<div dir="ltr"><div>Hi Sylvain,</div><div> </div><div>Mechanical design engineer here and also a musician/producer who's built guitar pedals, amps, etc. I play post rock and ambient music myself and have a pedal board that has been called a "space ship" on more than on occasion.</div><div> </div><div>A benchtop or mini/micro mill or lathe would be just perfect if you were going into production. But they can be expensive. This is definitely a hand operation if you want to crank out large numbers, IMHO no need for digital control over the cuts required for your guitar pedals. Note that you could also easily do chamfers or fillets around the outside edge of your pedals for added details...</div><div> </div><div>If you decide on a lathe you'll need something called a vertical slide....I have one and have done slotting operations no problem on my Taig metal lathe. </div><div> </div><div>A mill a good bet and I would encourage you to look into a used one if you are serious about building pedals and are serious about sliders. The thing about getting into machining like this is you're going to want a lathe eventually. You can turn the most beautiful custom knobs no problem on a nice lathe and its so enjoyable (no one seems to be doing custom knobs on their pedals). And with a good vertical slide, small slotting operations like you have in mind are absolutely no problem. </div><div> </div><div>You can always explore laser or waterjet cutting, but in my experience these operations end up costing more and being much more of a pain when you're doing something that is a simple hand operation on the proper machine. </div><div> </div><div>On another note, if you want to really set yourself apart, have you considered 3d printing custom enclosure designs? IMHO, the guitar pedal market is totally saturated right now and you need to do everything you can to get people's attention. If this is something you want to explore more, get in touch and shoot me an email.</div><div> </div><div>Cheers,</div><div> </div><div> Stephane</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 3:44 PM, Sylvain Poitras <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sylvain.trombone@gmail.com" target="_blank">sylvain.trombone@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Hi, <div>This is a general request for assistance with a project I'm working on. </div><div><br></div><div>I started making my own guitar pedals a year ago and for my next project, I've decided that I'd like to use slide
pots instead of the usual rotary potentiometers. One difficulty, is that while
drilling holes to mount rotary pots is trivial, I have no idea how to cut the
slots through which the faders will move.</div><p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My first idea was to use a drill / file / jiggsaw combo, but
there has to be a better way…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is the aluminum box in question: <a href="http://www.digikey.ca/product-search/en?vendor=0&keywords=1590xxb" target="_blank">http://www.digikey.ca/product-search/en?vendor=0&keywords=1590xxb</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Would a laser cutter be a good option? Can I pay anyone to
do this in town? What kind of file do I need to create to get this kind of work done?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal">Any help would be appreciated, </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal">Thanks, </p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><p class="MsoNormal">Sylvain</p></font></span></div>
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