Cutting the leads of Transistors for putting in sockets

[Timko]

Hi all!  I just finished perfboarding my 4th pedal, a Dallas Rangemaster clone.  Rather than connecting the Germanium transistor directly to the board, I had my first go-around with using sockets.  I've gotten the board constructed, and verified that it works, but the leads are really long; they seem too long to put into the box without something grounding out.  Do I need to trim them down?  I've seen another post that describes sheathing the legs (with electrical tape I assume) rather than cutting the legs. 

Thanks for the input!

-Chris

[muddyfox]

i always cut them off. to make sure they are straight and with proper spacing, i stick the legs through a piece of veroboard, three holes in three adjacent strips. i then straighten anything crooked and snip from below.

[mcallisterra]

i always cut them off. to make sure they are straight and with proper spacing, i stick the legs through a piece of veroboard, three holes in three adjacent strips. i then straighten anything crooked and snip from below.

Genius!

[billstein]

i always cut them off. to make sure they are straight and with proper spacing, i stick the legs through a piece of veroboard, three holes in three adjacent strips. i then straighten anything crooked and snip from below.

Same way I do it. I also use a peice of perf to bend the legs for diodes like the 1n4001's 4 rows and it is a perfect fit.

[tcpoint]

I always lined them up with the socket.  The perf board method is way better. 

[HamSandwich]

For some reason the boutiquers like to leave the legs long, which make no sense, but if you want, you can cut little tubes of heat shrink and put them over the legs and then bend the transistor down so it fits in the enclosure.

If the sound is good. Solder that baby in the socket. At least one leg. Transistor sockets are so useless in keeping transistors in.

[davent]

As mentioned you can put heatshrink on the long legs, don't shrink it, Ge's don't like heat, you could use insulation stripped from a piece of wire or you can buy Teflon tubing for the job.

[alanp]

For my Cosmopolitan (one of the precious few germanium boxes I've finished), I cut the legs short. (MP38A, sounds glorious.) Job done, nice sounding fuzz.

For my Zombii perf-horror-point-to-point, I went with the zeitgeist of the build and left them long (with heatshrink over.) Sounds fuzzy and mildly awful, just like a zombii

[Timko]

Thanks for everyone's help!  I opted for the prefboard guide method of cutting the leads, and had no problems boxing it up.