KindCanuck
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I have thought about building this pedal for a few months now. The Blues Driver was the first drive pedal I vibed with but me being a tinkerer, I had to modify it. I went with Monte Allums’ mod as it was my first mod, it blew me away, and I was hooked on the modding/building hobby.
The Tumnus was the next one, I loved the top end sparkle and the excellent gain control hooked me. I built a Kliché mini, but just didn’t like it enough to replace my Tumnus so it sat on a shelf. A couple months ago I built the Kliché Special with some OA10 germanium diodes and immediately sold my Tumnus.
I think they both compliment each other perfectly, they have such different characters that I was surprised there wasn’t something out there like this already.
I pulled my Kliché off my shelf and began extracting the board and desoldering the pots. Once I had both boards side by side in the case, I knew I could do it. For a while, I thought I would have to use side jacks (clutches pearls), but I got some switchcraft style jacks so I could fit them between the top pairs of pots.
I didn’t leave enough clearance when measuring for the jack holes, so I had to shave some material. I did a mock-up of the enclosure and all hardware, and I was happy it fit!
I got to work assembling the cobalt board, and I incorporated some mods from Chuck’s BD-2w thread. Essentially I removed all the clipping diodes and swapped parts so it’s close to the Waza’s custom mode spec, using components I had on hand.
I was doubtful of the integrity of the Kliché board, because I wasn’t gentle when repurposing it so I was anxious when boxing it all together. Last night I got it all together, and plugged it in. Moment of truth. No guitar, but the LEDs worked, so that was encouraging. Today I sat down and started troubleshooting.
The K side fired right up, but the B side wasn’t. Had to replace both volume and tone pots, reflowed some joints, and replaced Q3, as it was causing issues. Bam, lid back on, signal cuts. Ugh! Rearrange wires, no joy. Put tape on the inside of the cover and close it up. Of course. It was shorting on the case!
All in all this was my favourite build, and it went together way easier than I expected. I plan on adding an order switch and rehousing it into an enclosure with more accurate jack holes.
The Tumnus was the next one, I loved the top end sparkle and the excellent gain control hooked me. I built a Kliché mini, but just didn’t like it enough to replace my Tumnus so it sat on a shelf. A couple months ago I built the Kliché Special with some OA10 germanium diodes and immediately sold my Tumnus.
I think they both compliment each other perfectly, they have such different characters that I was surprised there wasn’t something out there like this already.
I pulled my Kliché off my shelf and began extracting the board and desoldering the pots. Once I had both boards side by side in the case, I knew I could do it. For a while, I thought I would have to use side jacks (clutches pearls), but I got some switchcraft style jacks so I could fit them between the top pairs of pots.
I didn’t leave enough clearance when measuring for the jack holes, so I had to shave some material. I did a mock-up of the enclosure and all hardware, and I was happy it fit!
I got to work assembling the cobalt board, and I incorporated some mods from Chuck’s BD-2w thread. Essentially I removed all the clipping diodes and swapped parts so it’s close to the Waza’s custom mode spec, using components I had on hand.
I was doubtful of the integrity of the Kliché board, because I wasn’t gentle when repurposing it so I was anxious when boxing it all together. Last night I got it all together, and plugged it in. Moment of truth. No guitar, but the LEDs worked, so that was encouraging. Today I sat down and started troubleshooting.
The K side fired right up, but the B side wasn’t. Had to replace both volume and tone pots, reflowed some joints, and replaced Q3, as it was causing issues. Bam, lid back on, signal cuts. Ugh! Rearrange wires, no joy. Put tape on the inside of the cover and close it up. Of course. It was shorting on the case!
All in all this was my favourite build, and it went together way easier than I expected. I plan on adding an order switch and rehousing it into an enclosure with more accurate jack holes.
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