Dallas Arbiter - Fuzz Face 1969  [schematic]

Discussion regarding early stompbox technology: 1960-1975 Please keep discussion focused and contribute what info you have...
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jreeves47
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Post by jreeves47 »

Bc108c. Pots are 2-69 and 9-69 I believe. Sounds amazing- goes from total clean to burning jimi tones to heavy gated fuzz all with using guitar volume.
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mictester
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Post by mictester »

jreeves47 wrote:Bc108c. Pots are 2-69 and 9-69 I believe. Sounds amazing- goes from total clean to burning jimi tones to heavy gated fuzz all with using guitar volume.
That's exactly the model I have!
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jreeves47
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Post by jreeves47 »

Exactly? With the white switch and the white and gray pots? There was a NOS fuzz face that sold on eBay for $1600 that was also exactly like mine.

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Post by beedotman »

Can You take bias voltage readings?
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Post by jreeves47 »

I have a dmm, can you remind me how to take the measurements you want?

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Post by Nocentelli »

Black lead connected to ground, touch the red lead to the collector of each transistor in turn to measure the voltage.
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mictester
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Post by mictester »

jreeves47 wrote:Exactly? With the white switch and the white and gray pots? There was a NOS fuzz face that sold on eBay for $1600 that was also exactly like mine.
Good grief! Mine has a black switch body, but is otherwise identical.
"Why is it humming?" "Because it doesn't know the words!"

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Post by jreeves47 »

Lil you should know how important these details are! Got any pics? Ill get some measurements here a bit later...

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Post by Electric Warrior »

With a black switch I guess it would have been made a couple of months later. What are the pot codes?

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sdlogan9
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Post by sdlogan9 »

Cool Pedal!!

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Post by plutoniumhead »

mictester wrote:
jreeves47 wrote:Bc108c. Pots are 2-69 and 9-69 I believe. Sounds amazing- goes from total clean to burning jimi tones to heavy gated fuzz all with using guitar volume.
That's exactly the model I have!
Same here! Mine was purchased in England in 1970 and is currently residing with me here in the States. Unfortunately the volume pot and switch both seem to be shot. I can't seem to find the right potentiometer for it. I ordered some 500k and 1k pots but they ended up being tiny and can't be mounted properly. Anyone here know where I could find replacement parts?

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Post by Electric Warrior »

If you can't make them work again with contact cleaner, get Citec potentiometers from farnell.com. They will look just right. You could also try replacing the guts of the original pots with Citec ones.

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Post by plutoniumhead »

Electric Warrior wrote:If you can't make them work again with contact cleaner, get Citec potentiometers from farnell.com. They will look just right. You could also try replacing the guts of the original pots with Citec ones.
I was able to greatly improve them with contact cleaner. I opened the pots up and gave the insides a good coating while spinning the knobs. They went from completely non-functioning to 'mostly' functioning, but there are some dead spots that I can't seem to clean up. Thanks for the tip, hopefully I'll have some luck there!

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Post by plutoniumhead »

Electric Warrior wrote:If you can't make them work again with contact cleaner, get Citec potentiometers from farnell.com. They will look just right. You could also try replacing the guts of the original pots with Citec ones.
Just wanted to follow up on this- I was able to find a 470k Citec pot on mouser.com as a replacement volume pot. Turns out my switch didn't need to be replaced, it was just the one pot. The box is now as good as new. Thanks for the info!

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Post by VicoVibe »

I am on cloud 9 right now, this exact pedal came into my life this week! The Fuzz pot is toast and that beautiful Bulgin switch is intermittent. I plan on cleaning the switch to try and rescue it as it looks so neat and proper.

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Post by ljn »

Wow! That's a good looking pedal. I've always thought those round cases looked pretty cool. I tried building a clone of the silicon Fuzz Face a couple years ago, but I thought it was too dark and muddy sounding. Maybe it was the transistors I used. Anyway, nice pedal. Enjoy it.

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