I was curious if I'll ever have a sound out of this pedal, as I was thinking I could easily have problems with soldering and it would be PITA to find it. But it worked great and the pedal is working at the first run.
I think this may help some people to encourage making DIY pedals (if I could, you can too), and also it may help people thinking about decals or how to label pedals etc.
So here is the story, I've bought the EF440 kit from General Guitar Gadgets (
www.generalguitargadgets.com). It was my first attempt to make such a thing. I was so so with soldering and fearing if I'll ever have a sound out of it...
The kit comes with everything you need (except of course the battery), it even includes the soldering wire. I downloaded all the related pdf's from GGG website and I can say if you can follow instructions, you can build this pedal without any problem. Having made numerous model kits (cars, planes, aircraft carriers) helped me too (see following the instructions
). But with the included pedal case, unpainted, I thought it will look dull. So I began to think about how to make it appealing. I could paint in one color. And labeling it with a permanent marker was one of the solutions, an easier one but I wanted something special. So I decided to include a theme for the pedal. Than, the movie "Big Lebowski" came to my mind and I liked the idea.
Probably the avatar of a TB'er (don't remember his/her name sorry, if you remember who he/she is, please inform me, I'd like to thank) having this "Mark it zero" picture could influence me. I don't recall it for sure but probably a light just blinked in my head when I was thinking to find a theme and as usual I was surfing in TB forums, saw that picture, remembered how much I liked the movie and the character that John Goodman was playing (wow, it sounds like "Murders in the Rue Morgue" part II
).
I first painted the metal box with Hammerite Primer metal paint. Because it doesn't accept the paint directly (at least the paints I have). Its color is like a red rust. Than I painted with Hammerite Plain White. After a few coats and sanding in between, I applied glossy finish.
I designed the layout of the pedal, decided what to write and prepared what I'm going to print on decal paper. Believe it or not, I simply used MS Word for this (no photoshop or any other image editing, layout program). BTW to get the decal paper in first place was a PITA too but that's another story (they are not available here in Istanbul and sellers I've found not shipping overseas etc.). I used the same decal papers for the Bogdan's Polish Love Pedal (you can see the result in that thread)
After printing the decal paper, I used the same glossy finish to cover it too, made the necessary holes. And it looked like this (censored some words as you may see
):
Than I applied the decal on the pedal:
Unfortunately, some of the black parts of the drawing faded, probably I should apply much more coats on the decal before sinking it in the water
BTW, the inside of pedal looks like this:
I guess not bad for a first job.
And I've put the switch and knobs etc. Et voila, here is the pedal:
I have many more pictures along the soldering/assembly and can put them if it will be interesting for any body. The pedal sounds good, maybe a little shy before 12 o'clock but it distorts when I put the range to maximum and gives a fuzzy sound that I like very much.
I have not made the modifications for bass that is explained in GGG page. Because simply I didn't understand what to do (I need a schema or better a picture). Anybody who can help me? Should I ask it in DIYstompbox.com forums (because strangely GGG doesn't have a forum)
Thanks if you've followed this long post 'till the end
My first DIY pedal. GGG EF440 replica, paint and decals... 
