What’s on *YOUR* workbench?

Not sure if you’re looking for a full bridge replacement or just saddles, but I recently put a staytrem on a parts Jazzmaster and it’s very nice if you’re willing to wait. Otherwise the stock “mustang style” saddles on my old classic vibe were like 93.5% as good. Possibly even 94%.

Very cool looking build btw!

This neck has a 14° radius, so I need that or flatter on the bridge. Probably gonna end up with the modified adjustable mustang saddles. The staytrem and it's ilk are kinda wastes of money in my eyes
 
fixed my Jordan Boss Tone by using those dreaded transistor sockets and doing some transistor rolling ... and a Wampler Triple Wreck I bought as not working over a year ago and hadn't bothered fixing ... I don't like the boost either before or after the distortion and in either scenario the boost causes self-oscillation if the gain is dimed which I'd fix but, again, I don't like the boost

after-dinner update: couldn't live with the stink of self-oscillating failure and replaced the built-in boost with a Bad Bob pcb I had lying around as it fit perfectly between the two footswitches. This one's done.
 
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No Pedal Time when there's still plenty of fall chores to do.

Hated the black shutters and some other black trim around the house since we moved in 4 years ago, even though generally I like black.
Had the roof re-shingled last year, chose a blue-tinged colour for it.
Friend found a 17.8L pale (4.7 Gallons) mis-tint that I wasn't sure about the colour but wife liked it and once on the house, we loved it. Got the "mis-tint" humongous pale for much much less than the price of ONE-4L can (a gallon), and it matches the roof tiles better than anticipated.

Importantly...
Had a couple warm-enough fall days, 18–20ºC ( 64–68ºF), to sneak in some painting before the deep freeze hits.
Prep is everything, but prep took longer than anticipated (it always does) so I was painting well past sunset (short days are upon us already, here in the northern hemisphere). Nonetheless, managed a second coat the next day. Then it got cold and rained. Then it got colder and snowed.


BEFORE

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AFTER

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Things I Already Knew:
Don't use cheap "painter's" tape, use real painter's tape.​
Don't use real-cheap OLD painter's tape.​

Things I Ignored:
(see "Things I already knew")​

Things I Discovered, but sort of expected:
Old, cheap painter's tape doesn't come off so great after a few days of cold weather.​
Utility blades just scratch siding, they don't remove drips or crappy dried-out paint-saturated old painter's tape — for that the mighty thumbnail works best.​

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I did take a break after one window was done (two shutters).
Then I went out to finish the other two shutters...



More Things I Discovered (continued)
Working with just thumbnails to remove painter's tape in 3ºC (37ºF) makes for frick’n cold hands, fast.​
Expecting tape to just come off and be done in a few minutes, so not wearing a suitable warm coat lacks foresight.​
Ignoring the cold, then ignoring signs your hands are too cold because they feel hot and working through that until they feel cold again when you could just take a break and go inside to warm up for a spell is ignorant and bullheaded​
Having a wife pop chocolate-maple sourdough muffins out of the oven timed with your return indoors is a great way to ease the pain of cold hands and warm them up over the open oven door of course, too.​
IMG_1314.jpeg "Is that a ball of painter's tape in your pocket or is one of your balls distended?"​
Chocolate-maple sourdough muffins taste great when you've also got a couple hot-water bottles around your midriff;​
very chocolatey, and not too sweet.​
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Still some minor details to tend to, but the window for outdoor painting has closed.​
Going to paint the light-sconces in the garage, or maybe even the basement. And the Mailbox, even though mail is no longer delivered door-to-door — now it's community mailbox-clusters down the street.​
PEDALWISE ... the friend that helped with some of the house-painting painted me another enclosure. OF COURSE I'm missing parts for the intended build and the mail-strike is still on... No parts, so pedal-pics will wait until it's built.​
 
Couple of projects thatve been on the backlog for forever.

1. Practicing my breadboarding skills to test out the original bluesbreaker circuit. I don’t know what my problem is; I don’t even really like the BB but I’m steadily building all of the variants available from PPCB but have never played the original. This one will go on perf because it feels weird to buy a pcb for the original for some reason. Also the PPCB proto board is so freaking nice to have on hand. The more I use it the more I appreciate @Robert’s design decisions.

