Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hey there,

Getting ready to paint for the first time. First time painting ANYTHING beisdes walls haha....

After reading through the forums this is the process i'm going to go with:

1. Wet sand with 200~ grit with warm to hot water in the sink. Repeat with 300~ grit.

2. Dry and clean with naptha. Masking tape from the inside to cover all holes. Should I also try to mask the internal edges (ledges) of the holes? Or just resand those when finished?

3. Tack Cloth the outside.

3. Prime with Self Etching primer. 1 coat. Let dry for 24 hours, covered by a box.

Possibly resand with 2000 grit if I have dust / spec issues.

4. Tack Cloth the outside. One light color coat.....wait 15 minutes....do a light-medium color coat....wait 15 minutes....do a final medium color coat. Let this paint cure for 48 hours. Do I want to sand between coats? Dry sand? What grit?

Now this is where I'm not sure what to do next. All I want is very simple lettering, MXR style for drive and volume and the name of the pedal. What is the best / easiest way to do this? Stencil? Sharpie? Stickers?

Anything I'm missing or overlooking so far?

Thanks!

Man, you are doing just fine, the forumites here are going to love you cause you have made a great effort to do a bunch of research on your own! Also Tack Cloth FTW!!! Never heard of that before but I am sure as heck going to be getting my hands on some. I found this DIY Tack Cloth article: http://joneakes.com/jons-fixit-database/1137-How-to-make-a-tack-cloth, but I think i am going to try out the real thing first.

On to your questsions, personally I would let the box cure longer between your first and second medium color coats (24 hours if I can be that patient, usually more like 4-6). I would only sand the color if you notice any roughness or bits or whatever.

Also I only tape the bottom edge and the screw holes. I have had bad luck when covering the holes completely from the inside, it has caused drips from paint building up on the tape, and more work to clear out the drill holes afterwards. I have tryed taping just around the internal ledges/edges of the holes (not closing off the hole entirely) and that seems to work well too. If you do not do this, you will want to make sure that you clear out any paint in the hole after it is well dry to ensure that your jacks are going to ground out well against the enclosure. I just use a hobby knife for this.

For lettering, I use Water Slide paper decals, the clear kind, which work great for non color images and text. I know others use paint pens and write stuff on by hand. There are also a couple of decaling systems out there like Pulsar Decal Pro. Some just use letter stickers like from a craft store. To do color decals some people use the white Waterslide decals, others use printable vinyl decals. There has been some amazing etching stuff coming out on the forum here lately as well.

Then clear coating over top of whatever lettering you do to protect it. Lots of people use spray on clear coats, and if you search spray clear you will get some good stuff. I have been using envirotex, which is a 2 part pour on epoxy, which give a really glossy thick finish and is really protective (but a total PITA to use).

Hopfully that gets you started. Post any more questions, there are lots of super knowledgable people here.

Yeah, you're pulling out all the stops for a first-time painter!

Here are a few examples from my collection, to help illustrate some lettering options:



This is a waterslide inkjet decal over some powder-blue spray paint, covered by a Duplicolor Truck/SUV clear coat.


Hand drawn graphics with sharpie/paint pens:




Alcohol Inks with funky Rub-on letters (you can find rub-on letters at many craft stores):



Finished off with 'Envirotex' pour-on epoxy..

Here is an example of vinyl full surface labels from an inkjet printer

Clear vinyl



White vinyl over plain unpainted BYOC enclosure

Awesome pedals guys! I really like the Trem and Overdrive Peramp. Gorgeous!

I sanded and primed today. The sanding went well and really made it look pretty sweet by itself.

I couldn't find self-etching primer but picked up some automotive primer. It came out way faster than I expected and I have a little pooling along the bottom edges.

Should I worry about this? Should I sand / steel wool it down? This primer says reapply in 1 hour or after 48 hours and it's been 6 hours now haha, so i'll wait two days but what do you think I should do?

Maybe it would be better in the future (two more to paint this week!) to set them on some sort bakers drying rack so the paint will just drip off....?

Hag, it is sort of what you can tolerate, but whenever I've had a lip I've wet sanded it off and came back and sprayed. I guess it depends on how big the lip is.

With regard to the bakers rack, just put something inside the enclosure to lift it up off the bench, ground or wherever. I take two or three flower pot lifters, the things you put under pots for air flow and drainage, wrapped them in painters tape, and it sits up nice. You obviously could use anything that fits under that box thou.

I usually use empty toilet paper rolls cut in half, taped to the inside of the enclosure. Keeps the enclosure off the bench, and makes a pretty good handle to hold when spraying.

I think that if you are getting drips/lips, you are either going to heavy with the spray, or not spraying from far enough away. I would sand it off, as it will only build up as you add more primer, color, clear coat etc.

