I've found myself temporarily without a functioning electric guitar lately while I wait for a replacement pickup to arrive, so I've been trying my hand at pedal decorating. Thought I'd share the results here.
Here's the blank enclosure halfway through sanding it back. I used something like 80 grit for this, then followed up with 400, and wiped it down with acetone to clear the dust:
Next I coated the whole lot with etch primer. This is after the first coat I think:
Next day I was able to get started on the first colour to go on:
After a few coats and a few more days, I started taping up for the second colour:
Which was this lovely shade of green:
And the result was this, seen next to my college tie which inspired the design:
The final step was to add a design, pot labels and give it a name. I had a lot of issues with this because I initially wanted to use a stencil to spray on the design, but it became apparent pretty quickly that it was going to be too small and too intricate for that to work. So instead I got some waterslide decal paper and printed out the design only to find that my printer had banding issues, only in the colour I'd chosen. After a day trying to troubleshoot, I eventually decided I didn't care and went ahead anyway. I just used my inkjet printer and sprayed a layer of clear acrylic over it. A few hours later it was good to go.
I've never used waterslide paper before so things didn't work flawlessly. There were a few bubbles and the design wasn't as opaque as I'd hoped, but overall I'm happy with my first foray into pedal painting. This is how it looks at the moment after a layer or two or clear coat.
Stay tuned for the final fit out. I've got some particularly garish options in mind for the knobs and LED. Thanks for looking!
Here's the blank enclosure halfway through sanding it back. I used something like 80 grit for this, then followed up with 400, and wiped it down with acetone to clear the dust:
Next I coated the whole lot with etch primer. This is after the first coat I think:
Next day I was able to get started on the first colour to go on:
After a few coats and a few more days, I started taping up for the second colour:
Which was this lovely shade of green:
And the result was this, seen next to my college tie which inspired the design:
The final step was to add a design, pot labels and give it a name. I had a lot of issues with this because I initially wanted to use a stencil to spray on the design, but it became apparent pretty quickly that it was going to be too small and too intricate for that to work. So instead I got some waterslide decal paper and printed out the design only to find that my printer had banding issues, only in the colour I'd chosen. After a day trying to troubleshoot, I eventually decided I didn't care and went ahead anyway. I just used my inkjet printer and sprayed a layer of clear acrylic over it. A few hours later it was good to go.
I've never used waterslide paper before so things didn't work flawlessly. There were a few bubbles and the design wasn't as opaque as I'd hoped, but overall I'm happy with my first foray into pedal painting. This is how it looks at the moment after a layer or two or clear coat.
Stay tuned for the final fit out. I've got some particularly garish options in mind for the knobs and LED. Thanks for looking!
