Finished my first Kliche klon build

[cdwillis]

I kind of built one of these on a whim with low expectations. I've never heard a demo of a Klon or a klone that really did much for me, but I felt like it would be cool to mod later if I didn't care for the sound. Turns out, it sounds pretty damned good. I think it starts sounding like a good overdrive at about noon on the drive knob. Before noon is basically clean boost territory which I don't have much of an interest in. Lots of people find it useful though.

I tried to keep it true to the build docs, mostly. I used d9e diodes from Stompbox parts and the 390pf cap I was missing got replaced with a 330pf cap that actually measured 362pf on my tester. I forgot to order a 12v zener diode for the polarity protection so I used a 1n4001 in it's place. Then I realized I had oriented it the wrong way so the circuit wasn't getting any power. I removed the diode for now and left the pads empty. Also used a 100 ohm resistor from the power jack to the power input on the board to help with power supply ripples and hopefully filter a little more noise with the c17 47uf cap to ground afterwords. I almost used a 6.8nf cap in place of the 3.9nf cap in the tone section as recommended because I was afraid of the tone being too shrill. I'm happy with the stock 3.9nf cap's effect on the tone though. Don't mind my messy workbench. I'm currently working on a Grand Orbiter clone as well.

 

[grabo99]

Nice clean build. Did you paint the enclosure yourself? Regarding the Klone; I also thought it was going to be over-hyped, but its my favorite drive on my board.

 

[cdwillis]

Yeah. It was a bare metal enclosure from Stompbox parts. I used Rustoleum brown "Hammered paint & primer in one" which I think turned out pretty nice. I still have a lot left to use on more enclosures. I'd like to try their silver hammered paint too.

You're supposed to lay one thick coat on and as it dries it create that hammer tone paint effect. It was about 60 degrees here when I painted the enclosure on my porch. Humidity was relatively low. The face/top dried fairly quickly, but the sides still feel a little tacky almost. I think I put more paint on the sides than I did the top for some reason. I should have sprayed a little more on the face/top since I created a couple chips as soon as I handled it. I waited 24 hours for it to fully cure per the instructions on the can. I think the coats needed to be thicker on top, plus I should have wiped the enclosure with acetone or degreaser prior to painting. Lessons learned for the next one.

 

[MichaelW]

Looks great! I just got the PCB to build one for my brother. I recently built the AionFX version of the "Mini-Klone" and absolutely love it. I wound doing the C14 mod (changed to 8n2) to warm up the trebles a bit.
I also socketed the diodes and tried a bunch of different Ge diodes before settling on BAT41's.

Subsequently, I call it the "Fat Klone" haha because it sounds fatter and warmer than all the other Klones I've either owned or tried. I'm planning to build the full size Kliche with the same mods for my brother.

 

[giovanni]

I really like the Klon sound, especially with a Strat. Never built one yet…