I traded a Fuzz Factory Clone for what looks like an old PA that’s been modified to work as a guitar amp. The Webcor has two speaker connected with what looks like a giant oil and paper capacitor. One speaker looks to be about 6 inches across and the other is about 4 inches.

There are four tubes: 12ax7, two 12ab5 and a 5y3-gt rectifier. I’m not the tube expert, but it looks like the 12ax7 is used as an input preamp. The two 12ab5 tubes are set up in a push pull configuration.From what I’ve read it sounds like the two 12ab5s put out about 9w max. The amp is pretty quiet, good for mellow practice.

Here’s a few pictures.

I just started building up a project and I realized the PCB layout I printed from the Stompbox Cookbook is backwards! Beware if you plan to build a project from any of these layouts.

I think I can save my build by either bending the IC pins over so the chips are upside down, or soldering the chips to the copper side of the board.

I’ve been fascinated by the Stompboxology and Stompbox Cookbook projects for a long time. I’ve only built a few and many of the ideas are hit and miss. The concepts presented are compelling none the less.

The Distort-o-matic VI for example, uses a very off the wall concept. The input signal is imposed on a 40k carrier wave. The carrier is a square wave generated by a 555. This signal is then fed to a high frequency transducer. The device has a high frequency receiver to pick up the signal from the transducer. The high frequency signal is filtered to leave the original input signal. Who thought of this? And what was going through their mind at time? This is so nutty!

Not sure what it will sound like. Figure you have to built it and find out. This is where we get to the hit and miss quality of the Stompboxology projects. Stay tuned for some sound samples…

I ordered all the parts to build this thing a long time ago and never got around to building it till now. Joe had the idea that we should explore the 555 and find some new things to do with it. So I dug the Stompbox Cookbook and found the Distort-o-matic VI. I etched up two boards and drilled them.