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Dub-T-123

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I love how you trimmed the pickguard! What color are you going to paint it?

 

 

 

Yesterday I built what I think is the best fuzz I've ever made. It's just wired up in my circuit testing box right now so excuse the sloppy wiring, but here's a shot of the board

photo-2131.jpg

It's a copy of the Baldwin Burns Buzzaround which is an old germanium fuzz based on the MKIII Tonebender (with a lot of changes). I used an NOS OC75 and two NOS OC76 for transistors. The only thing is I only had one 4u7 cap so I wired the two blue 10uf caps in series to bring the total capacitance to about 5uf to use in place of the other 4u7 cap. It still sounds incredible and I'm not even going to change it to a 4u7.

 

Once I box this up it's going straight to my pedalboard. I think clones of this circuit will increase in popularity as people learn how awesome the Buzzaround sounds

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm sourcing a 5C1 Champ build.

 

 

parts.jpg

 

 

 

american made NOS tubes and the transformers:

tube-trans.jpg

 

I'm not sure yet if i am going to lay out a tagboard, wire it point to point or copy the original 1950's chassis mounting.

 

just waiting on some octal sockets and a speaker at this point.

 

Don

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MK1.5 Tone Bender with NOS Texas Instruments 2G303 and 2G308 (germanium) transistors.

photo-1200.jpg

 

This circuit is essentially a slightly modified Fuzz Face circuit. If anyone's interested ill give you my little in depth analysis of it, and I can post the tagboard layout that I drew for it. But long story short, it's the woolly filth of a germanium Fuzz Face with a less muddy, more midrange-oriented sound. It ROCKS.

 

I've also done more work on adding modulation to my delay

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5C1 parts all present and accounted for. I started by bending a small sheet of metal into the chassis shape, then cutting all the holes...

 

sizing up the locations:

chassis-sizing.jpg

 

holes cut, dremeled, sanded:

chassis-cut.jpg

 

I need to cut one more hole, for the power connector (oops). Then, paint and start wiring.

 

Also, got a really cool old 6" speaker (with a rebuilt cone):

speaker.jpg

 

Don

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That's pretty awesome! Is that a sheet of steel? It's such a pain to drill through steel..

 

yes, it is! :) i have a beater unibit i use for cutting holes in metal, along with a bunch of reinforced dremel cutting wheels.. by far the most annoying part of building (to me at least).

 

I'm gonna try my hand at box joints again on the cabinet, that should be fun too. [biggrin]

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minor update.

 

The sockets and transformers are mounted, rectifier tube socket wired and filament wires connected. I made a slight deviation from the original layout, connecting pins 2 and 7 on the 6V6 and 6SJ7 to both of the 6.3V leads, instead of pin 7 straight to ground on the 6V6 and pin 2 straight to ground on the 6SJ7.

 

filaments_wired.jpg

 

Next up is wiring the fuse socket, pilot light and power switch.

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^^^those are some beefy transformers for an amp that size [thumbup]

 

Last night I added a switched speaker out to my vintage Vox amp, turned out very nice. I opted to mount it in the chassie so not to modify the cabinet. I placed it where the power cord was and then relocated the power cord and replaced it with a 3-prong grounded version for safety. Turned out great.

 

C140DB86-FFE2-445D-8606-65D3F5CDCF28-4668-000003C0B3CE07D8.jpg

 

76F33EBE-A63D-4D33-9478-92B2AABE1203-4668-000003C0B7A996CF.jpg

 

BCFBF5DE-590A-4321-9949-0C498903E0EC-4668-000003C0BC35520C.jpg

 

CB7BC8EB-B340-40F4-8B86-3CE816FB25E1-4668-000003C0BED09244.jpg

 

E68B18BB-A334-41B3-9EDD-E115251CCD88-4668-000003C0C4EE8484.jpg

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that's the same point i'm at right now too: wiring up a three prong power cable.

 

i put a jack off the output transformer too, to make it easier to connect to other speakers, should i choose.

