Original MkI Tone Bender

[Graham]

And mine (ex Captains via Carl)









pot codes: 5 5 (may 1965?)

Graham

[muffin man]

Thank's graham for my new desktop background

[dazed and confused]

Lovely man. To me, this is what its all about.
Please let me know if any of you are daft enough to sell. Or just need the dough.
(Do I sound like I'm begging? )

[Stu]

So Stu....all these pedals are yours? You are a lucky devil. No wonder your so busy, you play these all day.

Some are mine, some were mine and some were on loan to me. How's that for a straight answer?

Interesting to see that your one does not have a battery door Stu, maybe that is why they moved the board to above the pots to be able to fit that.
Absolutely the earliest one of the four.

That could be the reason. I always thought it was weird that the later ones have a more primitive construction method, instead of using Veroboard. Unlike the others, mine was not true bypass and had the output switched, with the volume pot wired the same as the Zonk machine.

Graham, the whole board is painted with what looks like Humbrol enamel. I'd guess the transistors are OC71 or OC75 - they're definitely the glass Mullard type anyway. The red bits you can see are the rubber bungs in the Lemco electrolytics; the paint obviously didn't adhere there.

If anyone knows how to decipher the date codes on DCC pots, the volume pot is marked TC. I think T is the year and C is the month. The latest codes I've seen of that type are YF, in a '67 Hiwatt. The '68 and later DCC pots had YYWW date codes e.g. 6823, so perhaps Y is '67 and they didn't use Z because of its similarity to 2...

[Stu]

Here it is with the reissue. I was told (by API or the Captain?) that this is one of three pre-production units Music Ground had. Maybe Dave can remember. It doesn't have a serial number and the board is covered in blue goop.

[Mr. Min T. Fresh]

Please stop posting these pictures because I just keep falling out of chair

[Mr. Min T. Fresh]

Here it is with the reissue. I was told (by API or the Captain?) that this is one of three pre-production units Music Ground had. Maybe Dave can remember. It doesn't have a serial number and the board is covered in blue goop.

How does it sound compared to the original and how do the boards differ?

[1bottlerocket]

Hey Stu, I found it interesting that your model uses the perf board too. Could this have been more of a project type board before settling on a layout? From my experience of working with perf board in design school that was what we did until we got the design finalized.

Do you think the black spray was put on at a later time or came that way out of the factory? Cool stuff, guys!

[Graham]

Personally - I think that even back then - particularly before the Sola Sounds relationship appears to have solidified - he was paranoid about his designs being ripped off and to be honest from my own researching of the whole fuzz (pedal) scene as it existed in the mid sizties - he had every reason - there were an awful lot of people in wide lapelled suits working around Denmark Street and the Charing Cross Road (The West End of London - "Tin Pan Alley" of the history books) who were very focussed on "deal making" and who - amongst other things - specialised in taking financial advantage of a small handful of switched on "hippy" electrical designers...

Remember that up to that point many of the so called "distortion" circuits that were in common use were just lifted from standard electronics text books - many from wartime research into radio and television and radar design , and put out by the components manufacturers (see Donovans great recent postings of aforesaid) - so pretty much in the public arena - then along comes some long haired bright spark with a brand new "twist" to one of the established designs - potentially a very saleable item in those early days with the beat boom just taking off - Almost certainly (again from my own manic delving) the guys who actually came up with all the improvements to our beloved pedals rarely enjoyed the full fruits of their labour - the money tended to be carved up amongst that "smallish" group of older men I am beginning to think of as the London music shop mafia!

In my opinion Gary Hurst was unusually switched on for his times - he obviously could read the character of the guys in the suits and sensibly took what little precaution he could - think about it - it still done today - think of a Klon or try to see what would happen if you dared to open a Cornish pedal! Somewhere here or on the old forum is a detailed photojob of my super early (prototype?) Grey Vox Wah with Denneys epoxied board (another example of a contemporary builder believing this was worth doing at about the same time)

I think its just an early example of this - my Gary Hurst (so called Mk1) reissue which actually has a Mk2 board - a pretty ineffective method of obscuration really.

MEET NO 16 (I have seen a lot (well - numbeed up into the 30's if not beyond) and only the first examples (maybe one or two batches as they appear to be made very ocassionally in batches of perhaps a dozen at a time) appear to have been blacked out like my No16:







Enjoy - Graham

of course I could be wrong - It wouldn't be unknown!

[imlikeajungle]

Do I understand correctly that out of 4 maybe 5 known MK1s there are four owned by people posting in this thread??