I hate wasting time, effort and money, but that doesn’t stop me from doing so. I finished laying out, drilling, sanding, and polishing the rest of the front panel for the synthesizer. I also started labeling it by using Gimp to write out and reverse my text on an overlay for some “clear” (eh, close enough for what I’m doing, but they really should call them “matte”) Avery shipping labels that I bought on a whim. Overall, it was not an easy task, particularly when it came to cutting out and sticking the labels to the back of the panel; the results aren’t that great, but still better than anything that I’ve made before. :P
Unfortunately, I’m seriously contemplating redoing it a different way. I have already traced the holes onto some paper backing and scanned them into the computer; from here, I’m going to get some full-page “clear” printer labels and do pretty much the same thing as before, but to whole groups of component holes that correspond to each individual module. I feel that this tactic will produce the best results, especially considering how crooked a lot of the labels I have on there are right now.
As soon as I have this part of the whole project complete, I am going to get going with the soldering; I’m still waiting for an order on some specialty components that I need for the Delay and the Sample and Hold modules.
On a side note, for some reason I’m already thinking of what I’m going to work on when I’m done with this project; I’m going to get started on a true modular synthesizer cabinet! The acrylic panels that I got from US Plastic turned out to have an unmentioned blade tolerance of 3/16″, making them pretty much unsuitable for building a new case that would have a chance of being better than the one I already have for this synth. Fortunately, I can still use them to build rack-mounted modules for a true modular system (in so far as I know at this point, that is). ;D
I can always order proper material to rebuild the case once I have some money later in my life.