I have a www.buildyourownclone.com kit, but it needs… something beyond the gain, tone and volume controls - a monkey needs more…
That looks promising. I never use batteries, but it made sense to leave space, and it’ll have a metal clip to hold it in place which’ll be rivetted into position. I suppose the various parts should actually be on the inside but that’s easily rectified later. I’m not using the BYOC jack sockets because I prefer the enclosed type. Next step, measure up, put on some masking tape and mark the positions of the holes:
Okey. I punched the centres of the holes through the tape. Super Monkey said she’d be happy to do the punching but I used a centre punch instead. I then removed it (it gums up the bit and leaves a residue if you drill through it). Marked the holes with a dry-wipe marker (permanent pen can leech through the paint), including how many steps each hole will take on the stepped drill-bit.
Drilling. Sides first - note the drill vice. Don’t want to snag the bit and damage my beautiful fur. The drill table is a bit rusty as you can see - I really need to fix the lab roof!
Skip a bit. I got fed up with drilling and just used a machine-gun on the other holes. Turned out better than I’d expected.
Sanded the enclosure so the paint would grip properly, then degreased with isopropanol and wiped clean with kitchen paper. Note the high-tech spray booth - two thirds of a cardboard box, a cake turntable and the lid from a spraycan to hold the enclosure above the turntable - this prevents it getting “glued” on with the paint. So many painful lessons learnt…
And some primer. Two coats, because, erm, that’s how many I always do.
I’m going with two big fat stripes.
Here’s the basecoat paint - this’ll form the stripes tomorrow. One coat of colour, two of lacquer. The lacquer’s gone on really nicely - this should look like it’s been dipped in glass. I think it’s Ford Aztec Bronze, Peugeot Pagoda Red and Daewoo Ruby Red. The main colour will be white, I think. Something classy (for a change).
Right. Leave it to harden for a day, then the stripes.
I didn’t get a picture with the masking tape on; I wanted to leave it there as short a time as possible. Two strips, then a quick blast of white and ivory paint (thought it’d look a bit “aged” but there’s not much contrast), then off comes the tape, quick as possible. The tape did fray a little at the edges unfortunately, but it looks passable.
Next step is to put on a LOT of lacquer in several coats. I want to remove any apparent border between the two sets of paint. Couple of coats tonight, then a few days for the paint to cure properly.