Logo Printing....

[Stan H]

I was watching the Seymore Duncan DVD and he was showing how they get the logo on the bobbins. They were using something called a pad printer and what he called epoxy based ink. I did a search on eBay for "pad printer" and they are pretty pricy. I was wondering if a regular rubber stamp would work with the right ink (since I don't have hundreds at a time to do). Any ideas on what kind of ink would be easy to use and permanent in an application like this? I don't think that I've ever heard of epoxy based inks.

[TD_Madden]

I have a couple of his pickups in one of my LP knockoffs. Personally I'm not interested in providing the free advertising and I wish I could remove it.

[PoorMan]

I have a couple of his pickups in one of my LP knockoffs. Personally I'm not interested in providing the free advertising and I wish I could remove it.

I'm also not a fan of these logos.You can remove a Duncan logo with Brasso or a gummy eraser and muscle.

[Stan H]

Yeah, I hadn't given it much thought but in the last couple of monthe I've had several customers ask if I could do it.

[David Schwab]

I've seen epoxy ink used with rubber stamps back when I worked at ITT in the late 70's. They used it to mark numbers on circuit boards. It was pretty much like regular epoxy with a dye added. That wouldn't be hard to do with regular epoxy. Inlay artists do it all the time. I don't think you'd get a very clean logo with a rubber stamp though.

Another thing would be to use an "init" which is commonly called press type. You can order a sheet from Letraset, with your own logo file. They cost about $80USD. You would have to spray a clear coat over it though.

A third option is to use some sort of screen printing.

And then for big bucks you can do foil stamping like EMG uses.

Then of course with closed covers you can do like Bartolini.

As far as logos being free advertising... what about that Fender or Gibson logo on the guitar? Or your amp? So why not on pickups? I don't like the way Duncan does it, but something smaller or more graphic would look cool.

Eventually my pickups will look like this:

[kevinT]

David pretty much summed it up....but here is the link to a thread a while back about printing on bobbins.


http://music-electronics-forum.com/s...ead.php?t=1499

[jonson]

This one got me interested cus I have to do a fair bit when I'm building or repairing guitars. If you really want to have a go without laying out too much then it is possible and if you dont like it well!
I print my own waterslides off the pc. but no good for pickups but I also use vinyls cut by a signwriting guy and screen print some. Vinyls can be a bit tricky if it is very small lettering but I get the local guy to cut them on his printer cutter and then do no more! so if I supply the font its cheap. I pickem out in reverse myself so it gives me a stencil and stick it down and spray over and remove leaving very clean lettering which if you go for a plastic paint will bite in. As for screen printing by the time you have done you artwork had a positive made and then a screen developed you have spent some serious bread. Think my last one for a logo that keeps cropping up cus of broken headstocks was about £150 which was a bitch. Then these guys popped up Stateside http://www.ezscreenprint.com/ and their stuff is pretty good and I think fairly cheap. Worth a read and a look.

[TD_Madden]

personally, a sticker on the back suits me just fine.

[Stan H]

Nice cover, David! Injection molded?

[Satamax]

Hi Guys, well, i'm doing fake sound city MK3 logos with a printerAnd transparent plastic printable film. I print in reverse and stick the printed face on the aluminium with 3M spray adhesive. I do faceplates this way too. Here's a pic of one done with my old unaligned printer, so there stripes, i get a result a tad more even now. May be this method could be aplied to pickups.



Bye.

Max.

[David Schwab]

Nice cover, David! Injection molded?

Thanks... full credit goes to my partner John Gagliano. He modeled that from a 2D Illustrator file I did.

You are looking at a computer rendering, but we have used a 3D printer to make a mockup cover. We are going to do bobbins the same way. We just started building together again... back then we hand drew everything... now we are trying to do everything on computers.

Ideally I'd love to have them injection molded. But alas, that's way beyond my present budget! So once we have a good model we are going to make a silicone mold, and cast them in some resin, probably epoxy.

It's a shame that pickup parts are the big stumbling block... but I guess that's true of manufacturing in general.

I could rule the world... if I only had the parts! *


(* Album title by the Waitresses )

[David Schwab]

Hi Guys, well, i'm doing fake sound city MK3 logos...

I used to use Sound City bass strings. I liked them a lot. Those and Picato.

Boy those were the days!

Possum, I know you remember those brands!

[Satamax]

I used to use Sound City bass strings. I liked them a lot. Those and Picato.

Boy those were the days!

Possum, I know you remember those brands!

David, you've never tried the amps? I have a slightly moded L120 withe the "active" preamp which sounds wicked with bass. Feed V1A signal into V1B, chuck one of their square mag eminences 4X12 behind and that's way lovely vintage tone which can go to rather modern ones. I think for bass, L/B 120 or 200, the older 100 watters MK3 are too vintage for bass imho.

Bye.

Max. (sorry for going astray)

[David Schwab]

David, you've never tried the amps? I have a slightly moded L120 withe the "active" preamp which sounds wicked with bass. Feed V1A signal into V1B, chuck one of their square mag eminences 4X12 behind and that's way lovely vintage tone which can go to rather modern ones. I think for bass, L/B 120 or 200, the older 100 watters MK3 are too vintage for bass imho.(sorry for going astray)

I was never into tube amps for bass much. Played through some 100 watt Marshalls back in the day, that was my girlfriend's amp though. I also owned an old B-15n, which was my first good bass amp. That got stolen.

I played with a guitar player back in the 70's with a Sound City amp. Later he got an Orange amp.

I currently own a Mesa Bass 400+ with the matching 4x10 cab, but I don't use it anymore and I'm going to sell it.

My favorite bass cab I ever owned was a 4X12 Vox. Boy that thing was heavy too. I love 12" speakers with bass. A friend of mine has these Yamaha 12" PA speakers, with a horn, and surprisingly they sound great with my bass using his Hartkie head. Very detained midrange and treble.

I think I'm going to build a rig like that, but with a different head.

[jonson]

Right on is a nice cover and epoxy best way to go David. Been fartarseing about with polyester and polyurethane resins for Knobs and switch tops for 15years till I found Epoxy is the only one that comes out of the mold not tacky. But make sure you go for an addition cured Rtv silicone much better than moisture cure. Got that Maplex board in and gonna be some uses as you said so if you want to send me your address on a pm will get some samples in the post to you.