I'm not gonna tell you it wasn't easy, but then again, I'm not here to brag or whatever. But the fact is, that after much struggle with the soldering iron and mending pieces of wire that weren't supposed to break off, I did it. I fucking did it.
My GCB-95 is fully operational once again. But let me tell you, it had been stored away since...well, at least 1999, or so, when this piece of rotted away:
That's the potentiometer that gives a wah-wah its distinctive sound. And since I bought mine already used, paying R$ 100 at the time, a bargain those days, I had no idea on how long it would last.
The previous owner had been a slacker too, as you can tell by its cover underneath the unit:
Other than that, it was fully original, Dunlop-made GCB-95. I had fun with it but I'm no Hendrix. Never been able to even emulate the beggining of "Voodo Chile(Slight Return)"And when I bought the multi-effects Boss ME-50, I thought I'd be set, because it has an expression pedal, but the wah on that thing is so...goddamned LAME compared to this baby. I really thought of throwing it away, because once the potentiometer wears out, you're left with a cranky, noise machine. And back then, I never thought of fixing it myself. We had no Mercado Livre on that time, the very dawn of internet itself. eBay was a thing that sounded so absurd, no one would believe it back then.
Those days, my friends , were the first ones I've ever herad of an MP3 file compression, ant if THAT sounded like a fucking 'too-good-to-true' thing on those days, you can imagine how life sucked , in techonological terms, where a lot of labs in the biology department were still using XT computers...
Well, back to the wah. I bought one of these from our nowadays "true" eBay:
Those days, my friends , were the first ones I've ever herad of an MP3 file compression, ant if THAT sounded like a fucking 'too-good-to-true' thing on those days, you can imagine how life sucked , in techonological terms, where a lot of labs in the biology department were still using XT computers...
Well, back to the wah. I bought one of these from our nowadays "true" eBay:
that's quite a bit different from the original one, compare them:
Those newer ones are supposed to be "dust-proof"and whatnot - but let me tell you, I missed those "soldering rings" on the new ones, as I went on my weekend's electrical engineer project - you'd have to wrap the wire around the contacts, then add the acid - not LSD, my friends, not anymore - to such comtact and solder them together. The instructions were clear and plain enough, yellow wire goes to the bottom, black wire went to the left one, and now bue - that was the tricky one, because it divided on two extensions, both went to the rightmost terminal, and it continued on to the pedal effect on/off switch. That was where I fucked up things a bit, because the blue wire that continue on from the potentiometer to the switch, it was way too short.
Here's a picture that shows where I fucked up:
I fucked up because the blue extension was so short, and I had to firmly attach the pot - again, not the drug I no longer use - and mounting the pot firmly was quite a bitchy thing to do, it kept on tuning, instead of the nut itself...and it broke off the connection between the pot and the on/off switch. Took me a while to figure it was broken, and since said extension was so short, I had to improvise:
You will notice that the blue connection had to be extended - I took a piece of whatever wire I could get my hands on- in this case, a reddish one, and mend it together with the broken, shorty blue wire that went on to the switch. Then I finally finished to put the pot on its place tightly enouh, using a tool to grasp on the pot itself, and firmly rotate the nut that held verything on place, praying it would work.
Luckily for me, it worked like a charm, and thus the pedal was fixed. Man, I am glad that I stored it away from all these years. Here's how it looked before I even set to work on its innards:
Quite a dirty motherfucker, if you'll compare to a brand new one:
I've managed to clean up some of the dust and grime away with a wet toothbrush, and still loks old enough...
Well, it doesn't really matter. The fact is that it IS fully functional again. I'm really glad I did not throw it away when the old pot rotted away. I purchased the new one from eBay, paid in total US$ 32,90 - quite a bargain if you compare to the R$ 120,00 that I'd have to pay on Mercado Livre....but nyhow, the damned thing stood on "customs clearence" for like a fucking month. I can only imagine all the other little thingies I've bought there will remain on that shitty clearence bullshit.
Now, to get that Hendrix feel, that remains to be seen - and heard - from this restored thing. One thing is a fact, though - it DEFINITELY sounds like a wah, not that crappy wah-emulated sound off the ME-50 from Boss. Shame on you, Boss!
If only this rotting finger of mine healed more promptly, I could get it to work faster...yeah, it is still quite nasty.
It almost seems that it'll get detached if I try and pry it of....argh,no. Better not even think about it.
So there you go, it has been quite a plumber-and-electrical-engineer weekend...
Those newer ones are supposed to be "dust-proof"and whatnot - but let me tell you, I missed those "soldering rings" on the new ones, as I went on my weekend's electrical engineer project - you'd have to wrap the wire around the contacts, then add the acid - not LSD, my friends, not anymore - to such comtact and solder them together. The instructions were clear and plain enough, yellow wire goes to the bottom, black wire went to the left one, and now bue - that was the tricky one, because it divided on two extensions, both went to the rightmost terminal, and it continued on to the pedal effect on/off switch. That was where I fucked up things a bit, because the blue wire that continue on from the potentiometer to the switch, it was way too short.
Here's a picture that shows where I fucked up:
I fucked up because the blue extension was so short, and I had to firmly attach the pot - again, not the drug I no longer use - and mounting the pot firmly was quite a bitchy thing to do, it kept on tuning, instead of the nut itself...and it broke off the connection between the pot and the on/off switch. Took me a while to figure it was broken, and since said extension was so short, I had to improvise:
You will notice that the blue connection had to be extended - I took a piece of whatever wire I could get my hands on- in this case, a reddish one, and mend it together with the broken, shorty blue wire that went on to the switch. Then I finally finished to put the pot on its place tightly enouh, using a tool to grasp on the pot itself, and firmly rotate the nut that held verything on place, praying it would work.
Luckily for me, it worked like a charm, and thus the pedal was fixed. Man, I am glad that I stored it away from all these years. Here's how it looked before I even set to work on its innards:
Quite a dirty motherfucker, if you'll compare to a brand new one:
I've managed to clean up some of the dust and grime away with a wet toothbrush, and still loks old enough...
Well, it doesn't really matter. The fact is that it IS fully functional again. I'm really glad I did not throw it away when the old pot rotted away. I purchased the new one from eBay, paid in total US$ 32,90 - quite a bargain if you compare to the R$ 120,00 that I'd have to pay on Mercado Livre....but nyhow, the damned thing stood on "customs clearence" for like a fucking month. I can only imagine all the other little thingies I've bought there will remain on that shitty clearence bullshit.
Now, to get that Hendrix feel, that remains to be seen - and heard - from this restored thing. One thing is a fact, though - it DEFINITELY sounds like a wah, not that crappy wah-emulated sound off the ME-50 from Boss. Shame on you, Boss!
If only this rotting finger of mine healed more promptly, I could get it to work faster...yeah, it is still quite nasty.
It almost seems that it'll get detached if I try and pry it of....argh,no. Better not even think about it.
So there you go, it has been quite a plumber-and-electrical-engineer weekend...
