Earlier today (yesterday now as its almost 4am!!) I wrote a contribution to Ian's "Rush Pep Box" thread and included some new info - mainly component dates that shoe them to be a particularly early fuzz type - Said I would stick it up here on my own thread -- Also I make reference to my Project V - which I made a separate thread over and a grey wedge Pepe Rush model - I understand that Pepe both built the pedals himself and also licensed them to Charlie Watkins - I have yet to establish his precise degree of involvement as one of the long red boxes no longer has his name on it only the residual "Pep" in place of Effect or Attack or Fuzz over one control. Also the Project V pedal which was built in the same exact long red case = OK without a battery hatch - makes it a bind changing batteries!! From the data I have dug out and put below you can see that my Rush pepbox pedals are all early - circa 1966 or 1967 while the Project is a few years later - likely coming out late in '69 or even early '70 - I imagine that one possibility would be that either Charlie Watkins had a stash of overstocked cases or else used the formers to build an easy case (its all folded guillotined mild steel with some aluminum trim and the odd bit of wood to frame it) That theory would fit with another - that they were trying to have their fuzz in a uniform body style - kind of like Sola and the various pedals in the cast mk2 body.
I will dig out some pics of the early grey wedge pedal tomorrow and load something up over that one - like all my other examples it uses a pair of Silicon trannies - which throws up a puzzle when looking at the pedal James sold to Justin which ended up with Jim here - that one sports germanium trannies - I have to say when I first saw it some years ago now I felt (from the absence of the trimmer in my one and the fashion of the blue insulation which seemed a little modern - James agreed - that it had been refurbished to a degree - now I'm not so sure at least not so sure the Ge trannies were a later replacement OR improvement.. But both Jims and mine have the same 11-4 pot and another that is from '65 in Jims - mine "looks" like a hyphen and a 6 (the first date code no is obscured by the solder join of an earthing cable) even so it seems to be a '66 built pot so newer than Jims Could be a possibility there was a preliminary brief run of pepboxes in Ge soon to be followed by Si versions for both his own sales and the Watkins/WEM ones that came afterwards..
Eventually I will get round to speaking with Pepe and will see how he recalls things.
He was an interesting and busy guy - the records say that amongst other areas of work on the musical scene, he was heavily into building private high end studios as well as commercial ones - gives a few Big named guitarist clients too!! I would think that he had a very interesting few years on the London scene in the 60's and I'm really looking forward to a chat!!!!
Anyway here is the piece I put up on Ian's thread:
Well I have a few of these pedals including a very original grey wedge, two of the long red wem pepboxes and a project V - I don't want to stir things up but ALL of them use pair of either BC 107/108/109 transistors - I took them all apart this evening and logged all details for my book - I also have the small red wedge but apart from calling the effect/fuzz control PEP - it has three metal can trannies but any markings have been removed - I assume these are germanium - it has no visible pot codes but a paper label inside that says 13.66 could be serial no but more likely wk13 1966 which would fit in.
Pot code on grey wedge 11-4 and ~~ - 6 (month numeral soldered over but clearly 1966 - BC 107's - Very interesting pedal
Pot codes on the long red fuzzes as follow
LEFT ONE - Screen printed WEM with Rush Pep Box printed above - both pots 226 (wk22 1966 - pair of BC109's - battery hatch
RIGHT ONE -Applied (stuck on) WEM logo version no mention of Rush - but clearly same circuit - also same te as shown the advert I put up on my original thread which advertises the "Stop Press" of a new Bass version at 12.5guineas as opposed to the regular version priced at 12 gns - pots 10-5 & 11-5 pair of BC107's - Battery hatch
ADVERT
Project V has pot codes D_9 & J_9 so clearly no earlier than Oct '69 probably built a few months into '70 as pedal build (the catalogue shows it priced at 12 guineas - England embraced the decimal system on 15 Feb '71) so it cannot be later. Has no battery hatch 8 trannies (mainly BC108's but one or two BC186's .
Also have an earlier WEM Project IV guitar.. even mostly works now! This has a very strange transducer affair going on with seperate circuitry for each string BUT also appears to have most of the Project V pedal built in - i.e same named controls amongst the various other options. Never saw so much elecronics in a guitar and I have a few more with onboard effects - take a peek at what lurks under just one side of the scratchplate!!
I expect the codes will get some folks attention I have been asked by many here - anyway no bother now as here they are listed out, One thing immediately evident (assuming that the pot build dates were a maximum of a year from actual pedal build date -- much longer than any Sola or CS gaps) Then clearly the pep boxes are particularly early silicon fuzzes. But I did already put everything apart from the trace side of the circuit boards up before - I will check things but I think a lot of that info was "accidentally deleted" at some point.
I appreciate that the Project (guitar & pedal) doesn't really belong here but I've been tidying my stuff up here and having worked through the lot thought it worth adding on - also confused by the use of Germaniums - maybe Jims pedal has them though I have it's history - when that one belonged to my friend James (who didn't have a clue what it was until I pointed it out - it was just a generic grey wedge missing its engraved "Trafalite" plate - perhaps it had Ge trannies installed - I will need to dig out his emails
from a few years back.
Also will edit some pics of the grey wedge on my photobucket ac and load them in the thread as it is very early pedal too maybe contemporary to the 2 tranny TB's - without removing the earth wire and cleaning off the solder on the pot I cannot tell - also have far too little data to establish any reasonable pot build / pedal build - time period usage range.
G
) Anyway this came from a great guy up in Hartlepool - he had a really nice red 1958 Watkins Westminster amp and a bit of cash in return - a fair swap in my eyes for what at the end ofthe day is an outstandingly scarce item..
) where the pedal had been sent for a bit of a tune-up - I was delighted as it immediately removed any anxiety of doing the deal with a seller I didn't know !!! John is an ace guy and probably as good as you could find when it comes to this sort of thing - maybe not necessarily a pedal expert like say Dave or Stu but a superb technician none the less - probably the best amp guy in the country - go and check out his website at chambonino (I forget the suffix) and then buy a Treboost while he still has some of those good NOS trannies left 
ANyway - I'll get my head together and do my best for an objective description / review tomorrow.
