Ceriatone Forum

I have an incoming kit.

I kind of want a unique look. I'm thinking of matte powder coat like TR. I have found a local service for just that though I need to know which areas need to be left bare maybe the strip of tube socket areas like on TR. Then the ground lugs. So do I need to maintain metal contact with the knobs and jacks/ switches? Note that I wouldn't be using the plastic? face plate/ back plate.

And any ideas to make a neat white Ceriatone lettering on the part where the name should be on the chassis? How about knob, jacks and switch labels? Can the powder coating service company provide lettering job? What do ppl like TR do? Is that silk screen?

Thanks a lot! I've read all 56 pages minus threads I skipped. I'm stoked to be posting for the first time in this fun Ceriatone community.

Nick

You want to make sure you have clean connections to the chassis for the grounds. So, if there is any coating/paint on areas that need grounded it's best to sand/grind them to the metal. If fact I usually sand any oxidation off regardless of paint. It would best to have them mask the inside of the chassis so it doesn't get any paint. Every amp has, or should have a specific ground scheme, but generally things like pots and switch bodies are grounded. Certain jacks are sometimes isolated from the chassis to avoid ground loops.

As far as lettering, the powder coating may be setup to do that stuff, but I doubt most powder coaters are. Yes, most labeling is done with silk screen. Silk screening is still the best way to do it.

Thanks. I guess masking could be done with powdercoating. I'm researching about silk screening now.

The only thing i can think of as far using powder coating and lettering would be to mask off the areas that need lettering, with custom die cut decals,  like a reverse stencil, and then have the chassis powder coated, and the remove the decals. The hard part would be having the decals made and then removing them afterwards. You can also do the same thing with matte paint. I thought about making a faceplate out of copper and then acid etching the writing on it. Another option would be that if you have any friends that are graphic artists they could hand paint the writing on the chassis, which would make it unique. I'm not sure if paint sticks to power coat, though

Gregg

Oh you mean the lettering would be left unpainted like showing the shiny metal underneath the powdercoat? That's a bit more achievable I think an I'm used to do letterings and some graphics usually on guitar using masking xacto knife stencils and what not. Its just my priority to make it look as professional as possible and I wanna be able to literally copy the Ceriatone logo from the faceplates.

Here's a link to something I'd like to check out sometime. There's a few key pieces of equipment needed. Like a color laser printer for one, (if you really want to do all kinds of stuff) and quality laminator, that make it a bit out of reach for me right now. Might be worth checking out.

http://www.pulsarprofx.com/decalpro/Vertical/1_MENU/1b_Overview/Overview.html (http://www.pulsarprofx.com/decalpro/Vertical/1_MENU/1b_Overview/Overview.html)

As Gregg mentioned, the thing that would make me think that trying to mask prior to power coating could be difficult would be the fact that it is baked and once that is done it's hard as a rock. Trying to remove delicate lettering could be a real pain.

I forgot about that deal using the laser printer. I have thought about getting it and trying it out. Seems like it would work well

That's really useful and cool. If I had access to that years ago, I would've been able to do a lot with my custom guitars.

Anyway on second thought, I actually like the Ceriatone faceplate and might settle on those. What I dont actually like 100% is the HRM logo. When fate permits, I'm getting a Bluesmaster too and I would probably go ahead with a customized chassis finish. Thanks to you guys its all clear in my head now how to approach this.

Yeah, me too. There's something about "His Royal Majesty" that seems a little egotistical, or something. :P  I guess I'm too self-conscious, and no one has ever made any comments about the name, but I feel it makes it seem I think my "stuff doesn't stink".  :D

Hey Captain,

Just an FYI.
I just received my latest kits and the chassis are now powdercoated steel. Kind of light tan gloss finish. You might want to wait until you receive it to decide what you want to do.

I can give you some hints at making those face plates your own too. PM if you are interested.

Overtone now has a gloss light tan fiinish? Or is that a marshall?  ;D

I only build OTS style amps.

The faceplates are still black though right?

Right. No change there.

Thats really good news but how does it exactly have light tan finsih?  ;D

They are steel and powder coated in a tan/off white color, faceplates are original so the amp looks the same from the outside...

are the insides coated also? Anybody have any photos of these new chassis?

+ 1


Thats rather odd. Light tan/ off white of all colors.

Hi all,

Firstly let me introduce myself. I have just received my OTS 50 kit which will be my 3rd amp build. The 1st was a champ clone, and the 2nd was an Ceriatone Expression with some tweaked components. I'm really looking forward to building the OTS.

I can confirm that the chassis is powder coated on the inside and out, and is white in colour. It looks great! Also Nik told me that they switched to steel from aluminium for more strength.

See attached a couple of pics. The chassis already has some studs for grounding, but Nik told me to scrape away the powder coat in a few locations to ensure a good ground connection. These were (snippets from Nik):

The hole for volume pot
The hole for bright switch
The hole for treble pot
The hole for the DIN socket
For the 1st preamp tube, it'd be good if you burr the screw holes too (I've still got to do this)

He suggested that it might be a good idea doing all of the pot holes, but in the end I just took the simplistic approach and deburred any holes where the controls had something metallic that the user could touch such as pots and switches.

You will see from the pictures that I got a bit excited with the dremel ;D, and Nik said you only really need to deburr a little bit.

Hope this helps.

Rick

Wow dude thanks for that. I dont know if I'm excited or shocked though.

Hmm, they look nice, but the one thing I was wondering was if the the areas that need exposed were pre-scraped clean. I guess it doesn't look like the powdercoat is too thick and is easy enough to sand down with a dremel or similar. The fact that they're steel is a good thing I suppose.

I guess I'm a little further ahead than some. I didn't file the holes as Nik recommended but after installing all the hardware on both front and back it dawned on me that it might have been a good idea. So I checked continuity to ground from the backs and shafts of all pots and shafts of the switches. All good. The pot holes were actually kind of tight so I needed to spin the pot to get it in all the way. Guess that took care of whatever coating was in the hole.

The only thing is you don't want to rely on accidently making continuity. Also, just getting a multi-meter to beep doesn't mean you have as good a ground as possible. You want a very secure, solid connection. As far as most pots, and non-power switches signal degradation is all that's at risk, but for power chassis grounds and other higher voltate grounds you don't want to question continuity. It could be a shocking answer.   :o

Seriously, even signal degradation will piss you off it becomes an issue. All it will take is vibration working loose a pot or switch, etc. to reduce the ground and start noise and hum, intermodulation, etc. I'm speaking from experience.  :-[

Yes it was quite easy with the Dremel.

Hmm my OTS kit just came in. I'll let you guys know of how it comes out of the box.

(http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd415/captainbackfire_jr/398362_228143973966847_100003137398001_383869_308736253_n.jpg)