Vinyl Wrap Progress - Crack Kit ARRIVES!

[John EH]

Wrapped it.  Messed up the first one with the logo but have a nice tight wrap this time and shrunk it down with a heat gun.  Will apply logo tomorrow or next day and post again.

The front edge is perfect just looks weird because of the flash.

Let the FUN begin!

 

[adamct]

Nice! Did you glue the vinyl to the chassis on the back? I assume you have to or else it won't hold?

Depending on how you run your Crack, the chassis can get fairly warm. I assume the vinyl can handle the heat?

Best regards,
Adam

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Depending on how you run your Crack, the chassis can get fairly warm. I assume the vinyl can handle the heat?

When we were looking into using vinyl for the Tode graphic, we got a few samples and stuck them on a few Paramount chassis plates right above the two 25W cathode resistors.

Not only do they stick well and not melt, but they seem to be impossible to remove!

 

[adamct]

Ahhhh...so the vinyl has some sort of adhesive backing, is that right?

 

[4krow]

  tHIS REMINDS ME OF VENEERING, WHICH SEEMS TO BE A TALENT ALL IT'S OWN(dam cap key!!!). Some have the gift, but I do not.

 

[Grainger49]

Greg,

The gift of the caps key or of veneering?  I have botched veneering.  Not so much the caps key.

 

[John EH]

Nice! Did you glue the vinyl to the chassis on the back? I assume you have to or else it won't hold?

Depending on how you run your Crack, the chassis can get fairly warm. I assume the vinyl can handle the heat?

Best regards,
Adam

No glue, just a self adherent vinyl. Matter of fact when you apply it you can put soapy water on the sticky side and move it around all you want.

I soaped it, then let it set five minutes and started working on the edges.  Generally you'll get a small bubble along the edges or rather to say the edge won't lay down perfectly by hand.  I took a heat gun and then the vinyl shrinks down nicely.

The heat from the amp won't do anything other than make that vinyl tighter!.

The vinyl I used is Oracal 651.

John

 

[John EH]

And with the decal. First attempt had the swoosh over the vent holes and I just didn't like the way it looked trimmed up.  So I made a bigger swoosh and dropped it down a bit.

Not 100% happy with it but its pretty cool I think. 

 

[STURMJ]

Very cool!

 

[John EH]

This is kind of what it will look like.  No nine pin socket because the kit is missing a couple 4-40 nuts but I can pick them up locally or probably have a couple laying around.  I took two off the Extended Foreplay 3 upgrade last week and damned if I can't find them.  Probably tossed them.

Volume is a 100K Goldpoint.

John

 

[2wo]

Well, that's "the real thing" Between this and the leafing that's two new things to try, very cool...John

 

[John EH]

Sneak Peak of what its going to look like.  Mind you I haven't started the build up yet.

And the transformer is going to be black on the sides and white on the end bell.

 

[John EH]

And having entirely too much fun here I have the transformer painted up.  Tried to vinyl wrap the end bell but too small and too many complex curves.  Painted instead.

Little glare off the tubes on the chassis but too tired to fix the lighting.  I guess tomorrow starts the wiring phase.

And obviously I have to sand the glue off the base and stain it.

John

 

[4krow]

OMG that is great. Yes, I'm envious.

 

[John EH]

Not real exciting but slowly getting her together.  As Boston sang "I'm taking my time, I'm just moving along......."

Nice instructions.  The Bottleheads are getting much better at the layout game.  Having not built a kit in years I can really tell they've honed their craft.

Except for the two LED's on the 9 pin socket, that is..........crap.  I got it.  But crap I'm gonna see double for an hour.

Now starting on the power supply and I'm building in the Speedball as I build this up so leaving the resistors out.

John

 

[Armaegis]

Reminds me of a Coke can...  8)

 

[4krow]

  John,  It should be apparent to me that when someone is good at one aspect of kit building, they are likely to be good at other aspects as well. I am referring to your last photo in which the underside of the project is shown. I am impressed sir. Makes me want to take a bit more time on my own projects.

 

[HF9]

Very interesting design decision! Vinyl can also be custom printed or intricately cut at places like Signs By Tomorrow or Sign-A-Rama ... for future creations

 

[John EH]

  John,  It should be apparent to me that when someone is good at one aspect of kit building, they are likely to be good at other aspects as well. I am referring to your last photo in which the underside of the project is shown. I am impressed sir. Makes me want to take a bit more time on my own projects.

Thanks.  Really trying to take my time here on this one.  I used to have the luxury of sitting down for marathon sessions but now I kind of get an hour here or an hour there to work on it.  When you know you can't get too much accomplished it slows things down a bit I think.  So far the only thing I'm not 100% happy with is the LED's on the 9 pin socket.  They're in there and soldered correctly but the wire leads aren't as perfect as everything else.  At first I was going to go back in and fix it and then thought there is more likely hood I'll foul something else only to make it a tiny bit prettier.  And it looks pretty okay anyway.

I try to keep my wire on the roll where possible and strip one end and solder it.  Then route it like I like and then cut to a good length and then solder.  That makes for nice clean wire runs.

John

 

[4krow]

I'm with you  John! Sometimes it IS worth fixing a booboo, but you increase the chances of unthinkable experiences.