The closest thing to SILK SCREENING!!!!!!!!!

[nero1985]

ahhh its me again MR. Nero F. Rox and his spam as some of you have seen ive been working on an easy way to get GREAT type of decals on your pedals, i tried the stompbox labels (clear back stickers with black letters) but they havent been that popular now i found a way to get decals without any clear backing!, its Vinyl Cut decals, which means you can actually put all your graphics and words on the pedals with Vinyl, the vinyl is cut by us and then applied to the pedals, this is a technique we use for let's say "GAS and OIL companies" if you see their trucks they have their logo and their phone number on the door of the car, this is done with vinyl cut decals, they are durable and you can actually get them in any color (black, white, red, silver, etc) and then you can protect them with clear coat, once the clear coat is there if you look at the pedal the graphics really won't stick out too much it looks alot like SILK SCREEN printing, the only problem is that this decals are usually done in sizes of 45" x 30" and are about $75 but since i work for the company i could convince my boss to let me make a couple in small sizes and for lower prices, you can actually put your favorite band's logo on your pedal, hows that!!! how about Jimmi's face on a Fuzz Face? what do you guys think, is there any other way to make decals for pedals easier and better looking than this?

Hell you can actually put you signature on your pedal! at my job we   only charge $20 for graphic clean up and we can turn your signature into a Illustrator file to use it for die cut! sooooo much fun

[nelson]

vinyl cut decals do look great, I am in the UK though.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

How fine can the detail be? Have you any examples?  Would it work for PCB artwork?

[nero1985]

they are very detailed, we could do PCB layouts but i dont know if you can etch the board with it, you can do really amazing things with this material

[Xlrator]

Do you have vinyl printers? I have some rolls of vinyl from other projects and it's good stuff, but I have always wanted shading, multiple colors, etc without layering. Or print color on transparent vinyl.

[vfr800fiman]

Does this equipment happen to be Gerber Scientific Products?
I've worked for Gerber for >25 years, and yes, we make great
signmaking equipment.

Here's my cab sim box made with gold foil on a clear backing on a Gerber Edge machine:
http://webpages.charter.net/porkchop/effects/marshall_sim1.jpg

I was pretty pleased with the results myself.

Just curious if you use our equipment.
Glenn

[nero1985]

we dont print on vinyl, we CUT it, its a machine that cuts a sheet of a thin vinyl and then it gets rid of the left overs and the artwork that was cut goes into a special sheet, then you just apply that artwork that was cut on you box or anything else and it stays there, it has a special glue, its pretty strong BUT you can't bake the box after you apply it cuz to remove it you have to heat it up with a blow dryer and after it heats up you just peel it off with your fingers so it wouldn't be a good idea to bake them, as far as what machine it is i have no clue, its in the production building what i do know its that its a digital machine that instead of printing it has a KNIFE that cuts the vinyl into the shape of the artwork.

[The Tone God]

Beaware that you may not be able to clear coat over the vinyl using traditional clear coats because it may react badly to the solvants. You might be able to get away with a water based latex enamel.

For informational purposes what are the minimum font sizes and line tolerences ?

Andrew

[wampcat1]

I've talked to sign companies about doing this for me before but I was always told that they couldn't cut the vinyl that small -- let me know if you can get a good supply and I'll buy some off of ya.

Brian

[gaussmarkov]

I've talked to sign companies about doing this for me before but I was always told that they couldn't cut the vinyl that small -- let me know if you can get a good supply and I'll buy some off of ya.

Brian

ditto.  sign companies have told me the same thing.  this must be better equipment.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Roland (of all people...... yeah, THAT Roland!) make vinyl sign cutters. And high end plotter printers. My local Roland service agent spends more time on Roland industrilal stuff than on keyboards!

