Nautilus - 'deep sea' art

[midwayfair]

This is for a customer ... in France. (He is from France.*) He wanted it for studio work, so he asked me for sober art, with black MXR-style knobs and white labels on a black enclosure.

*And still there.

...

Seriously, what's with these folks who look at my enclosure art with all those bright colors and say, "I want it in a black enclosure with white labels, and you really don't have to paint anything on it, it can just be in a plain box as long as it's labeled"
http://jonpattonmusic.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/shetland-klony-3.jpg?w=166&h=300
http://jonpattonmusic.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/engineers-thumb-mini.jpg?w=170&h=300

"Uhhh, we like the book, Mr. Twain, but what I was in the market for is an ad for this perfume."

Not comparing myself to Mark Twain.

Come to think of it, he probably would have been happy to do the ad. He no doubt needed/wanted the money to blow on some sweet, sweet investments. (If he'd lived in the 80s, he would have invested it in some sweet, sweet blow.)

Which is how we get to the point where I said "Yes" in this little transaction. I'm not going to put it in the stock market nor do I touch any drug stronger than a virgin cosmopolitan. Just in case anyone didn't realize that neither of those are my poison.

Anyway, I decided to knock it up a notch

as much as I thought I could get away with ...



The Nautilus is actually white with a silver underbelly, but its body looks entirely white in the photo. I never claimed to be a photographer. The lettering is all metalic, and the ghostly waves were done by smearing silver paint with a tissue, then blurring the edges with paint thinner. When the paint thinner goes on, the base silver stays rubbed into the matte black finish, and some silver sparkle bits float around, so you get just some glitter outside of the smudges. (This is similar to how I did the nebula art on my Multiplex, except that was with non-metalic paints.)

Slip-ups: You may notice that the board is about 2mm off center, and about 5mm too far south in the case. It ended up hitting the in jack, which I had to cut a little bit of plastic off of. I also had to drill the switch holes a little wide to make sure the board would go in at an angle (the pots are not board-mounted), thus the washers. My 9/32 drill bit also went bad in the middle of drilling one of the pots, which resulting in a pretty rough hole. The washer on the Range switch is actually under the bezel, and let me tell you, the gymnastics to make that happen once the board was in there were not fun. Nothing's visible in the finished pedal, but I was really close to just ordering a new enclosure and starting over.

I did make a couple deviations from the stock build for safety. I replaced the 1N4001 with a reverse-biased 10v Zener to protect from overvoltage; the charge pump is an LT1054, so I could have used a 12v, but voltage that high would affect the sweep and possibly Do Bad Things to the vactrols (like blow the LED in them), so I just capped it above a 1-Spot's voltage and now it will just be ze goggles if he plugs in the wrong voltage. There's a series polarity protection diode hiding under one leg of the LED to protect from reverse polarity. The resistor across the gain pot is 4.7M on a 1MB pot. In the end, this had the best taper, shrinking it to a fully usable range (even with humbuckers) and spreading out the really good ranges between a couple different guitars. A 1MC was pretty similar but with a slightly wider range, which would probably still work better for single coils exclusively.

[jimilee]

That's nice, and I really dig the way you derailed your own thread with the lovel Mark Twain story and then brought it back around. Nice work sir!

[nzCdog]

Great build Jon, he's gonna love it!

[whitebread47]

That's nice, and I really dig the way you derailed your own thread with the lovel Mark Twain story and then brought it back around. Nice work sir!

I give that a big second!  My favorite part was "Not comparing myself to Mark Twain" and then following up with a hypothetical Studio 54 version of ole Longhorn.  I do not expect these things in build reports, but appreciate it nonetheless. 

Oh, almost forgot - nice build!  I've had similar drilling escapades myself recently.

[Parra]

nice pedal, cool story and futurama...there is nothing to dislike in there. 

[Cortexturizer]

Great stuff!

[gingataff]

Ah yes. A very rare item this.
Jon in his Noir period if I'm not mistaken.

Tres chic.

[midwayfair]

Ah yes. A very rare item this.
Jon in his Noir period if I'm not mistaken.

Tres chic.

At a recent auction it was valued at negative $50 following a tense bidding war. The auctioneer came after me with a gavel.

[LaceSensor]

Probably my favourite build and artwork of all yours Jon.

Subtle, monochromatic, gorgeous.

[midwayfair]

Probably my favourite build and artwork of all yours Jon.

Subtle, monochromatic, gorgeous.

Thanks.

[Blues Healer]

great build!

and just FYI, as many of you know, Mark Twain was a dedicated amateur guitarist, who took his old Martin along on his many travels:
http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound/stories/990604.stories.html

[pickdropper]

Really pretty artwork, Jon.  I am sure the buyer will love it.

[soldersqueeze]

I'd be chuffed if ordered that!
I love the art on your pedals, they're some of the few I'm tempted to buy when they come up for the art alone, though I'm sure they sound badass too

[jimilee]

What do you charge guys to paint their enclosure of they build the circuit?

[midwayfair]

I'd be chuffed if ordered that!
I love the art on your pedals, they're some of the few I'm tempted to buy when they come up for the art alone, though I'm sure they sound badass too

thanks, man. There are times when it feels pretty limiting to do things this way (I don't have any other way to label pedals, since I don't even know how to do decals or anything), but every once in a while it's good to know this style appeals to others as well.

And I do try to make the sound that comes out every bit as good or better than how the outsides look. There are a couple pedals that I dearly love the sound of that I think I flubbed it on the art ... I should build a second Azabache for that reason (the first one I made looks fine but wasn't too inspiring http://jonpattonmusic.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/azabache.jpg?w=182&h=300). What can I say, I like to look at my feet and smile once in a while.

jimi: It would depend on the person, the art, what they're building, and probably some other factors. I try not to turn anything related to this into a business. I've done it a couple times now, but one was my December PIF (the finished build of which has yet to surface ...) and one was a small trade (Jacob's Blue Warbler enclosure).