 

i think my pictures may be an illusion: the transformers i'm using are actually standard champ-amp specs. [biggrin]

 

Don

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  • 2 weeks later...

5C1-wired.jpg

 

ready to start measuring voltages. then on to the more mundane task of working with wood and making a box for this.

 

the little white "dots" that look like sand or dust on the chassis here is actually the flash reflecting from solder flux. that stuff splatters everywhere. :D

 

i also made a slight mod: the output transformer can do either 4 ohm or 8 ohm loads, so I installed a switch to select this. I figured "why not?"

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I'm looking forward to seeing what you post here in the future, Jeff :) Nice work!

 

I just built this Rat clone today. It sounds great, I really like this circuit. Since the Rat is sortof an '80s thing I thought it would be cool to put it in this hot pink box.

 

photo-1629.jpg

 

I drilled the enclosure with the new Makita cordless drill that I got for Christmas. It's easier for me to use and I think I'm getting better results with it

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Wow, nice RAT build Dub......I picked up this small builder's RAT; And, I'm sure you are aware of the small builder of "Monsterpiece" pedals......

 

DSCN5944_zps086afcf6.jpg

 

DSCN5946_zps80911db6.jpg

 

Also, wishing you well Dub........

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And here's another pedal I just built (just a gutshot for now)

 

photo-1642.jpg

 

It's a clone of the Demeter Tremulator and it's probably my favorite trem that I've used. It's got that sortof irregular waveform that sounds really cool and a nice range of depth and speed.

 

I've pared my pedalboard down to only a fuzz and a delay, but I think I'm actually going to add this pedal in because it sounds freaking awesome!

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Hey Dub; The NPN side is great, the MKII side, eh, a bit limited in usability, but the socketed design means I can switch out the trannies (when I figure out how)....

 

Since it's pretty much a "home built" pedal by the builder, I felt safe posting it here ( as a bump ) [smile] ......RATs are nice circuits for sure.....

 

Jeff's work always looks great as well......I haven't done my own build yet; Still working on learning "acid etching" enclosures......

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What is the NPN circuit based on?

 

Yeah those Monsterpiece pedals look like they could be posted in this thread haha. I dig the look although the guy could drill his holes a little more carefully. If it sounds good who cares though, right?

 

Oh yeah here's the front of the trem

photo-1396.jpg

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Forgive the blurry pic.......:unsure: ...The NPN side has two "B BC 108", the MKII side has two "IT 1322068" trannies....I haven't studied trannies enough to really

know much more ( yet ).......I'll be contacting the builder soon; Gotta learn a lot more about builds; Facinating stuff.....What is the grey wire he used Dub ??

 

That trem looks very cool Dubs...

 

 

DSCN5948_zpsb1322350.jpg

..MKII.......................................................................................................................................................................................NPN.................

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Wow [drool]

 

Never seen a gutshot of one of their pedals.. That wiring is awesome. I can't really tell if it's stranded or solid from the pic but it definitely looks really sweet

 

So are those a couple fuzz faces with bias controls basically?

 

I recently made this MK1.5 Tonebender thing which is like a nice midrangey Ge Fuzz Face and I've been using it nonstop. It's a gnarly little fuzz but somehow really tasteful and usable sounding.. It kinda makes its own spot in the mix and wrecks it

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Ordinarily I buy stuff or pay someone to do stuff for me. However, I recently got a set of Seymour Duncan Quarterpounders (reverse wound mid p/up) and decided to buy a soldering iron (and a guitar DIY book) and have a go at fitting them to my mid '80's Japanese Squier Strat (locking trem). When they built these, there were no USA strats in production - and the differences between the Japanese Squiers and Japanese Fenders seems to be minimal - more or less down to different pick ups and pots. Whatever, unplugged, it is a lively, resonant strat, that stays in tune despite heavy whammy wiggling. Plugged in, however, the tone was always slightly lacking. That is no more the case. I know this a tiny, tiny bit of DIY, but I am very pleased with myself. (ps black scratchplate and volume and tone knobs are on order.... have to see what looks best.)

Quarterpounders.jpg

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