[1wahfreak]

I've been using this method for a while. It works well for applying letters and larger, rougher images. We use a laser or knife cutter from a company called Zund to cut the vinyl. You just import a .dxf or adobe file into the program and away you go. You cut through the vinyl but not the liner. You remove the unwanted waste and the image stays on the release liner. However you need to use a premask to lift the complete image off the release liner or you could be in for a long night of applying each letter by hand. The vinyl is about 0.003" thick so you can definately see the "step" if you try to clear coat it. It may be less noticable it you used a flat or satin clear. I'm not so sure you would be able to creat anything like a halftone "photo" and transfer it to the pedal. The resolution just isn't that good and would be tough to create any shading.

http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=2/3122401918.jpg&s=x2
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=2/3122412015.jpg&s=x2
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=2/3122421059.jpg&s=x2

[Processaurus]

Dang that Shocktavia is attractive!  That is totally sweet, bro.  I like the step better than if it were smooth.

With this kind of thing I wonder if you could use the negative, so the letters are metal, and the rest of the top of the box is sticker?

[vfr800fiman]

we dont print on vinyl, we CUT it, its a machine that cuts a sheet of a thin vinyl and then it gets rid of the left overs and the artwork that was cut goes into a special sheet, then you just apply that artwork that was cut on you box or anything else and it stays there, it has a special glue, its pretty strong BUT you can't bake the box after you apply it cuz to remove it you have to heat it up with a blow dryer and after it heats up you just peel it off with your fingers so it wouldn't be a good idea to bake them, as far as what machine it is i have no clue, its in the production building what i do know its that its a digital machine that instead of printing it has a KNIFE that cuts the vinyl into the shape of the artwork.

Yes, we also make signmakers that do CUT the vinyl, not just print on it, but that's old technology.
Weeding the vinyl after the artwork is cut is the most time consuming thing, especially if it's a very
small and complex shape. (weeding is removing the unwanted vinyl).

As Paul pointed out, Roland (our competitor) also makes vinyl cutting signmakers.

I haven't tried using the cut vinyl to label pedals as the lettering is too small for one of our
signmakers to cut (there is a limit to what you can cut with a knife). The laser sounds interesting though.

I have used the printing signmakers to make a full coverage black label with white printing for my Fender
standalone reverb. It looks very professional (if I do say so). Some of the guy's at work thought it was
a real Fender, except no tubes 
I used the LM386 driven spring reverb schematic I found on the web.
Sounds real good, except I get too much distortion from the LM386. This is ok if you run it alone, kind of
like having a distortion pedal built into the reverb.

Glenn

[nero1985]

Yeah you could do absolutle anything you want with this, since theres alot of interest i might get a couple done and put them up for sale this way i can get some for myself too, there are two ways to do it, i would get a sheet with a bunch of words  and then you can cut the word you want and use it or make them custom made if you have an illustrator file or any file done to the exact size

[enthalpystudios]

Man, this is a really cool forum..... cool to find a real active diy guitar fx forum.

Just wanted to ask, 1wahfreak, those pedals look great man!

What kind of enclosures are they, and how'd you get the finishes (especially the mirrored look)

I'd really like to build a long box with a few effects in there, and I'd really like it to look similar to your boxes, especially the nice rounded corners and top edges.....   Are they refinished hammond boxes, or custom?

sorry if these are silly guitar fx newb ?'s

thanks,

billy

[wampcat1]

http://x2.putfile.com/2/3122412015.jpg

THAT'S one fine looking pedal!!!! Love it!!

[1wahfreak]

With this kind of thing I wonder if you could use the negative, so the letters are metal, and the rest of the top of the box is sticker?

Yes, I did try to reverse the letters once. The problem is getting the letters off once it's painted. I tried to pull them off when the paint was wet, (you have to very careful not smudge the wet paint) but as I got to the last few letters, the paint started to dry and pull off. I had it perfect until then. That really ticked me off!! Probably because the letters were so small. Not enough surface area for the paint to stick. Next time I'll try one after the paint dries and see if it comes off any better. On the Bazz Buzz pedal, I sanding it with fine sand paper then polished the aluminum with a polishing wheel. Masked it, spray painted it black, applied the yellow vinyl letters, and a final clear coat. The Shock-tavia was done by masking areas into trianguular patterns and then sanding at different angles.