So I was trawling through the enclosures section of a few of my favourite suppliers and decided to buy a few different diecast boxes.
It seems that the Hammond 1590B is the standard for a small diecast stompbox. Fine, no problem, you can even get a pre-painted version. But the 1590B isn’t the cheapest of similarly sized boxes – so what does it have in its favour?
I bought the following boxes (Feb. 2012 prices):
- Hammond 1590B – 111.5 x 59.5 x 31mm – £5.62
- Pre-painted 1590B – size as above – £8.50
- Hammond 27134PSLA – 111 x 61 x 30mm – £3.15
- Evatron EVA60 – 114 x 64 x 30mm – £4.20
The Hammond 27134PSLA is apparently the old Eddystone design – which company Hammond (presumably) bought out.
So, what can we say? Firstly, the critical dimension is the depth. The Evatron box is a little too shallow to use a PP3/1604 style battery on its edge without slightly crushing the battery. Now don’t get me wrong, it works and the additional risk of a battery leaking after being squeezed slightly doesn’t worry me personally. Of course, the Hammond boxes will take a PP3/1604 battery on edge without crushing it.
Hammond 27134PSLA, Hammond 1590BRD, Evatron EVA60
The Evatron is shiny! shiny! compared with the un-painted Hammond boxes.
I thought that the paint job on the stompbox version of the 1590B wasn’t brilliant. It is fairly high-gloss but (even fresh out of the wrapper) it doesn’t have a fantastic finish on the samples I’ve bought. On the other hand, it appears to be a baked-on polyester finish and is robust (doesn’t chip or flake) and once your stompbox is on stage neither you nor anyone else will be able to tell the paint job isn’t perfect. I’m just not sure it’s worth the extra £3.00
So, what is the difference between the 1590B and the 27134PSLA? Well the wall-thickness of the 1590B is 2.1mm vs a mere 1.7mm for the 27134PSLA. Consequently, the 1590B weighs slightly more at 136g vs 130g. The main difference is that the 27134 has much squarer corners than the 1590.
Finally, the Hammond 1590B has imperial screws and both the 27134 and the Evatron have metric screws. 