Never built a pedal before, so this will be a steep learning curve, keeping it reasonably simple it will be a Tone Bender style Fuzz on tagboard, I also hope to make my own enclosure from a billet of aluminium.
The aluminium billet is 5 inches in diameter and 2 inches long. I have a vey old engineers lathe in the shed, which is pretty tired but should be good enough to create an enclosure…..pedal parts and a new soldering iron are in the mail…chances are there will be some sort of decoration on the enclosure if I dont cock it up, If the worst happens I have an alloy Hammond type enclosure as a fall back to doodle on…..
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Billet machined parts are created by machining from a solid piece of (usually) metal.
It is usually done on a computer controlled CNC machine and is incredibly wasteful, as most of the material you start with gets machined away to leave the desired component. Generally the finished component looks pretty fabulous, compared to say something cast or fabricated, think Drewman aluminium guitars, the whole body is machined from a big aluminium billet, you could bend sides and weld a top and bottom on, tidy up the welds and polish to achieve a similar result, but the billet jobby is fantastic, and reassuringly expensive.
So for my enclosure, think shallow circular margarine tub, but machined from solid, turn it upside down so the base becomes the top and thats where the controls will mount, there will be a recessed lip around the open end where a base will be mounted.
Most of my 20quid lump of ally will end up in the recycling…..or possibly all of it if I cock it up and resort to a Hammond cast alloy enclosure!
Similar to this
Parts are in the mail, but will be a while, apparently there is a new year coming!…
Hope to start machining on Monday, when all the New Year stuff is over with, the lathe is pretty tired and I reckon Ill be doing well if I can take half a mm off at a time, so it will take a while…. it could take ages to cock it up!
Here is the billet with one of my favourite fuzz pedals for comparison..
First cut to square the end of the billet
https://youtu.be/A8NFnZFNT_k
and end of play and a couple of hours bent over a lathe that Noah probably used! The cutting tool is sticking out too far, but its all Ive got, so we make do….
Tomorrow I need to tidy it all up, turn ot round in the chuck and skim the top face, drill the holes for the pots and footswitch, the holes for the jacks and power supply will wait until I can tell how much room the circuit will take….
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As Bubbles would say:
the video appears to be private atm.
would like to know where you're getting the tagboard from
Tagboard came from ebay
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/362832120539
Ive bitten the bullet and bought a proper boring tool for the lathe….
But I think it will work, circuit parts should arrive in time for the weekend..need to make a bottom cover too..
Offset Footswitch position and lack of led hole will become apparent later.
Mocked up with jacks (old) pots and knobs, theres loads of room within
Next job; Make a baseplate
Electronic parts have arrived, thats a job for Monday morning, when Mrs B is at her Sewing Bee
Print an Angry Wasp onto waterslide transfer paper, allow to dry then a couple of coats of lacquer
Soak for a couple of mins
Apply and allow to dry
Lacquer and when dry compare knobs…not sure yet, prob go with the Marshall type as the alloy top is similar to the alloy enclosure….
On Sunday Mrs B goes to a special sewing bee so Ill have the house to myself, so that time is set aside to solder the board…
Nice work.