Distortion pedal won't distort!

[wcpatton]

So I've assembled my Thor build and can get a signal through it, but no matter what I can't get the signal to distort - just like a mild treble boost. Anything that usually would cause this?

olcircuits.com's Thor build

[midwayfair]

Please read this sticky.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=29816.0

There is no information in your post we can use to help diagnose the problem.

[wcpatton]

Really?  Nothing?

To reiterate:
Olcircuits.com Thor build. 
Followed the schematic exactly AFAIK.
Power is AC, obviously working as the LED lights and the signal goes through with the pedal on or off.
I've double checked the wiring and everything seems ok.
Signal goes through and sounds like a mild compression, slight treble boost but no gain.  Knobs seem to impact the signal, but no distortion.

My question is really what would normally cause the circuit to clip and how can I diagnose that?

[wavley]

Really?  Nothing?

To reiterate:
Olcircuits.com Thor build. 
Followed the schematic exactly AFAIK.
Power is AC, obviously working as the LED lights and the signal goes through with the pedal on or off.
I've double checked the wiring and everything seems ok.
Signal goes through and sounds like a mild compression, slight treble boost but no gain.  Knobs seem to impact the signal, but no distortion.

My question is really what would normally cause the circuit to clip and how can I diagnose that?

I believe the Thor runs on DC, so you might check that.

Otherwise, read the sticky and give us voltages, that's how we can see what's going on.  Describing sound isn't exactly hard data for troubleshooting.

That said, you probably need to bias your JFET's, voltages would tell us that.

[midwayfair]

Again, please read the sticky I linked to.

I'm not saying that to be rude. The sticky tells you how to take steps to diagnose the problem and gives a VERY clear list of the things you need to post for other people to be able to diagnose what is irregular in your build. For instance, you didn't even post the schematic you're working from. You didn't even post that you're working with the OLC kit/build document (you did post that on Reddit, but only after someone else mentioned diodes, which this circuit doesn't use), but for all anyone knew you could have been using a randomly reposted/redrawn schematic of the Thor and not the Runoff Groove project. Does that make sense?

My question is really what would normally cause the circuit to clip and how can I diagnose that?

The clipping in this circuit is caused by overdriving successive JFET stages -- amplifying the signal until the gain is sufficient to saturate the transistors. No amplification = no clipping.

[Paul Marossy]

Followed the schematic exactly AFAIK.

How did you build it? A piece of perf? Or a PCB? It's very very very easy to mess up on perf, one reason I really dislike using it. If you built it with a verified PCB, then you must have a wrong part somewhere that's taming the signal enough to kill all the overdrive. I still screw up stuff sometimes, and I've been building stuff since 2001.