What's your longest time for a build (completed or ongoing)?

[EBK]

 Just idle curiosity here. 
While cleaning up some of my workspace, I found a Crybaby board, partially populated from November 2005.  I doubt I'll ever complete it, but since I consciously made the decision not to scrap it, I suppose it counts as an ongoing build.  What long-running ongoing or completed builds are you to blame for?

[digi2t]

Hmmmm, I would have to say my Infinitphase on vero build. That one took me 3 or 4 months.

OK, not on the magnitude of years, but long for me. I hate having projects that hang around.

[bool]

In 2015 I completed a small bass preamp on a home-etched board that I had forever ... from 1988 or 1989. PCB-mounted jacks were bitches to squeeze in because they made them different back then.

[Digital Larry]

I still have my parts cabinet from when I was in high school.  And (cough) I'm getting close to 60 now.  So that's about 40 years.  Got some NOS SSM chips in there!  Maybe a couple TDA-something power amp chips too.  And some big honking triacs!  Why does nobody make a fuzztone out of triacs?  I may be the first.  Oh and some ultrasonic transducers from a motion detector I was going to make from Popular Electronics but never did.  I could make an ultrasonic triac fuzz with SSM mic preamps and a TDA-something power amp!  OMG stay tuned!!!!!

[Mark Hammer]

I bought a Hyperflange board from PAiA in1992 or so, populated it and it is still sitting in my garage, waiting to be finally wired up to the chassis.  I'm retiring from full-time work at the end of September, and hope to finish it this year.  I figure 25 years is long enough to wait.

Two-transistor fuzzes can be very distracting.

[Marcos - Munky]

My 1590A took about 14 months to me completed. I have a SS amp that I'm building from at least 8 years and didn't got to finish it.

[roseblood11]

Three years, a Basic Audio Scarab Deluxe. Started to make the veroboard, then forgot it completely...

[blackieNYC]

After modding butchering two pedals with mods, I think my first full build was this thing currently in my profile pic. 6 months. Worked on nothing else. It sat in the middle of my bench the whole time.  Had no clue, and couldn't stop adding features. Originally built it with FETs, then rebuilt with op amps. Just a splitter/mixer - so it doesn't even "do" anything! Actually got everything to work.

[EBK]

it doesn't even "do" anything! Actually got everything to work.

I've built TONS of circuits that successfully did nothing! 

(Don't worry, I know what you meant.  )

[radio]

univibe in a wah shell!

lost the calibration procedure but should ask the seller of the pcb

obviously still not working

[bluebunny]

I'm not too bad in getting pedals finished (although there's sometimes a bit of a gap between stuffing a board and then drilling and painting a box for it).  On the other hand, guitars are another matter!  I got all the parts for a tele a while back.  Like, um, several years back.      And because I'm easily distracted, I got all the parts for a jazz bass shortly afterwards.  Both are as-yet unmade.   

[R.G.]

I traced out the Univox Super Fuzz in my dorm room in 1970. I designed and etched a PCB for it that year... learning along the way that you can't use ferric chloride in aluminum cake pans  . It didn't work, of course. Life got busy and I didn't get a working version finished until the early 1990s.

Does that count? 

[StephenGiles]

I bought a Hyperflange board from PAiA in1992 or so, populated it and it is still sitting in my garage, waiting to be finally wired up to the chassis.  I'm retiring from full-time work at the end of September, and hope to finish it this year.  I figure 25 years is long enough to wait.

Two-transistor fuzzes can be very distracting.

Aha Mark, I can beat that - I have my EH Guitar Synth veroboard which I started in 1980-81 and abandoned maybe a couple of years later. I fired it up earlier this year and it was dead, so will probably stay that way! I may rebuild when I work less days!

[EBK]

I traced out the Univox Super Fuzz in my dorm room in 1970. I designed and etched a PCB for it that year... learning along the way that you can't use ferric chloride in aluminum cake pans  .

I'm imagining a scene where a college student is running at full bore down a dormitory hallway while holding a leaking cake pan containing a mysterious brown liquid and repeatedly shouting "shit!"

Fast forward to today, where R.G. says, "And that is why everyone who knew me in college calls me [insert unfortunate nickname here]." 

[davent]

Worked off and on on just the painting of my echo base enclosure for three years but i've projects sitting here in limbo for far longer then that.

One is a Piai(?) tube preamp that's decades old but now i have four tube amps and another in limbo so that's kinda redundant now.
dave