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Forgive me if this is painfully obvious or stupid on my part 

After reading quite a few recommendations from different pedal builders, I ordered one pound of Kester 245 63/37 solder from Amazon. I got it today and the manufacture date is from way back in 1992. The Kester site says the product has a shelf life of three years. Should I be concerned about this? The interweb seems to say that the flux goes bad...

I know I should just try it out and see for myself, but I'd hate to use it and then not be able to return it on account of it being used. I'd appreciate any advice you could give.

I had a busy weekend! These are my 9th and 10th pedal builds, and I'm happy to report that these are the best sounding pedals I have built to date. I see many more Madbean boards in my future!

The only Bluesbreaker variant I ever played was a King of Tone I had bought a few years ago. I waited for years to get it and really wanted to love it, but it just didn't do it for me. I have changed guitars and amps since then, so perhaps that's part of it, but I must say, the 8Ball delivers where the King of Tone left me wanting. It is full and vibrant sounding, with just enough of it's own character to add a little something special to the amp. I really, really like this overdrive 

As a side note, I'm wondering if anyone has used an on/off/on with the 8Ball for a diode lift mode? If anyone has tried it or has an opinion, I'd appreciate any insight you could give. It gets pretty clean as it is, especially in the LED mode, but if a diode lift would work and make it louder and cleaner still, I would be very interested in trying it out.

I have played a bunch of Rats and Rat clones, and while I loved them all, the Slow Loris takes the cake, without a doubt. The Sweep knob really opens up the tone shaping possibilities, giving a whole new spectrum to work with. I find this incredibly useful for dialing down some of that inherent "Ratiness" that I could never really get away from on every Rat that ever existed. The filter knob has a more usable sweep than any Rat I can recall. It is gradual and sweet sounding throughout it's range. I used an on/off/on switch rather than the on/on that the BOM called for. I have had several Rats with a diode lift setting before, and I never thought it sounded all that good. I have no idea what's different about this one, but I think it sounds absolutely awesome. This pedal covers everything from cutting low gain drive to bloated, overloaded fuzz, and sounds phenomenal doing all of it. I have been searching for the perfect Rat for me for some time now, and I think I found it in the Slow Loris. Big thanks to Madbean for making that happen!





These jacks are going to take some getting used to. I think they are made for PCB mounts. Oops...







I intend to re-do the text on this one. I did a bit of a sloppy job because I was impatient and wanted to play!



My bench is a terrible, terrible mess. Don't judge me 

Hello boys and girls! This is my first build on a Madbean board, and the eighth pedal I've ever built. I've seen some really amazing work on this forum, so go easy on me 

I built this for a friend/coworker who asked for an octave fuzz. He's a phenomenal luthier that's been fixing things way longer than I've been alive, so the pressure was on to deliver the cleanest build I could muster up. I feel like I'm finally starting to get the hang of being neat and patient with solid core wire. I love the sound of this thing. It absolutely rips with my Jazzmaster!

Board mounted pots make a huge difference in tidying things up! I also really appreciated the layout of the board itself. All leads going to and from the board were located in great spots to help facilitate order and cleanliness. I am very pleased with the quality of the board and the resulting build. I'm really looking forward to building the Slow Loris and 8 Ball boards I've got on my bench this weekend!

He specified that he wanted no paint and no labels, as he wants to do that part himself. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with it.

Hello all! Not positive that this is the right forum for my question, but it seemed right at the time. Feel free to banish me indefinitely or move it to the right place if I got it wrong.

My question is about the Wolf Shirt fuzz. I got 6 2N3565 transistors from Smallbear to use in this build, and the variance in hfe is so large that I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations about which ones should go where. I've got two in the 400s, one in the 800s, two in the 900s, and one that's 1400 something. I'm pretty new at this whole thing and could use any guidance you'd care to give about what would do better where, if such a thing is even relevant. I intend to socket them and play around to get it just right, but if anyone has a good starting point I'd be really grateful.

Thanks in advance!