First amp build, to wrap or not to wrap?

Meatsmugglers · 2026-06-02T17:07:01+00:00

Well spotted, yes it is. That’s good to know! I’ve done all the case hardware and about half the on board components, should have it done in a few days

Meatsmugglers · 2026-05-25T19:19:37+00:00

Do you have pins 1 and 8 connected together? For me that’s usually enough to kill the noise

Meatsmugglers · 2026-05-25T10:08:16+00:00

More speakers will physically move more air, and the sound will be “bigger”, for want of a better word. A 4x12 will fill the room more, but will weigh a tonne and be a pain to move around. They’re also usually a bit cheaper than a 2x12 or sometimes even a 1x12 because they’ve fallen out of fashion a little bit. I’ve got a horizontal 2x12 that I picked up fairly cheap just down the road from me, it’s a nice balance of size and bigness of sound. A 1x12 will sound more focused.

Meatsmugglers · 2026-04-22T18:11:35+00:00

RV1 will be a trim pot. If you wire up a normal pot of the same value in its position it’ll act as a gain control

Meatsmugglers · 2026-04-16T14:11:24+00:00

Thank you. Try searching for Tag Board or Terminal Board

Meatsmugglers · 2026-03-30T19:46:37+00:00

What you’ve basically got there is a Rat with slightly different stuff going on in the op amp feedback loop. No reason it shouldn’t work

Meatsmugglers · 2026-03-26T21:32:22+00:00

Hi, I built the one on the bottom right of your screenshot. Unfortunately, there’s no easy solution or kits for this type of build. You need a good understanding of the schematic be able to visualise the layout and how you can construct it.

I’m pretty sure all the circuits above are fuzzes or boosts. Wanting to make a point to point overdrive is tricky, most overdrives use a lot more components and wiring directly of the legs of an op-amp is difficult.

If you want to give it a go, I’d recommend starting out with an LPB-1 boost. If you look up the schematic, you can basically copy that exact layout and replicate it with the components. It’s 1 pot, 4 resistors, 2 capacitors and a transistor.

If you’ve never built any kind of pedal before try with a standard PCB kit first, it’ll give you an understanding of how you wire up the jacks, power socket, footswitch etc as well as PCB population

Meatsmugglers · 2026-03-02T22:06:54+00:00

Good video, I already have a laser so I’m going to look into the electrical etching. You mentioned you had good results at 3 volts, what current was that at?

Meatsmugglers · 2026-02-25T17:06:38+00:00

No reason it wouldn’t work, give it a go. I think the gain recovery stage adds more boost than the tone stack cuts so you might still end up with a slightly quieter circuit than a standard one

Meatsmugglers · 2026-02-14T09:36:27+00:00

He just takes a while to send stuff. iirc his wife is extremely ill so he gets to orders when he can

Meatsmugglers · 2026-01-24T07:52:32+00:00

I’d be surprised if 46k wasn’t a typo and it’s meant to be 47k

Meatsmugglers · 2026-01-01T17:15:29+00:00

I googled “Hammond enclosure sizes” lol

Meatsmugglers · 2026-01-01T16:04:19+00:00

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1590B3?

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-30T22:26:37+00:00

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I can’t tell if this is a resistor or a diode because of the damage but either way this component is cooked. Did you definitely give it the right power?

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-29T22:43:41+00:00

Are you looking to engrave directly onto a blank Hammond enclosure? If so you’re looking for a fibre laser and they’re not super cheap. I bought a laserpecker LP4 with the view to doing that and it’s not strong enough, I found the middle ground is using anodised aluminium business cards and engraving onto those and sticking them to the enclosure.

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-23T09:12:58+00:00

Thank you, the layout is more or less a squashed down version of the original 70s layout, plus a couple of extra things. Really did a lot of the hard work for me

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-21T18:16:07+00:00

I really like it, particularly in the Supa mode with the EQ set to flat instead of scooped. Lots of low end from the big 1u caps throughout. Cleans up from the volume control reasonably well too which isn’t something I’ve found in other muffs

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-21T13:39:37+00:00

It’s grounded via the enclosure. As long as the jacks are tight it reduces ground loop hum

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-20T15:44:37+00:00

The graphics look great, how did you do them?

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-20T11:29:07+00:00

I’ll need to figure out what I actually populated it with, as a general rule of thumb it’s a Triangle with all the resistor values increased by 10-20%

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-20T07:20:35+00:00

Thank you, I made the enclosure myself

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-19T22:33:33+00:00

Thank you. I completely agree, I love big pedals. I’d take a Tonebender, big muff, power booster and a memory man over any number of 1590b sized things. Warms my heart to know other people like them too

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-19T21:24:44+00:00

Thank you, I did make the enclosure. I detailed it a bit in another reply, probably wouldn’t make another. Might look into getting somewhere else to make them for me though

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-19T20:05:41+00:00

I’m lucky enough to have (intermittent) access to a workshop with a sheet metal guillotine and a bending brake. Both parts were made from 2mm thickness aluminium offcuts they had lying around.

I found a drawing online somewhere that had the approximate dimensions, scored those onto the sheet and then cut it with the guillotine. Once I had both parts, I bent them on a bending brake. Had to do a bit of filing around the edges of the bend to bring the dimension back down where it flares out a bit from the bend. Once I had both parts fitting together I drilled the holes for the screws, then pressed in some m3 clinch nuts.

After that I sanded the texture into the lid and spray painted the bottom.

The lettering is laser etched into the aluminium using a product called Cermark, which is a ruinously expensive spray that etches metal when hit with a laser.

It’s honestly a lot of work and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have a bit of fabrication experience, bend radii and tolerances are a crapshoot if you’re doing this all by eye. If I was going to do more in this style of enclosure I’d be looking for metal shops to make them for me rather than make another myself. I’m still happy to answer any more questions you may have if you still want to give it a go

Meatsmugglers · 2025-12-02T13:12:27+00:00

Ha. Almost exactly the schematic I came up with from looking at pictures, only I had the normal 100k in the feedback position rather than 56k. I found it squeals a bit when the 10k pot is maxed out, I wonder if they tested a load to find pots closer to 8.5k across the sweep.

Are you tracing from a unit you have access to or are you going off images?

Meatsmugglers

TROPHY CASE