What's in the works.......

[Jondog]

Speaking of EQ pedals, I recently bought a used Boss GE-7 and upgraded it with a kit from Monte Allums. I honestly never heard a Boss pedal sound so good (or not sound I guess). When all the sliders are at 0, there is no change to the sound, can't even hear a difference on or off. Dead quiet in the signal.

[Les Paul Lover]

My 1st gear related video - you will be able to spot the amateurism pretty easily.

1st the video is recorded sideways - ??? no idea how I managed that -, 2nd the crap playing........

1st I play some sort of picking to show how articulate that SHO pedal is. Really great (not my playing, the pedal).
Then a rythm section where it really shine I think. Makes you want to crank it a lot!!!!!!
Oh and sadly that was recorded with very low volume (sadly) on my AD15, so that my phone could cope.

A short attempt at pentatonic lead to show what it can do.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaKtzM62-Uc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Really nice pedal, very transparent (noticed how there's almost no difference at all when I switch it on to start with?), and works great with the AD15, as, being a compressed amp, i don't get too much volume boost.

I almost can't use it on the RV50 clean channel, the purely clean boost is HUGE, absolutely massive.

[Hubaxe]

The pedal does the job. Well done!
Will you use this as a booster or to create a smooth overdrive?

[Les Paul Lover]

Speaking of EQ pedals, I recently bought a used Boss GE-7 and upgraded it with a kit from Monte Allums. I honestly never heard a Boss pedal sound so good (or not sound I guess). When all the sliders are at 0, there is no change to the sound, can't even hear a difference on or off. Dead quiet in the signal.

I missed that post i'm afraid. Quite interested in the dead quiet bit - I assume it wasn' dead quiet before?
What did you change to quieten it down?

I bought a EA design tremolo that's not as quiet as I'd like. Nice pedal though. I have been wondering if some resistors / caps swap here and there could do a better job..... I'll have too look into that once I get further down my to do list.....!!!

[Les Paul Lover]

The pedal does the job. Well done!
Will you use this as a booster or to create a smooth overdrive?

Probably not as a clean boost as such, but it works brilliantly with the AD15 to get a little clean volume kick and quite a bit of added dirt too.

Don't think I'll use with the RV clean channel, the volume boost is just not very manageable unless you already crank the crap out of it - not something I can do at the moment.

[Jondog]

Speaking of EQ pedals, I recently bought a used Boss GE-7 and upgraded it with a kit from Monte Allums. I honestly never heard a Boss pedal sound so good (or not sound I guess). When all the sliders are at 0, there is no change to the sound, can't even hear a difference on or off. Dead quiet in the signal.

I missed that post i'm afraid. Quite interested in the dead quiet bit - I assume it wasn' dead quiet before?
What did you change to quieten it down?

I bought a EA design tremolo that's not as quiet as I'd like. Nice pedal though. I have been wondering if some resistors / caps swap here and there could do a better job..... I'll have too look into that once I get further down my to do list.....!!!

Pedal sounds good, nice work!
Yeah, the Boss GE-7 is a great pedal but out of the box a bit of tone suck occurs slightly when turned on or off. When all the sliders are at the center detent there's no hiss, but as soon as you move a slider up or down a slight hiss enters the signal. Boosting certain frequencies will cause his no matter what, but this is just hiss from the pedal itself, not signal. I bought an upgrade kit that upgrades to better IC's and capacitors that are better for passing audio signals. The caps are basically just better quality poly caps, the red panasonic ones. Boss use cheap caps in their pedals now. Pedal is very transpearant in the signal, no tone suck and no hiss when a slider is moved away from center. Got the kit from http://www.monteallums.com

[Les Paul Lover]

I guess it makes a lot of sense.

I've been thinking of getting all the parts myself since I have a great independent shop in town. My only hesitation so far is what exact parts to ask for capacitors and diodes, since I know a number of them have the same specs but won't do the same quality job.

Anyway, I've got a couple of builds to finish 1st!!!!

[Hubaxe]

A long time no one built something?

Well I did not, but as a proud father, let me show you my 15 years old daughter's first build.
This summer she spent a week by a friend of mine who is a professional luthier, and with his help, built herself a Telecaster.
All from scratch, neck cutting, shaping, etc. My friend did only the dangerous work (router use mainly).
She did the painting, I just soldered the electronic and clear coated the neck and body.
Here is the result, the "Pinkcaster". Alder thin Body, maple ebony neck, P90 pickups. And this thing roars. Usually she borrows my guitars, I think it's time for me to borrow hers.

