Marvel Comics Decoupage Fuzz

UnclePsychosis

I recently put together a Mosrite Fuzzrite kit which I bought from the lovely Fuzzdog/Poodle Pedal Parts. Sounds great by the way, very simple to put together. 

Rather than paint it (I'm crap with paint) my wife suggested I decoupaged it. For those of you who don't know, its basically papier-mâché, you use bits of paper and glue to do your decoration. Its a bit of a faff but the results are excellent and its much easier (in my opinion) than trying to find a good day for spraypainting your cases. The only things you need are some paper, some scissors, and some PVA glue. 

Pictures/comments to come in follow up posts. 

UnclePsychosis

First of all, take your pre-drilled pedal enclosure. I'm not sure if the paper would get chewed up if you drilled *after* doing the decoupage but since I bought a pre-drilled case I had no choice anyway. 

Take some rough sandpaper and take the shine off the case. You don't need to go nuts, you just need to let the glue adhere to something. 

Second, take whatever designs you're going to use to decorate your case and cut them up into smaller pieces. I used my bog standard inkjet printer to print out some Marvel comic designs as postage stamp sized pieces. Whatever makes you happy, basically. 

UnclePsychosis

The non-obvious bit. You have to seal the ink into the page or the ink will run as you're sticking it together. If you don't do this the ink will bleed and your design will look rubbish. 

Take some PVA glue (the internet talks about Modpodge: PVA is fine) and thinly coat each design. Leave them for a few minutes to dry. The glue goes on opaque but dries clear. Dont go nuts, you don't need a lot. 

UnclePsychosis

Next, time to start sticking the paper on to the case. 

I did this the wrong way round. Originally I was going to only do the top, but then decided to cover the sides too. If you're going to do this, do the sides first and then move onto the top. It'll look better. 

All you do is add a thin layer of PVA to the back of a piece of paper, then stick it down and smooth it out to remove bubbles/wrinkles. Again, you don't need loads of glue. Overlap the designs a bit as you see fit. Its a mosaic, go nuts. My wife helped me with this bit, doesn't she have lovely hands?

UnclePsychosis

Keep going until you've covered as much as you want to. Glue onto the back of paper, stick it down. You can always trim excess off later, so don't worry too much about the edges around the bottom. 

UnclePsychosis

Once you've done the whole thing, go back over the top with another layer of PVA. Again, no need to go nuts. Let it dry, then repeat two or three times. You probably want an hour or so between coats to make sure they're absolutely dry (I did one a night but I'm paranoid). 

As the glue dries it goes shiny, so you should have a nice sheen on the pedal by now. 

UnclePsychosis

Next up, the bit I forgot to take photos of!

Once it dries:

Using a craft knife, very carefully cut the paper away from the holes in the chassis. Start on the underside of the pedal, obviously! Also trim off any excess paper anywhere else. The glue sets quite hard so this bit is fiddly but not that difficult. Just be careful, you don't want to ruin your hard work. 

Next, build your circuit and put it all together!

UnclePsychosis

Finally, add knobs of your choice, you're done! 

I may change these red ones, they don't fit very well on the pot shafts. Other than that I'm pleased.

UnclePsychosis

WezV

Awesome stuff!!

axisus

Looks great!

Adam_MD

That looks really great I think I'll have a go at that.

Gassage

I'm going to do exactly this to a pedal...

With a collage of Dymo labels.

UnclePsychosis

Thanks guys.

It's really pretty simple @Adam_MD although it is fairly time consuming. Plus, playing with PVA glue is great fun :-)

thermionic

Finally, a use for that old copy of Razzle that I've been keeping since the internet started.

Handsome_Chris

Batman is DC, not Marvel.

breakstuff

Brilliant idea.

EricTheWeary

Handsome_Chris said:

Batman is DC, not Marvel.

Superman also on there, also DC.  B-) The 13 year old me found this stuff important. As I'm no longer 13...does the decoupage wear well? Given that a pedal receives a bit of kicking how likely is it to start unraveling?  Looks great BTW and a pretty accessible way of covering things.

UnclePsychosis

Yes for the pedants there are one or two DC characters in there too...

As to how Decoupage wears, I'm not sure. It seems fairly hard now that it's set but it is just PVA glue.

I'm not a "jump onto my pedals with my full weight" kinda guy so I think it'll last OK for me. The guys who manage to dent Boss pedals and remove the paint from commercially sprayed boxes might find this isn't for them. Those guys would probably break my amateur solder joints anyway!!

BigMonka

That's a brilliant project, and the final result is class!

I wonder whether a final coat or 2 of a hard clear varnish would give it extra protection for those who are heavy footed or have to sling their pedals in a bag for transporting etc.

JookyChap

Looks great - I did my Beano Les Paul the same way. 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_9tqMJ_wUmiE/TAK0hmlQ1bI/AAAAAAAAAYI/wKXE-MlXx1s/s1600/004.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9tqMJ_wUmiE/TAK1JsPzr7I/AAAAAAAAAYw/FIc5tlePpic/s1600/011.jpg

To make it a bit more hard wearing, you can lacquer with acrylic or nitro and it works fine/no problems as the PVA or Mod podge (it is thinner and smoother going on but you can sand either) are pretty inert.