Hendrix woodstock wah videos

Pics, info, thoughts on old and/or hairy gear.

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joegagan
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Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:06 am

Re: Hendrix woodstock wah videos

Post by joegagan »

i have no dog in this fight, except one. people seem to love anything JIMI and i have sold around 30 of my "jimi woodstock controversy" wahs since the supposed $33,000 sale of 'the one" in january.

i had no intention of making it a regular item, but i got a lot of requests after posting my video with the supposed dave weyer mods.

j reeves contacted me same day i posted the video and hipped me to how dubious ( to say the least) weyer's online postings had been for the previous 15- 20 years. i place utmost faith in reeves and immediately added the word ' controversy' to everything of mine that was associated with it.

but there are some physical details i learned about the wah in question through a trusted friend who had it in their hands prior to the auction that should be mentioned just for info's sake.

again, i place almost no faith in d weyer, this is not intended to reinforce his claims. i also do not believe the 33k sale actually was consumated, does anyone have any data about that?

the wah, while having what appears to be a post 70 inductor and the familiar production thomas US shell from 70 or so onward, has several things that support weyer's claim that it was from a batch of pre production prototypes that he was given by thomas to get to jimi. if he faked the whole, thing , his attention to detail is admirable as there are parts in there that differ from the production thomas wahs.

- the 10 uf cap to ground ( normally 3.9 or 4.7) has 6606 date code= early 66. all production thomas i have seen had this cap within a few weeks or months of production of the wah, and never 10uf.

-the allen bradley pot was a standard LOG taper 100k, with no date code that i could decipher. i have not seen a US vox or crybaby with allen bradley using standard LOG taper, production US thomas seem to all have the custom condensed taper. thomas was so set on this that even when they had clarostat or centralab make their pots, they all had this recipe. so, LOG was not a production thing for US voxes as far as i've seen.

-2n5089 transistors. these were not in any production thomas US wahs that i know of.

-there are no production stampings or paper tag on PCB as would be seen on production units. this, of course can be cleaned away with lacquer thinner.

-the TDKs did seem to exist in this form by mid 69. open to anyone's input on that part.

++++++++++++++++++

people have been asking what the added cap is on the underside. probably anywhere from .0033uf to .01uf. we usually put .0068 ceramic there, it adds just enough low end without losing the highs in any significant way.

since we use donor 70s thomas wahs to make these, the other thing we do to make sure each pedal sounds great is to check and correct the key biasing and volume resistors in the circuit. over time these drift upward, often more than 40 - 50 , even 100%! this has the effect of lowering gain, lows, and balls. we leave the old ones in place & add modern resistors in parallel under the board to bring them to proper spec. always a noticeable improvement. i recommend all owners of 70s thomas wahs do the same. one case where a pedal does get weaker sounding over time.

often, the 5117 trans in these have gone noisy/shitty. we replace them with fairchild 2N4401. not historically correct, but super quiet and great sounding in these.

we also add the output resistor as seen in the videos, it often does solve the wah into fuzzface problem and in our testing does not alter the wah tone in other modes at all.
"Scuze me while I rip the sky....."--DucRyder
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joegagan
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Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:06 am

Re: Hendrix woodstock wah videos

Post by joegagan »

to add:
i mentioned clarostat above, but i am not positive i've ever seen claro in a thomas wah. tons of AB and sometimes centralab for sure, tho.
"Scuze me while I rip the sky....."--DucRyder
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jreeves47
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Location: Chatham IL

Re: Hendrix woodstock wah videos

Post by jreeves47 »

thanks for the follow up. i'm learning as i go so don't place too much faith in me-

it's too bad they went insane with this wah claiming it was used at woodstock and that they did some kind of audio analysis to prove that. and then the follow up claims that jimi's roadie repainted his wahs so they looked nice. bizarre stuff.

probably an interesting wah but there is no proof that hendrix ever played it. and is there any concert proof of jimi ever solving his wah into fuzz face problems?
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joegagan
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Re: Hendrix woodstock wah videos

Post by joegagan »

all great points. and good questions, also.

i love jimi but i have avoided almost all of the analysis of his gear and how he used it. which might seem weird considering what i do for a living.

the fervor over this wah and jimi in general has been a nice thing this year. enjoyable to see all this attention going to our hero. controversy comes with the territory.
"Scuze me while I rip the sky....."--DucRyder
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chankgeez
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Re: Hendrix woodstock wah videos

Post by chankgeez »

Good info, Joe. :tu:
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