuzz labels are blue, delay are yellow).

This was a one box fuzz/delay made as a surprise present for a friend. The fuzz section was my own variation on the usual design (uses optical switching) while the delay is Merlin Blencowe's Small Time Delay (a fun and fairly easy to make design).

Delay plans: http://www.valvewizard.co.uk/smalltime.html

thermionic

Inkscape is better than GIMP for this kind of thing. It's vector based drawing as opposed to a photo editor, so easier to mark out dimensions etc. Once you have the positions of the knobs, and legends marked out, you can import a jpeg as a background.

SteveF

Nice Is this the type of stuff you use for the decals? 【Pack of 20】A4 Size Laser Water Slide Decal Paper Sheets Transparent Clear DIY for Laser Printer presumably I don't need any special ink etc? 

Thanks for your help, sorry for so many questions (and somewhat hijacking the thread but hopefully these questions will also help @freakboy1610 ), I have just ordered my first couple of pedal kits from Fuzz Dog and I'm looking forward to having a crack but hadn't considered the finish, so I'm happy this thread popped up  

Presumably you just spray the box with spray paint (any particular type?) and then apply the decals over that before finishing with clear coat? 

oaf

@SteveF yes to the decals. I think I bought some "Mr Decal Paper" sheets via Amazon. Large pieces of wet decal can be quite hard to handle but a quick spray of clearcoat seems to make them a bit stronger (before you put the sheet in water).

I've tended to polish the enclosure (bare metal) and then use the shiny silver colour of the enclosure as the whites in my artwork (if you see what I mean?) with any other colours (e.g. dark background) printed out on the decal itself. A good printer will produce dense colours which look good (to me anyway).

Unless the enclosure is painted in quite a light colour you might struggle to get enough contrast (between what you've printed and the dark background paint) making any labels/logos hard to read. If you want coloured enclosures it'll probably be easier to buy them pre-painted.

I've used car paint rattle cans. One paint technique I've played with is to acid etch the enclosure and then fill the etch with a metallic paint like this:



(sorry, poor photo). I sprayed the top with gold then sanded it with a flat block until the only paint that remained was in the (lower) etched portion. That pedal is an SHO clone in a 1590A box.

SteveF

Thanks again I've ordered myself a FuzzDog Boner Boost and Fuzzy Muff (which is apparently not really a fuzz at all, but more of a low/medium gain overdrive).  Both look to be pretty simple circuits to get me started and I'll go from there.  I've done a fair amount of soldering but a long time ago (I actually trained as an electronics technician when I first joined up, but it's been 15 years or so since I soldered anything more than a set of pickups so thought I'd start with something not too fiddly to get back in the swing of things). Figured I'd be able to dust off the cobwebs of understanding the circuits more too with something simple. 

Sporky

thermionic said:

Inkscape is better than GIMP for this kind of thing. It's vector based drawing as opposed to a photo editor, so easier to mark out dimensions etc. Once you have the positions of the knobs, and legends marked out, you can import a jpeg as a background.

I most definitely agree - Inkscape is an excellent tool for this job.

Though some of the text flow stuff is a bit tricky to get your head around - there are some good Intro to Inkscape books though, well worth picking one up as it'll get you going faster.

Excellent bit of software though, and it'll do very accurate layouts. I used to import CAD layouts of the enclosures and work around those.

freakboy1610

Got my pedal finished at last! It's a guitarpcb.com DSOTM (Skreddy Lunar Module Clone). In the end I took the easy route and scanned the top of the drilled enclosure and placed the art and lettering over that. I have downloaded Inkscape and I will be attempting to learn to use that whilst working on my next build. Thanks @oaf and everyone else for the advice. The design is not especially original, but I think it looks good. Used Star Wars font from a free font website. I printed onto glossy white adhesive backed paper and finished it with 6 or 7 fairly thick coats of Simoniz lacquer.

oaf

Excellent! The addiction begins...