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2. Working on this little 5-button midi footswitch. I’ve been playing with Loopy Pro on my iPad and wanted something that could map to multiple loops or handle other random functions (eventually I’ll coordinate the switch cap colors with loop/track label colors in my default Loopy Pro template). This runs on a pi pico, which has been great and shockingly affordable. The other board is a usb-c adapter because I just can’t abide multiple cable standards anymore. To prove it, I hacked up a spare micro-usb as sacrifice to adapt the pico.

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Found my schematic of the Fortin Blade an old bandmate let me partially trace (no removal of components) and a clone I built using the Integral Preamp board. Couldn't figure out the MOSFET that was used for polarity protection.

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Experimenting with a modified 1590N1. No idea how/if it would get produced in aluminum, but just noodling around with it.

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Just added that slant for the switch. Maybe a bit steep, but again, experimentation. Some fillets need adjustment, too...
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You could cast that! Try sand casting and using that as the mold!

Edit:
I just sent you a message to explain in better detail!

So for anyone else wanting to sand casting your own enclosures the general process I use is to first design an enclosure in some sort of cad. You need to be able to make several different molds, in order to make this work some sort of 3d file with correct dimensional accuracy is needed.

First start with the enclosure and make it a solid object (not hollow and with a solid bottom).

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This mold must be able to attach to a plate that again you must design in cad that will act as placement holder in the sand.

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The next step would be to design the core mold. This mold is preferably 3 or more parts. For this particular enclosure I chose a 3 part mold.

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I make my cores with fine play sand 120 mesh or finer and a 2 part epoxy. Mix the epoxy and slowly pour into sand and mix. Youre looking for a mixture where when clumped by hand it holds its shape and cleanly breaks apart. Fill your mold.

If done right Overnight you will have a really nice core, a little tip is to make sure you do not have any overhang when pulling apart the mold. It will be a little difficult when pulling apart the mold and having smoothed edges will help doing so. Again all of this must be modeled before hand in cad.

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Nice, now you’re done with molds I promise 😎

…..That’s if you’re not counting the sand mold now 😆😌

So now comes the actual sand mold. You must make your own flask ( a tip is to make it with only about 1.25 in of clearance all around the part. Any larger and you will spend a lot fo time filling the flask). You can start by filling one part of the flask with the first solid mold you made (another tip is to use petrobond and get yourself a sifter to be able to get all the fine details of your enclosure). You’re looking to create a fine layer around the enclosure as to capture as much detail as possible.

Once the first half is filled you can start on the 2nd half. This is where you will attach your alignment plate and start to add your petrobond. Same techniques apply.

You will have to consider where and how you will add your molten metal with proper vents and whatnot. This is all up to the caster.

Mine looks like this once poured and of course the result.

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This is after a bit of processing. It’s not perfect but it’s usable! I’m sure with consistency you will and can get a perfected enclosure.
 
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on the workbench is building three new PC's for my teens... I've put off till the last minute on upgrading their motherboards/cpu and graphics the last several years and now the windows 11 compatibility kicks in.... two of the kiddos was still on a 2070 FTW graphics card and a 2060 Super. Went ahead and just got all new everything for three rigs and I'm planning on parting out their old rigs on ebay to recoup a little change....
Just started and finished one totally out tonight.. IMG_8579.jpeg
 
on the workbench is building three new PC's for my teens... I've put off till the last minute on upgrading their motherboards/cpu and graphics the last several years and now the windows 11 compatibility kicks in.... two of the kiddos was still on a 2070 FTW graphics card and a 2060 Super. Went ahead and just got all new everything for three rigs and I'm planning on parting out their old rigs on ebay to recoup a little change....
Just started and finished one totally out tonight..View attachment 104783
No 7800X3D CPU ? Filthy casual! jk looks like a decent setup. My kids have an ancient iMac with a cracked screen front. But it has garage band.
 
AMD all the way in this house…Seriously single core performance for gaming is waaay better than intel
And way better driver support if you ever want to try SteamOS (or any other flavor of Linux 🤓). My primary computer is a full AMD mini pc with a dedicated laptop GPU. Been dual-booting fedora and windows for a couple years. Mostly use the linux side and it's been significantly less of a pain in the arse than windows, heh.
 
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