Magnetron Delay

[Erik S]

I’m a little shocked at how good this sounds. Especially considering the relative simplicity and cost, this is really impressive.

My favorite kind of dark and dirty delay tone and can do a pretty long delay time without any annoying high frequency noise problems.

Also sounds pretty great in run away oscillation. I saw some folks have done momentary oscillation mods. I bet that's a lot of fun.

 

[GizzWizzKing]

I love my magnetron. I know people are all about the Deep Blue/Seabed delay so I have one in the queue but I would be surprised if it could kick the magnetron off the board.

If you set the modulation up and the repeats to one/low and time really low you can have a cool almost rotary effect.

 

[Erik S]

I love my magnetron. I know people are all about the Deep Blue/Seabed delay so I have one in the queue but I would be surprised if it could kick the magnetron off the board.

If you set the modulation up and the repeats to one/low and time really low you can have a cool almost rotary effect.

I found that one too! Pretty sweet.

 

[andare]

Wow so clean!
The plate is so dope. Is it riveted? How does that work?

 

[Eschmidt]

What wire do you use? Solid core? What gauge? I like how it stays in place and really looks like an elite build.

 

[Erik S]

Wow so clean!
The plate is so dope. Is it riveted? How does that work?

Thanks!

I attach the plates with solid aluminum rivets. Pop rivets would also work, but the look of the solid ones is a better match for the look of old machine tags.





I modified this air hammer bit with a ball nose end mill to hammer the rivets from the head-end.


The other end of the rivet gets backed up by this silversmith stake anvil while I hammer from the top with the air hammer.

 

[Paradox916]

Looks good man, the magnetron is definitely one of the best pt2399 delays you can build, and that chip is pretty easy to control the self oscillation with simple mods, especially when you make the pot on the oscillation switch external. It can be useful to dial in the ramp up depending on the tempo of the song.

 

[Paradox916]

Thanks!

I attach the plates with solid aluminum rivets. Pop rivets would also work, but the look of the solid ones is a better match for the look of old machine tags.

View attachment 94249

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I modified this air hammer bit with a ball nose end mill to hammer the rivets from the head-end.
View attachment 94247

The other end of the rivet gets backed up by this silversmith stake anvil while I hammer from the top with the air hammer.
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View attachment 94251

Pro tip, if you put a piece of of masking tape on the rivet set when you drive, you will have a nicer looking rivet head, it’s kind of harder to control a air hammer than a rivet gun but it should help with those softer rivets.

 

[Erik S]

What wire do you use? Solid core? What gauge? I like how it stays in place and really looks like an elite build.

I’ve gone through a few boxes of this 22ga solid core from Amazon. They were out last time I tried to order and I got some Remington stuff. Haven’t tried it yet though.

I definitely prefer working with solid core.

 

[Erik S]

Pro tip, if you put a piece of of masking tape on the rivet set when you drive, you will have a nicer looking rivet head, it’s kind of harder to control a air hammer than a rivet gun but it should help with those softer rivets.

It definitely took a while to get the process dialed in and controllable. I’ve never used a real rivet gun. It makes sense they would be more controllable. If I run an in-line regulator and dial the pressure way down I can get it to the point where I can get a repeatable number of hits on a trigger pull.

On the soft aluminum head any scratch or tooling mark on the hammer gets printed into the aluminum - I can see where tape would help there. I dealt with it by spending a bunch of time polishing the tool out to a mirror finish, but tape would have been easier.

 

[andare]

I’ve gone through a few boxes of this 22ga solid core from Amazon. They were out last time I tried to order and I got some Remington stuff. Haven’t tried it yet though.

I definitely prefer working with solid core.

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Are those the pliers you use to bend it?
They look so groovy!
I wish I had workshop space like you guys...

 

[Erik S]

Are those the pliers you use to bend it?
They look so groovy!
I wish I had workshop space like you guys...

I’ve used those wire bending pliers on my last few pedals. I started using them after a conversation here about tools. Before that I used regular needle nose pliers without any problems, but I do enjoy the little round corners from the bending pliers.

I feel very lucky to have some workshop space. It was a dream for a long time before it happened. Ever since the pandemic it’s also been my day job office and it’s a nice place to spend my days.