Junk-O-Wah Fatpants as buffer, and modded vintage wahs too!

[timbo_93631]

     It is a bit of a read but here goes:
   
    I have been amassing quite a stash of castoff wah parts over the past few years. A few months ago I built them into a working wah on a board I had left over after converting the V847 to a V846 clone with a small Italian style square board in the first gen GCB-95 enclosure you see here.  That wah sounded great, I used a TDK inductor that was around 600mH, and some 2n2925 transistors with some vintage EROMAK-1 10nf caps, and TRW .22ufs.  But I ended up selling that whole board and the rest of the guts as a drop in to another guy.  
    A little while later I bought what looked to be an Italian Crybaby off of ebay. The listing didn't have any gutshots or bottom shots, but the price was pretty low and no other bidders were taking a chance, the seller had no knowledge of wahs, but the rubber tread on top was the Italian style tread with the rounded tops and bottoms to the Instrument/Amplifier markings and there was a pic that showed a bit of the underside of the rocker, it was the thicker Italian casting so I took a chance.  It got here and I flipped it over, there was a Sepulveda bottom plate, drat!  Off with the feet, and yeah regular 70's Thomas Crybaby that somebody had put an Italian rocker on at some point, the metal strap spring wasn't even over the pivot axle.  I ended up robbing the top off of this early GCB 95 enclosure for that Sepulveda wah, and kept the italian rocker, eventually selling the tread to a guy that had a nice '69 Italian crybaby missing the rubber.  
    A few weeks back I got the itch to build a new wah as I had just sold my personal Thomas Organ International Chicago Crybaby.  I had an old Thomas Organ board with some fractures in the phenolic, but all the traces had continuity.  Not the kind of thing I could ever sell due to the liability of it going bad, but perfect for a junk wah despite being robbed for all it's parts sans a few resistors.  I had some AB carbon comp resistors from an organ around, and some TRW .22uf caps, a mullard tropical fish 10nf and another EROMAK 10nf, some vintage Thomas Organ 2n2925 transistors marked 5117, and an inductor from a GCB-95 that was spot on at 511mH!  I put the Italian rocker on the early GCB95 enclosure, and had a new home for my junk-o-wah board, wired it up with true bypass and a McCon-O-Pot.  TBH, it is not my favorite pot, but it was noise free and just sitting in the parts bin.  Voila!  Sounded pretty darn good!  But then I ran into the ol fuzz conumdrum.  I had just built a modded version of a 1 knob fuzz on eyelet strips for the circuit design competition Dirt category at FSB, the wah wouldn't work well with the fuzz after it (just like a fuzzface) and sounded brittle with the fuzz before it.  Enter the FatPants!  
    I had gotten one in the order before last from Brian and had been debating where to put it.  I wanted it early in the signal chain and I had planned on putting it a spare 1590a I had handy, but didn't know if I could fit everything neatly inside.  Inspiration struck and you have the new and improved Junk-O-Wah.  It is great!  plays nice with fuzz, the Fatpats is always on regardless of wah on/off, I have it wired with a DPDT On/On toggle for true bypass by the input jack.  I leave the fat around 75% and run a bit above unity gain on the volume where everything starts to interact with the amp really well.  Sounds great stacked with everything now, and adds some clarity back to the siognal that was lost in my Echobase's bypass.  Thanks Brian for another awesome project!  Now if I can only get a bottom plate for it....

[timbo_93631]

gutshot detail

[nzCdog]

Junk-O-Wah!  Cool name and nice build man... 
I did something similar with a volume pedal myself, putting a booster in it and wired it true bypass.   Its nice to get two uses out of the floorspace those things take up!

[TNblueshawk]

+1 on the name. Great project and man you know some wah stuff. Gutz look great too.

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

Woah what an awesome idea! Is the fatpants before or after the wah in wiring?

[timbo_93631]

After the wah, so it can work as a buffer between the wah and my 1-knob fuzz.  works great!  I am taking it to band practice tonight, we will see what it is like with the amp turned up a bit!  Thanks for the compliments guys!

[timbo_93631]

So I got a good chance to play around with this last night.  I am really diggin the fat pants, it has alot to offer in refining the tone of your guitar.  My amp gets darker the louder you turn it up (just part of how the Supro works) and that makes it especially good with a twangy guitar, but playing around with the fat control really did some neat things with it set more "lean"  (fat control around 30%) there was alot of nice pinky floyd tones I could get out of the neck pickup using my echobase in a doubling capacity, like the guitar leads in " young lust".  Works great as a buffer between the wah and the fuzz too, adds something special to the wah when played clean and with my rangemaster clone.  Almost a coloursound wah type of tone, much more syrupy and less icepicky, like Bolan's wah on Monolith.   I know it has been said before, but everyone should build a fatpants.  It is just so tasty!  Video to come soon, likely on Sunday.

[TNblueshawk]

Great info Timbo. Thanks.

[timbo_93631]

Video is up in Audio/Video Demos now:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=2945.0

[timbo_93631]

I am gonna start posting pics of my "bought, modded/repaired, and sold" wahs here instead of starting a new thread for every new one I do.  This is a vintage Thomas Organ Sepulveda, CA Crybaby wah that I just modded for true bypass, swapped the 33k resistor that parallels the inductor with the 68k that comes out when you put in the 56k for true bypass.  It has a NOS Hotpotz-1 and Switchcraft replacement jacks as the original pot was shot and the Carter jacks were doing a great job as an AM radio receiver!  It also features the "03 Staock of Dimes" inductor instead of the normal TDK.  It is harder to find a Sepulveda Crybaby with that inductor, they are more likely found in Thomas Organ International Chicago, Illinois Crybaby's.  Awesome tone.  For sale now to fund even more pedal building and modding, you guys know how it goes!

[timbo_93631]

I gotta get a better camera for this stuff: