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Awesome graphics! I think my first 10 pedal builds were 1590As and that somehow felt like paying dues.

Great build.

Thanks everyone. The artwork on this build and the nom nom are plastics from my trophy guy / etcher. He charges the same for etching or plates so I thought I would try the plastics for the first time. I'm a fan. Nice and dark with great contrast.

Fricking love the art!!!

The ever loved 1776 echoplex jr. Nothing unique about this one other than the fact i had to cut down the switchcraft jacks to fit.

I'm not sure if the leakage adds up, but once I read that for the MkIII Q1 and 2, you should put whichever is lower leakage first. So I did that in the two I've built and have had good results. Honestly though I've never tried any with higher leakage than 0.060mA, so I don't know how much it really matters. The main thing is to make sure Q1 and 2's cumulative hfe is about the same or not much higher than your Q3 hfe--that will keep the fuzz from being too muddy and overcompressed. Also, since you're doing a Pastyface, keep in mind that the bias trimmer on Q3 is really just simulating leakage and is not a voltage starve or something like that. That's most likely because Fuller was using Q3 transistors with more or less no leakage, which the circuit doesn't really like. Use your ear of course, but look for Q3 collector voltages of about 2 to 2.5v. More than 3v still sounds good but gets a bit raspy in my experience. You can go down to 1.5 and it sounds good too, but may be a bit more smooth and tame than you'd like.

Thanks! That explained allot about the pastyface in particular. i was curious why I was only getting a max of 3v on Q3, as that was well under the 4.5v in the docs I've read. Ultimately I do everything by ear and just plug and play until I can't stop playing fumanchu riffs.

If you have any in the 40 to 50 hfe range and they're low leakage as well, those are ideal for Q1 and Q2 in a MkIII Tonebender. They're basically working together in a Darlington configuration. If you have any beyond that which are above 70 hfe and leakier, there's your Q3. It's a forgiving fuzz to build and sounds better than most others in my opinion.

Does the leakeage add up in Darlington configurations?

I'm currently doing all of this GE learning on a pastyface build.

There's no harm in trying them in a fuzz face ... (or other fuzzes). I played around a bit in the past with hfe around 50 for Q1 and around 20 for Q2, and got some very nice and useful overdriven sounds. Further, you can always use them as a Ge buffer stage or as Ge diodes ...

Theres an idea..........they were cheaper than 1N34As

If they are low enough in gain, consider connecting them as Darlington pairs.  Smallbear has a page discussing this.
http://diy.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/BreadboardRMs/BreadboardRMs.htm

Perfect! That's what I'm after - bootstrapping ideas.

I did get heartburn thinking about troubleshooting that build though.

I finally got around to going through my stash of 100+ germaniums and ended up with approx. 10 with 70+hfe. So now I'm brainstorming for something to do with probably 70 sub-50hfe transistors. I'm open to wild ideas so what says everyone?

Love these. They remind me of when I was airbrushing for harley and used kandy paints on silver. Are you doing waterslides and covering with plexi?

Very cool and very sad at the same time...

Very sad indeed

Artwork is great and that knob is killer.  Great build! 

Thanks. I've probably had that knob 15 years waiting on a box.

Very cool. It is making me want to listen to those first two records again.

Thanks

.... here's the early one Eddie used and his early board.

That picture is unreal. Anyone who doesn't see tone is in the hands, needs to see that image.

That is a great looking build and WAY cooler than the movie

Nice, I love black pedals.
And, woohoo!  This is the first time I've seen someone using these in a build.  Glad you had good results.

Thanks for the awesome service and great set of transistors. This pedal sounds fantastic.

Denzil

I was already in a phaser building stint when Eddie died, so the Phase 90 got to be an homage to the master.

SMD 2N5457's came from lectric-fx  and were super easy to use and much tighter match making for a great sounding phase - https://lectric-fx.com/product/jay-fetz ... irs-quads/

Great demo, graphics and build!