Thanks for the advice.

What grit of sand paper would you suggest? Should i sand back down to metal or just make it even?

Well, I've tried 600, 800 and 1000 grit wetsand. They all work. It just depends on how much sanding you care to do. What I found, is I end up getting to the primer whether I like it or not and then usually to the metal is a spot or two just by accident. Doesn't matter though I think I'd just sand until you are happy and then spot spray that area. Down side to that is sometimes the mist air dries before it hits the other part of the pedal you are not wanting to really spray and you end up with some roughness that you have to deal with.

Also, DTR is right, that lip will just build with clear coat if you don't sand it down, at least some anyway. I try not to get too OCD about it, and fail many times I might add The perfectionist in you will take over quick !

Cool, Thanks.

So my wet sand technique has been get the pedal a little wet with warm water, sand for a bit, rinse both the sandpaper and the pedal and repeat.

Sound about right or should I try tweaking this method?

I don't know that there is really a right or wrong per se, but what I do is take a Home Depot bucket and fill with water and I just submerge my pedal and sand under water ( or under the sink ). I do this as I noticed I can control how much is coming off a little better. The wetter it is, the less that comes off. That or it is just my imagination...but perception is reality !

That's interesting, I just dunk the paper in water before sanding and rinse the paper and enclosure now and then.

My version of the toilet roll paint stand is a block of wood that fits inside the enclosure and holds it about 1/2" above the "ground". I put the block on a flat plastic tray/box lid so that I can move it around, then put the enclosure on the block so the bottom edges are hanging in mid-air. Cardboard box with flaps tucked in as a dust cover.

I used to use a cardboard box cover until one time I went to bed, woke up, pulled it off and I had 2 pieces of paper, cardboard slivers, in my clear coat

Now I used a large plastic see through, more or less, bowl. Took about a week but my wife got over it

I use a plastic cake tray/cover but I started using boxes because the cover didn't allow any airflow and some paint didn't dry properly. It's a shame really - it took a lot of groveling to liberate it from the kitchen.

I still prop my cover up though. I used a couple of those mini paint cans, about 3" high. That way I get some air flow under it but the cover is over it enough to keep the wondering debris from come in due to the deepness of the bowl.

Now I have to go back to the plastic cover or I'll worry about rogue cardboard!

The wood blocks were just offcuts frsts that were around when I built the first pedal but it was a lucky find (or maybe brilliant idea) because they work really well.

Got my first one painted last night and it's looking good. I ordered some Papilio Waterslide Laser Decal Paper.

Here are my idea / mock ups. I'd appreciate any feedback on how well you think printing these will work and my spacing and arraignment of the words.

I didn't have the original with me so this is from a template. The pedal is painted yellow so this print would just be for the words.



scanned and 'painted' in photoshop. The pedal will actually be painted. Again this is only for the black type.



I'm wondering about this image. I thought I read that printers will not print white so will the printer take care of making the background a transparency? Is the image too finely detailed?




Thanks for any advice from your experience!

Applying Clear coat!

R2G2:


Amp Switcher:


And my very first completed build. 250+ to MXR specs





I used a splattered / smudge / drip spray paint font for part of it but won't do that again. Just makes it look like I smudged the decal. Screenprinting it might look cool but not for decals. Also since this was my first water slide I pulled on it a bit much. Trying to do a rounded outline on my first decal wasn't the best idea.

Applying the water slides was actually really easy - once I figured it out. Soak for a long time, peel one side, hold it onto the pedal and slide the paper out.

Painting went well, had to do some sanding to get everything the way I wanted it but over all the process went fairly smoothly!


My process was:

Rough sand with 200 grit. Wet sand with 400 and then 600.

Clean with Naphtha. Clean with Tack Cloth.

Prime and let sit for 48 hours. Paint 4 coats 20 min apart.Let dry 48 hours. Sand and repaint if needed. Let dry 48 hours.

Scan in the pedals. Do the design over the scanned images in photoshop. Hide the background image so just the text and graphics were left.

Print on laser water slide. I had to soak for a few minutes. Not the 20 - 30 seconds as directed on the package. Slide on and let dry for a few hours then cut out the holes.

I love the German Thrash-drive

Nice job. You got the process down that works for you. Plenty of time for drying. From there you might be able to shave a few hours off here and there...or not. Whatever works for you. I found that when I use the clear decals and I am only putting a few words and a border like you did, it is a little more tricky to deal with and not stretch it. Normally I do a full face with an album cover on it or something and I guess due to all the ink it sort of strengthens it a bit so it doesn's stretch as easily. Of course the white backed are a snap to use compared to the clear due to the strength issue. But then you get a thicker edge which I've long gotten over.