Ready to wire up first Fuzz Face build -things to consider?

[pd3]

Hi, I was hoping some of you might throw me a bone or two on this build. I've had great success on most of my builds and have high hopes for this one so please feel free to comment.  The box is already drilled, switch, jacks, pots, LED, are mounted and ready to be wired up, Pad-per-hole board ready to be populated.  My initial question are"
1. Should I definately use a shielded cable for input connections? Where do you put shielded cables in a Fauzz face?
2. Besides the Gemanium transistors will it be worth my while to have sockets for other components like the Input cap, output cap? Some folks have got me curious over the "Electrolytic vs Film" difference.  And, does using sockets cause any issues in a high saturation circiut like this one? (longer leads,  non-soldered connections etc...)
3. Can I make my own circuit board layout or is there a reason to use a partricular layout found on the internet somewhere?   Will following the good old electronic rules be enough? (power wires separated form signal,  inputs separated from outputs etc...)

I decided to build the FF around the GGG boutique 60's circuit.  I like the flexibilty tone wise and electronically and I definately liked soundclips heard from folks that used this config.      I have a set of the $11.00 3ax13's and  a set of the US made $13.00 pair from SB elec.   I tested the trannies gain and leakage and found both pairs fell into the recommended buckets and leakage was acceptable in all of them.   Really looking forward to adding this to my arsenal and surprising my band with a new tone that I dont have right now.   Well, I'd really be interested th hear your recommendations and comments.   
Thank you all for your time! 

Phil

[Joe Hart]

I love Joe Gagan's Input Cap Blend thingy. Basically it's two caps that you can blend together via a pot, so you can get a wide range of input cap values with a knob rather than just switching between predetermined values. So, yes for sockets unless you use this blend idea (I feel you get more control with this). Hope this helps.
-Joe Hart

[smallbearelec]

Know What You Are going To Do Before You Start.

Not only can you decide on a board layout beforehand, You Must...or you are sure to find yourself in the middle of wiring the thing and cursing because something Just Will Not Fit where you thought it would.

You have already located your controls and jacks, so this will determine where your off-board connections need to be. If an existing build is similar enough to yours, great. More likely, you will have to:

--Do the best job you can of making an actual size outline of the perfboard using MS Paint or PaintShop.
--Sit down and spend a bunch of hours working out your layout.

I would be telling you to do all of this in Eagle CAD (as I do), but that's a steep learning curve.

Sockets for the germanium devices are a must. Socket pins for the resistors are very helpful in case you want to trim.

Happy Construction, and let us know how it goes.

Regards
SD

[pd3]

Thanks Joe and Steve.   As usual, I will spent alot of time laying out components beforehand.  I'm pretty obsessive about that stuff.  I wanted to just make sure that certain wire lengths stay short if they need to and anything else that would say, minimize noise and any other kinds of undesirable artifacts.  I definately  will look into Gagans 2 cap, pot thing.  That sounds more interesting than the 50k series input "reostat".  Going to check that out now.

Thank guys,

Phil

[LucifersTrip]

I love Joe Gagan's Input Cap Blend thingy. Basically it's two caps that you can blend together via a pot, so you can get a wide range of input cap values with a knob rather than just switching between predetermined values. So, yes for sockets unless you use this blend idea (I feel you get more control with this). Hope this helps.
-Joe Hart

I checked out the blend thing:


Does anyone know how the 100K blend pot was determined?  Is it figured out from the full circuit, from just the 2 caps being blended, or trial and error (ie: what sounds good to your ear)...