I'm wondering if sandwiching between two pieces of glass, then gently heating with a hair dryer would work? Thanks for the above. When I get around to doing mine I'll follow your method.
I'm wondering if sandwiching between two pieces of glass, then gently heating with a hair dryer would work? Thanks for the above. When I get around to doing mine I'll follow your method.
Taking a hair dryer - or heat gun for that matter - to the scales, even if they are sandwiched between glass leaves me concerned about hot spots. I'm not discounting the idea though. There's at least one video of a heat gun being used for repairs on YouTube.
Flattening the scales is more of a "Plan-C" for me at the moment ("Plan-A" being the purchase of additional 6650s in hopes of hitting the jackpot).
Why?
Well, let's just say it's not going to bode well for me when Mrs. G-Whiz finds out what I've been up to in her kitchen!
If I'm going to attempt flattening the scales, first I'll need to purchase one of those new-fangled IR laser thermometers to get a temperature reading of the inside of the meter's dust cover after I've had the lamps heating it up for a good hour or two. Once I get that magic number, I'll want to toss the glass sheets & rubber bands(for lack of a better idea for applying a constant compression pressure as the glass sheets get closer and closer together) into Mrs. G's crockpot full of water. I need to make sure her crock pot comes with a continuously adjustable temperature control so I can bring it all up to the same temperature as the reading on the inside the radio's VU meters.
Anyway, I'll want to glue spacers in the corners of one of the sheets of glass so I can't overly squish the plastic and end up with a flat, oval-shaped piece of useless plastic. I'm thinking I'll also want to coat the inside surfaces of these glass sheets with some kind of silicone grease to reduce the chances of rubbing off the silkscreen, paint, or whatever material Sony used to apply the colors to the scales. (That grease is the part that I think is going to get me in hot water with Mrs. G)
Why would I want to use a hot water bath? Well, I figure It will give me waaaaay more stability and control over the temperature than with a hair dryer or heat gun. After all, the goal is to get the scale to relax without worrying about overheating and turning it into a blob of runny, melted plastic.
It's also going to be easier on my ears than a hair dryer or heat gun... although...
... after Mrs. G-Whiz gets done with me, I may be no better off!!
@:
Once the water and the glass sheets are up to temperature, I can pull them out, pop in a scale and then submerge the whole thing back into the hot water bath. The hot water will flood the cavity around the scale, heating up the entire scale, not just the small spots hat are in direct contact with the glass, and allow the entire scale to relax and reshape as the glass forces it back towards its original shape. Those last four words are probably going to be the gotcha in this scenario though. Something tells me that the scale will not return exactly to it's original rectangular dimensions. I'm thinking it could end up being wider across the bottom than at the top because of the cutouts for the VU meters along the top edge of the scale. Cutting and trimming will probably be required just to get them to fit back inside the dust cover.
"Yawn... He's been yammering on and on about "Plan-A" and this no-win "Plan-C". What gives? What's his "Plan-B"???
In case you haven't guessed from this screen shot, I'm designing a 1200dpi black mask and want to see if I can find a company that can reproduce it at that resolution and also supply me with transparent green/turquoise sheets of plastic that can be placed on the back side of the mask. The question will be whether or not they can hook me up with sheets that will match the color of the radio scale.
I've tried the laser printers at Office Depot and Fed-Ex (formerly Kinko's) and they can't do non-transparent blacks on clear plastic which requires at least 3 layers of the mask just to block out the light. They also can't seem to go any finer that 120 or 200 DPI, and finally, I can't get the vibrant colors seen with the original VU scales that you see here on the right. Instead of an intense, deep green, the color is all muddy:
Did I mention I suffer from a little bit of OCD??