My DIY wah

[Mihkel]

I got hold of this metal sewing machine pedal made back in 1962. With some cutting and cursing, it ended up being a pretty nice wah. It's still unfinished though, have to paint it and put some rubber on top. The circuit is once again the Colorsound inductorless wah.
Here it is:

You can see how proffessional it is, since it uses real Lego parts 

Another view:

I'm pretty happy with how both the circuit and shell came out. Right now I have a 50k log pot in there, which seems to be doing it's work quite well. I would like the circuit to have more treble, right now it has only a little bit more treble than in bypass mode. Would changing the 2n2 cap to something like 1nf help? Also, I'd like to use it with my wonderful BSIAB II, but if the wah is connected before the BSIAB, the wah effect becomes very subtle, often unnoticeable. When I put it after the BSIAB, it muffles the BSIAB out, but the wah is more noticeable. Any help? Although when clean it sounds excellent through my DIY Champ. 

All comments welcome!

[Paul Marossy]

That's the first sewing machine pedal wah I have seen that was fully functional. Nice job! 

BTW, does it have a bypass switch?

[Mihkel]

Thanks!

Yup, there's a bypass switch, but it's not a normal one. Its a plastic 4PDT, salvaged from a soviet radio,  you can see the tip of it in the last pic on the right from the Lego gear. It's not the best but in this application it's sturdy enough.

[Paul Marossy]

OK, I see the switch now.

[trjones1]

That's a good looking project.

I used the output buffer from Fuzzcentral on my wah:

http://fuzzcentral.tripod.com/axiswah.html

It's at the bottom of the page.  Just add it on to your wah to get the wahing back when you're using the BSIAB.

[Paul Marossy]

I have had pretty good success with wahs straight into a distortion pedal. What seems to make the most difference is what type of pickups you have and whether or not it's on the bridge/neck, etc.

[petemoore]

  Super Bad  Ie Love it !!
  Excellent Salvage...'Thassome FiIne pickins' !!!
  Way good finding and wrangling [BTW how hard Was it getting the LEGO parts to drive the pot?]

[Paul Marossy]

I saw a guy with a Lego pickup winder over at www.projectguitar.com , it was really cool! And it also worked great. 

[tatems]

Nice! Looks better than my diy wah, lol 
And i like the lego 

Tatems

[Mihkel]

Thanks everyone!

  Super Bad  Ie Love it !!
  Excellent Salvage...'Thassome FiIne pickins' !!!
  Way good finding and wrangling [BTW how hard Was it getting the LEGO parts to drive the pot?]

It wasn't very hard, i just had to cut the pot shaft a bit to make the Lego pinion gear to fit. Nothing is glued together, but they seem to be sturdy enough to do the job.

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

Wow, that's impressive. I too don't remember having seen anybody actually building a wah from such an enclosure (I've read many many people saying they would).

Congratulations!

Fp

ps: we NEEED a source for rocker pedal enclosures!

[Paul Marossy]

we NEEED a source for rocker pedal enclosures!

Yeah, those are in short supply...

[davebungo]

You could always try one of these...like my Grandma had years ago

[Paul Marossy]

You could always try one of these...like my Grandma had years ago

Man, that would be hard to fit in my pedalboard! 

[davebungo]

One thing's for sure - you didn't want to get your fingers trapped in that fly-wheel - I mean it was really heavy cast iron.  Anyway joking aside I often wondered if the old wire wound rheostats found in some of these old pedals could be used as is - probably a bit noisy but interesting nontheless.

[GFR]

You could always try one of these...like my Grandma had years ago

I have one of those at home - working My wife's aunt refuses to use an electric machine (she's 89).

The trickiest part is installing the leather belt.

[JimRayden]

You could always try one of these...like my Grandma had years ago

I have one of those at home - working My wife's aunt refuses to use an electric machine (she's 89).

The trickiest part is installing the leather belt.

My granny has one too. This machine picks up where the strength of electrical sewing machines give up. You can't believe how thick leather it can penetrate.

Hmm, what about attaching a speaker on the flywheel, so you'll have a manual leslie speaker. This is something to be further researched.

-----------
Jimbo

[Mihkel]

You could always try one of these...like my Grandma had years ago

I have one of those too... I have a DIY wah, so maybe that'd be good for a DIY volume pedal 

[GFR]

Get a slide pot and attach the slider to the needle. The as you pedal with your foot, the slider goes up/down and you get a tremolo. If you pedal real fast you can even get some ring modulator sounds

[Gladmarr]

The lego parts do fully rule!  From those pics, it looks like this thing was aqua/turquoise in color before you dug into it.  The nasty color would have made it oh so much more surplus/salvage looking.   

sweet project though!