[Les Paul Lover]

I surely would be bursting with fatherly pride too!!!

I like that guitar a lot! What P90 are those?
Very cool that you managed to pass that onto her!!!!




All I;ve been doing lately isn't much really - just trying to spray another stencil for my reverb circuit pedal, but I'm having issues with paint bleeing underneath the stencil.

I will try next to see if it works better with Vaseline.....

Don't they say it always works better with some Vaseline?

[Randy Bass]

That bridge looks great with the nickel/chrome P-90 in it. Paint the guitar white and I'll buy it!

[Hubaxe]

The pickups are from uk seller Axesrus. These are the Late 50 midels.
I tried them because they looked great and are cheap. And bingo they sound awesome.
I ll take another ser for a walnut Tele I have on the workbench.
Amazing quality for 60 £ a set.

[Les Paul Lover]

That bridge looks great with the nickel/chrome P-90 in it. Paint the guitar white and I'll buy it!

Mmmhhhh you're right with a plain colour, say white/ivory, black or metalllic red, that would make one sexy guitar........
I really like those chrome P90 and bridge.

[Les Paul Lover]

The pickups are from uk seller Axesrus. These are the Late 50 midels.
I tried them because they looked great and are cheap. And bingo they sound awesome.
I ll take another ser for a walnut Tele I have on the workbench.
Amazing quality for 60 £ a set.

Very cheap indeed!!!!



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I thought I'd post an update on my pedal building quest.

I'm really struggling with getting the stencil to come out right. I'm probably using the wrong material (clear acetate), it's not tacky and lifts from the pedal surface, and I get lots of spray paint bleeding underneath.

I've tried clear coating the stencil template before to spray to "seal" the edges of the cuts and prevent bleeding, that's been the result:





Not a great success, and the mess you can see around the R & B of reverb have been causing by the clear coating bleeding underneath the template..... drying pretty quickly and taking the paint with it when I pealed the stencil off......


So I sanded that off, resprayed a new top coat.

Cut off a new stencil as the previous one was damaged. After much soul searching, seeking advice from a few arty people I know, the best trick I came up with was to try to line the underneath of the stencil with Vasline to create adhesion and prevent bleeding at the same time.

Well that's tricky too.... put too much vaseline (not even that much actually) and it spreads in the spaces you want to spray.....
So after many trial, I put the thinest coat possible - and that's the result:






Obviously i'm not particularily happy with that.

that's what it's meant to look like:



But I still get lots of bleeding, and the edges of the moon are, well, not quite as neat as I was hoping for to say the least!!!!!


Not too sure what I'm gonna do next now.
Any suggestions?

Seeing how they get battered in use, i'm half tempted to clear coat it anyway and call it a day. ( I still need to build a pedal board too)

I think that acetate is just not what I should be working with. I need something that tacks to surfaces......
Where I'm really bummed out now, is that my next project, a fuzz factory clone, I wanted to do a reasonnably elaborate 3 colours stencilled frog on it and have FROG FUZZ written on it.......

I somehow think I might have to review my plans somewhat now......

[Hubaxe]

To have neat contour, you have to spray the first coat very very light, from a wider distance. and be patient.
Spray multiple light layers instead of a thick coat.
Same for the clear coat, spraying a very light first coat will fix the paint.

[Les Paul Lover]

Hubaxe, you're partly correct - an the stuff I've been using did work for my Red Whale pedal I posted earlier in this thread., though even then it wasn't perfect.

I've learnt that most people use clear contact paper (or tacky book covering material) to do their stencils, cut them, put them on, spray clear coat to prevent bleeding, spray the stencil colour and take it off before it's dried.

I only bought the acetate sheet because that was the cloest thing I could buy - but clearly not quite close enough. It's easy enough to cut but has no styckiness at all and lifts off the pedal.

I've sucked it, just bought some contact clear paper, it's not even expensive, I just couldn't find it locally.
I try to avoid using Amazon, but occasionaly, you have to relent and admit they have their uses beyond dodgin taxes on a grand scale.....