pedal finishing

wave100

Hi y'all - I've recently built a fuzz factory clone from Musikding - the pedal sounds great and worked first time - hurray! However I want to finish it off in a way that looks a bit more professional so I was thinking of printing my design out, sticking it to the pedal with spraymount or something similar and then spraying varnish of some kind over it to protect it.
Has anyone else tried this? Are there any particular types of paper that should not be used, and lastly what type of varnish should I use so that the printer ink doesn't smudge or run?

Ta muchly for any advice and or wisdom!

MtB

There has been a discussion on this here: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/11093/

I've had some good results with matt white adhesive inkjet paper (from Crafty Computer Paper). This is simple to print on from a conventional printer (do some trials on normal white paper first tho'), stick on the pedal and then finish with a couple of coats of clear acrylic lacquer.

The more care and time you take, the better the finish.

http://i1091.photobucket.com/albums/i395/wacky_racer/P1010002_zpsa28a8519.jpg

juansolo

Done things many ways over the years, but the best way I've found to date for DIY and one-offs is raw/polished/powder coated enclosures, adhesive decals (I use transparent, but also from CCC) and Envirotex.

Though there is a bit of a technique to it.

http://juansolo.co.uk/stompage/finishing.html

Corvus

You can use car spray clear lacquer with a couple of provisos - mist on the first coats, a light dusting. Give it a few mins to 'flash' (part-dry), and do another couple of the same. Then go for wetter coats. That avoids flooding on solvent which will make the colours run & bleed.
Also it doesn't take too well to thick build, thick coats can crack & craze.

Only done one pedal and used waterslide decal paper on it, which you can get clear or with white backing. Another pedal's in the works. Do my own paint spraying
http://alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/misc/zen3.jpg

thermionic

Two things I have learnt from experience:

• Inkjet waterslide paper smudges badly, despite following the instructions to seal it with acrylic laquer. I won't try it again until I get a laser printer (ink/toner is not water-soluble).
• Halfords car laquer (I think it's Nitro) takes weeks to harden. Weeks. Even handling left indentations from my fingerprints!

In the end I used a metallic silver pen (from an art shop) for a hand-drawn look, which actually looks OK.

frankus

@Corvus's pedal is a thing of beauty!

I generally use hammerite to conceal my inneptitude. I do like handpainting with acrylics and then sealing the mofo ...

was tempted to etc, and inkjet waterslide and I've a laser printer and transparent sheet.

best finish is on the zendrive which has an abalone top like the zenkudo - I call it zendinky.

randomhandclaps

thermionic said:

Inkjet waterslide paper smudges badly, despite following the instructions to seal it with acrylic laquer. I won't try it again until I get a laser printer (ink/toner is not water-soluble).

Were you cutting it before or after spraying?  I had that problem a few years back trying to add a custom graphic to a guitar body and it pissed me off almightily. I tried again and again and would put layer upon layer over the whole sheet then it would still run or smudge.  I eventually figured it must be seeping in through the freshly cut edges and any time since I have cut it out first and not had the problem since.

Corvus

Thanks frankus! It's gold flake over silver base with burnt orange candy. The decals I printed back-to-front, painted the 'cutouts' in gold, gave 'em a squirt of rattle-can lacquer and flipped 'em over. Po'boys gold decals. Copied the idea from someone who used a gold pen.

thermionic

Wisdom for @randomhandclaps for that one. Although I'm not 100% sure that's what I did.