stainless steel top plate

[wylymon]

I would love to see a selection of top plate options for all the kits. A mirror quality stainless
steel top plate would look so good.....and I believe many would be interested in purchasing
such an item. I believe that there was talk on the old forum about Bottlehead making the
specifications available such that individuals could create there own top plates on FRONT
PANEL EXPRESS. Whatever happened to that idea? The new Stereomour would be the perfect
kit to start with this idea. Any comments?

James

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Front Panel Express will not mill steel. 

Your best bet (and the least expensive) is to hand polish the aluminum yourself to a mirror finish.

Otherwise you could also have the plate chrome plated. 

 

[wylymon]

Paul, thank you for your input. My experience with getting a chrome finish was a nightmare. I bought the Sex, Paramount and Eros
kits and sent the aluminum top plates off to a local plating shop in Cincinnati.  The top of the plates came out OK but the back sides
were a mess .........the backs came out with a lot of chrome flash. Chrome is as hard as steel. I am worried about trying to grind this
or sand this stuff off. I quess I'm just anal retentative....I want the backs to look as good as the fronts. To make matters worse, the
thinkness of the copper, nickel and chrome made the plate too big to fit the base! I sent the plates back to the plating shop and six months later they came back ground to the correct size but the backs are still a mess. I did not know that Front panel express did not
work with stainless. I would quess that Doc's vendor who does the lazer cutting for the top plate could also do stainless. I sure as heck
would pay a premium for the service. Front Panel Express would be an alternative for the aluminum tops and would be cheaper.
Any suggestions on how clean up the backs of the chrome top plates? Not only is there flash but what
appears to be electric burn spots.

Bottlehead designs some great circuits.....Its a shame that for most of us the product comes out looking like a home brew product

 

[Doc B]

I had planned to make several different types of files available for download. At this point in time we have not resolved a security issue regarding the folder hierarchy on our server that is precluding me from securely storing the files.

If we do make the files available they will be in the Front Panel Express .fpe format, not the more generally used DXF format. I am hesitant to make copying our products any easier than it already is.

Unfortunately having a single a custom plate made by our laser cutter is going to be very expensive. While quantities of aluminum panels are relatively inexpensive, single pieces from our cutter cost far more than the panels from FPE. And a stainless panel cut on a laser would then need to go to a polisher, which of course would add more expense. 

I understand that folks would like our stuff to look like $5000 amps - who wouldn't? And I would like to put out a more finished product. But I can tell you from experience that there just aren't enough folks who want that level of finish who are willing to assemble a kit, one that could end up costing $2000 or more. When Ron Welborne was selling SE amp kits we would share some of our notes. Ron was paying something like eight times as much as I was for chassis plates, and 10 X as much for his finished wood bases. Obviously those items are no longer available, my hunch is that it wasn't a profitable product.

When I get some time I will pursue getting the security issue sorted so we can put the FPE files up for download. That way folks can have custom aluminum plates made in whatever finish they prefer.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

I am also working on the Front Panel end. I should be able to make files purchasable and not downloadable/modifiable at the same time. It's new territory, so it's taking extra time.

 

[wylymon]

Thank you PB and Doc for the explanations. I saw PBs' chassis download on Front Panel EXpress. Very very nice !!!!

You really get a deep discount for a large order. You are right one offs would be costly. It would be something to offer the bottlehead

community...especially with the new stereomour. If you get enough pre-orders and you can make a profit go for it....if not, then

you can't say you did not try.

Thank you

James

 

[jrebman]

Paul,

What did you change/do differently with your layout?

Here's what I'm kicking around... since there is precious little room on the side of the living room where the stereomour will go, I'm considering building it as a lower gain power amp only and then building a foreplay III to drive it.  Note, I haven'[t fully thought this through yet, so no idea on a driver tube yet or other changes needed to make that happen, but it is something I'm pondering, and a new top plate would be a useful thing.

-- Jim

 

[Paul Birkeland]

I did get Doc's permission to sell Crack plates in various colors today (I work at Front Panel), so I will get going on setting that up.

Flexibility in the ordering will consist of selecting plate color, text color, and font. I will likely retain the panel locally and just custom create each order. I'd imagine such a panel will be $50-75.

I'm not so sure at this point that making the panel available for download is an intelligent choice. 

 

[Bryon]

I'm not so sure at this point that making the panel available for download is an intelligent choice. 

I can understand why you wouldn't want to make the panel available for download but couldn't you just add the file to the instructions cd that you supply with the kits.  That way you know that only those who have bought the kit can access the information.

Bryon