Pickup flatworks ready

Posted on October 28, 2017

As I mentioned in my IMCA 400 post, this week I was lucky enough to have access to the lasercutter. This allowed me to test and cut the appropriate versions of the pickup flatworks.

From that point, I needed to add the eyelets. First, I tried with Loctite, only to read afterwards that it was not meant for plastic.

Then I used Epoxy, which seemed appropriate. A day or two later, I realized the flatworks were cracked around the eyelets (see image above on the left). Speaking with the maquette shop technician, I learned that Epoxy actually expands slightly when drying. Since I am currently using acrylic, which is quite rigid, any expansion breaks it…

When I bought the eyelets, I also bought a setting tool. For real guitar pickup flatworks, which are made out of a more flexible plastic, one would actually set the eyelet with a hammer. I tried, but as visible on the image above on the right, that did not work either…

Elio from the Sensor Lab lent me this product you can see above, and so far this seems to be the winner! Now I need to find more of this.

Signal generator

This week I destroyed a few telephones in order to rip their coils out. One was somewhat easy to extract, but it was encase in a metal structure with no connectors. The other had its coil completely molded in plastic, making it completely impossible to take out without destroying it.

I was given another coil, a 170Ω one, which would seem to be in the appropriate range, however no signal was generated either. Discussing with a friend who tried to work with sound electronics before, he mentioned that breadboards were not ideal to work, as their connections were not of sufficient quality. This week I will to mount my current electronics on a perf board and test, hoping that this will allow me to move forward.

Late books

It turns out I had noted down the wrong date for when I needed to return the Brutalism books, so they were sort of ripped out of my hands before I was done with them. While there were a few inspiring shapes, I don’t think I am yet at the point where I can completely link the subject of architecture and sound sculpture. I will come back to that once I have moved forward with the basic components I need, namely the pickup and the signal generator.