Clone pedal builder rant

equalsql

Letroset is my best friend..

TheCount

I've always found the enclosures the hardest part to get right. It's either time consuming or involves a reasonable set up cost.  For someone building one offs it's probably not worth it unless they really want to spend a lot of time on a pedal. Build a 100 of something and it's worth investing a few hundred in a screen and some inks etc

TheCount

The Jemini distortion looks like a primary school project:) 

juansolo

JDE said:

As long as they're sparkly, i'm cool. Some "brand" builders could do well with revising or removing all of their graphics and logos - I'd rather have nothing on a box than some of the munters out there. Not that it should matter. Tbh, I find the "graphic'd top/unfinished sides and underside" thing some builders (EHX are the prime example) way more offensive. LAZY.

Don't even get me started on some of the names.

To be fair I do that quite a bit. There area couple of reasons why. Firstly the guy who used to do my powder coating doesn't any more, I don't have any powder coating gear myself (though th plan is to buy some at some point. Finally the quality of pre-coated enclosurs from the manufacturers is universally piss poor. You can do,a decent job of a plain back and sides. 

The camden boss enclosures I tend to use look good raw. Hammond's we sand and polish and they look pretty good like that. FWIW we don't have a brand name to put on (though I occasionally use Cleggtronix because it amuses me when I use an EHX knock off style of design) because we're not a commercial entity. We only sell odd pedals to fund the hobby. Hence we'll be doing a sort run of klones to fund the powder coating gear when I get back.

juansolo

TheCount said:

I've always found the enclosures the hardest part to get right. It's either time consuming or involves a reasonable set up cost.  For someone building one offs it's probably not worth it unless they really want to spend a lot of time on a pedal. Build a 100 of something and it's worth investing a few hundred in a screen and some inks etc

One offs (which is mostly what I do) are vastly time consuming and means that mass production methods are very cost prohibitive. For example silk screening.

Painting is time consuming and seasonally challenging (can't do it when it's cold). It also takes damage really easily. Powder coating is th answer but requires a compressor, the kit and an oven to do. Getting decent quality powder coating done elsewhere means buying in bulk, which again is not so great for the one off builder.

Doing the layout/enclosure is by far the most time consuming part of assembling a pedal. If you want an idea of what we do with ours, have a look at the finishing tutorial on my site.

4114Effects

Just noticed this thread. Thanks for the mention. I actually find that the graphics are the part that the customer wants to spend the most time discussing. Let's face it, you can go anywhere to get a clone nowadays, so I tried to do some thing that sets me apart. Customers usually love the fact that they can come up with a name or concept for a pedal, and I'll come up with the graphics. For what it's worth, I use the waterside and spray painting method, and I've found that as long as you prepare properly and allow adequate drying time, they can be pretty hard wearing. Not had any complaints about the finishes marking yet, they seem to be holding up OK. Yep. It takes a bit longer to finish, but you can use the time the enclosure is drying to build other circuits, or design more graphics. As the other builders on this thread have said, I'd love to screen print, but it's just too cost prohibitive for one-off pedals. If someone could come up with a great home screen printing kit, I'd be first on the list to buy one :-)

JDE

@juansolo - I think non-corporate builders can do whatever they like, I wasn't having a pop at you. I find it offensive that EHX can drop some dollar putting a picture of Mike on their batteries (ffs) and they can't be bothered to finish their boxes properly (rough cast seams on a £200 pedal?!? Bitch, please) or they feel the need to use of plastic circlips on their ins/outs when they're total balls. They will however, replace a broken plastic circlip (cost, approx 0.000004 cents) with another one, rather than a steel one (which costs approx 0.0004 cents) and charge me postage, return postage and $50.

Gagaryn

Plus one for Letraset - or more accurately the print yourself dry-transfer sheets - although it is a bugger to use! Here's a picture of my first effort, made a bit of an arse of it but now that I know how sticky they are and their is no chance of repositioning I can achieve a better result - no pictures of that! Anyway - how not to do it -

breadfan

@Gagaryn I don't think that looks too bad at all. I'd like to label my MKI clone; could you tell me what font you used?

ICBM

TheCount said:

The Jemini distortion looks like a primary school project:) 

I know, it's great isn't it!

I'd love a Jemini if it was possible to stack the two halves. It isn't, which defeats the point of a dual pedal, to me.

juansolo

JDE said:

@juansolo - I think non-corporate builders can do whatever they like, I wasn't having a pop at you. I find it offensive that EHX can drop some dollar putting a picture of Mike on their batteries (ffs) and they can't be bothered to finish their boxes properly (rough cast seams on a £200 pedal?!? Bitch, please) or they feel the need to use of plastic circlips on their ins/outs when they're total balls. They will however, replace a broken plastic circlip (cost, approx 0.000004 cents) with another one, rather than a steel one (which costs approx 0.0004 cents) and charge me postage, return postage and $50.

No worries fella. I was more commenting on the different probs you have doing custom stuff vs the commercial guys who can do runs of a single design. I also agree when you see what wampler can do in house, for example (deep envy of their pedal printer) that there's no excuse for being shoddy on expensive pedals.

TheCount

If any of you guys are interested, This guy will make you an A3 sized screen for around 100 quid. You'll probably get 8 + 1590b graphics on that, Some ink, screenwash and retarder will probably set you back another 100-150 Then you'll be screen printing. He's a very nice guy and his turnaround is pretty quick

http://www.steve-wood.co.uk/

monquixote

ICBM said:

TheCount said:

The Jemini distortion looks like a primary school project:) 

I know, it's great isn't it!

I'd love a Jemini if it was possible to stack the two halves. It isn't, which defeats the point of a dual pedal, to me.

I didn't know that. 

Seems like a bit of a missed opportunity. 

I like how silly it looks

impmann

Come on guys... Everybody knows that a thin finish lets the tonz breathe and so leaving the finish off gives even better resonance.

I've also found that the use of animal glue improves the tone transfer and that flat head screws sound better than cross head.

Dave_Mc

monquixote said:

ICBM said:

I'd love a Jemini if it was possible to stack the two halves. It isn't, which defeats the point of a dual pedal, to me.

I didn't know that. 

Seems like a bit of a missed opportunity. 

I like how silly it looks

Me neither. Was never really considering one, but nice to know all the same.