Lonely Raven wrote: ... Your amp just looks to METAL!
The cab tones the aluminum down a great deal. I just wanted to try something different. Aluminum was also the only thing I had 1/8" thick
Your face plates look great
Bah, that was a typo. I meant to say
Your amp looks *SO* METAL! (as in HEAVY METAL!)
I must have been working and typing at the same time again. Sorry Doc.
Lonely Raven wrote: ...Your amp looks *SO* METAL! (as in HEAVY METAL!) ...
I thought you meant "TOO metal." (as in Heavy Metal). No problem, Eric. I thought she looked "too metal" before I built her a cab
I'm too old and have too little hair to do Metallica
Keep up the good work
Lonely Raven wrote:Photos from tonights work. I ran out of good stock and had to use the ragged edge of the board. I need to stock up on some more exotic woods. I've not sanded these yet. The big burn marks are actually from the smoke, and the natural sugars in the wood carmalizing from the laser burning out the sugar.
Tell me what you think!
OMG they look great! I have a gorgeous flame maple head cab made for me by Larry Mann with a matching blank faceplate. It's installed on the amp (Nik's chassis) and fits perfect but it's totally blank. Can you run my faceplate through your machine??
Fischerman wrote:Eric,
Those faceplates look great! Nice job. But if you countersink the nuts...won't it make it very difficult to get a wrench on the flats?
And dude...you gotta make a faceplate with that Homer head in Omar's avatar.
Yeah, counter sinking does make it a little more difficult to get at the nuts. But I've had no issues putting these 4 faceplates on and taking them off my Ceriatone TW. I finger tighten them on, and one I had tight enough I had to use a needle nose to get it loosened, then spun it off by hand.
Hopefully people aren't needing to change their faceplates as much as I have been changing them, so I'm not worried about it. I've also never felt that pots and switches needed the same torque as my lug nuts.
If it does turn into an issue, I can always enlargen the counter sinking just enough to get a needlenose in there easily. Or, I suppose I could keep looking for a source of 1/16" stock...which so far I'm coming up dry on...and I don't have the shop to make my own anymore.
Structo wrote:How would finish on the wood (nitro, poly) affect the engraving?
I bring this up because ScottW's face plate possibly has finish on it.
I was going to have a chat with Scott about that tonight when he calls me. Because of the fact that the laser literally makes the wood go from solid form to smoke form at the speed of light, it might tarnish the clear coat. Which means a quick sanding and re-clear over it probably.
I'm going to be testing that myself over the next week as I'm going to try a few of my favorite brush/wipe on finshes on some sample wood, let it cure for a few days and burn some text into the wood to see how badly it will mar it. I'm hoping a simple once over with 0000 Synthetic Steel Wool will take care of it, but I'm planning for the worst just in case.
All the little issues aside, I'm really enjoying this. I hope to sell enough of these to afford one of Distortions cabinets for myself since I don't have a full shop to make one for myself. I'm confident in my template for the Ceriatone amps, and I'm sending a sample to Allynmey to see if they match up with his chassis as well. Right now my biggest hurdle is finding good stock in 1/8th or 1/16th. As I build up more templates and get more practice with the machine, the quality will only go up from here.
Lonely Raven wrote: ...counter sinking does make it a little more difficult to get at the nuts...
You can actually make the holes big enough to fit over the nuts on the pots. They cant' be seen with the knobs on. The input jack and switches are long enough for 1/8" stock and are all you need to secure the faceplate. Secure your pots first, then apply the faceplate and secure on each end.
Lonely Raven wrote: ...counter sinking does make it a little more difficult to get at the nuts...
You can actually make the holes big enough to fit over the nuts on the pots. They cant' be seen with the knobs on. The input jack and switches are long enough for 1/8" stock and are all you need to secure the faceplate. Secure your pots first, then apply the faceplate and secure on each end.
That's basically how I put the first faceplate on. The switches, input jack, and bright switch held it on, the pots were just knobs. I wanted to make sure more then a knob was holding an electrical component to the chassis. That's why I figured to use the counter sink method.
Tubetwang wrote:i use Aviation Grade 1/16"x2'x4' for my faceplates.
This is not something you will find at your local Home Depot but.
Raven, f.w.i.w. i would omit the numbers on your faceplates...for a simpler look caper.shock:
There is an amazing-hardly-untapped-market for wood products...especially bio-farmed-exotic...someone has to cater... :
The nice thing about a computer controlled 35 watt laser, when using a set template, it only takes a few minutes for me to change fonts, add images, or remove those numbers altogether.
Once I can get some nice exotic woods in stock, someone who wanted a faceplate simply needs to show me a font, an image, give me a name and pick a piece of wood!
I'm also practicing "finishing" the wood, though my work won't be as nice as Distortions since I don't have a proper shop to work in. The first few test plates are getting hand rubbed oil or brushed on poly coats this week. Due to my limited time right now, I figure I'll have them ready by weekend to show off how they look.
Lonely Raven wrote: ...counter sinking does make it a little more difficult to get at the nuts...
You can actually make the holes big enough to fit over the nuts on the pots. They cant' be seen with the knobs on. The input jack and switches are long enough for 1/8" stock and are all you need to secure the faceplate. Secure your pots first, then apply the faceplate and secure on each end.
Another option would be to make the diameter of the countersink big enough that you could use a nutdriver to tighten down the nuts on the pots. (The outside diameter of a nutdriver is not too much greater then the nut size it's designed for.) This too would be hidden once the knobs were mounted and the nuts would again help secure the middle of the faceplate.
Have you tried sealing the faceplate with shellac before applying the final finish. This might help prevent smearing while applying clearcoat or it could even be used as your finish of choice.
If the faceplate is 1/8" or less it will easily fit underneath the pots retaining nuts. I have done this numerous times and it works great. The key is getting the holes in the faceplate to match up as close as possible to the pot shafts. If the holes are too large you can see the front of the chassis through the gap. I use a 18" drum sander to get the desired thickness on the faceplate. My preference is a tad less than 1/8". You can take it all the way down to 1/16" but the wood looses much of its strength and will crack easily..
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