Crawfish Hot Sauce Booster - Complete!

Since the scratches I put on the box were so bad, rather than try to sand them out I decided to strip the whole box back to bare metal.  Then I shot a couple of coats of primer.  Then I did a scuff sanding with 400 wet-or-dry paper...I did a wet sand.

There are always a few specks that seem to get into the finish, and I try to minimize them.  Lately I've been using a compressed air can to blow the dust off before I shoot the paint.  It seems to help, but there were some little dots of dust in the primer in one spot.  Hence the sanding.

Then it's on to the color coats.  For this box I went with a metallic blue.  Came out fairly well.

After the color coats dried overnight, I dropped the "chassis" assembly back into the box.  I actually got to thinking that it might be possible to do some 'preassembly' like this on future builds.  It would be easier to have more access to the switches and pots rather than try to snake wiring around small areas in the enclosure.

You better believe I was very careful to avoid scarring the new finish when bolting the jacks and pots into place!  I used light-tack tape to cover the areas around the nuts.

 One goofy thing was the way the DC input jack stuck out of the enclosure.  I could have sworn I had two nuts on this thing before - one inside acting as a spacer, and the mounting nut on the outside.  But now I can only find one!

At any rate, it looks bad sticking out so far.  I need a spacer inside the box.

I decided to use a nylon washer.  The inside diameter wouldn't fit over the jack, so I opened it up a bit with my Dremel.

Here's a shot of the inside of the finished booster.

And the top.  It has a name - 'Hot Sauce.'

I did the artwork for the decals in Photoshop, then printed them on a color laser printer.  It's still a learning process for me, but I think they came out ok.

I used clear enamel as a final finish coat to cover the decal (and the rest of the pedal).  I found in putting the decals on that they get marked up very quickly when touched unless they're protected.

Closeup of the controls.  The tone knobs are very interactive.  My guess is I'll pretty much 'set and forget' them once I start using it.

The booster does give a nice moderate clean boost - just enough to bump the guitar's volume up for a solo.

For some reason, this pedal was hard to photograph.  I tried to get a shot that shows the actual shade of metallic blue.