Relatively Cheap Wah Shells - Here's One Way To Get One

[Paul Marossy]

I bought this chrome plated Guitar Research wah off of ebay for $33 last week, got it last night. It's an exact copy of the good ole CryBaby shell. It comes with a heavy duty 100K pot like you see in the old wahs. I removed the cheesy PCB in it and replaced it with my Vox Grey Wah clone in it and re-used the pot. It works out pretty well, feels just like a real CryBaby once you adjust everything.

I know it's not super cheap for a wah shell, but you get a nice looking chrome plated enclosure with a heavy duty 100K pot. Might be an alternative for someone? Works for me!

[Paul Marossy]

Here's a picture of what it looks like:



I put my own nameplate on it.

[petemoore]

  So it comes with a switch also? What type?
  Actually that looks pretty good 
  Decent competition to DIYing the mechanical parts when you factor in chrome, looks great and works good.

[Paul Marossy]

  So it comes with a switch also? What type?
  Actually that looks pretty good 
  Decent competition to DIYing the mechanical parts when you factor in chrome, looks great and works good.

Oh, the switch. It's a SPDT X-wing type switch. It's like half of an x-wing. And it's pretty cheap...

[no one ever]

where'd you get your nameplate? you've piqued my interest 

[Paul Marossy]

OK, here's some pics:

Front with my AutoCAD generated nameplate


Side view:


Bottom. Bottom plate is flipped over.


Inside:


This is my PCB:


View of the pot. The rack and pinion are slightly different than in a real CryBaby.


Another view of the pot:

[Dave_B]

You did all that since receiving the pedal yesterday?  I'm still putting together an order I started two weeks ago.   

[Paul Marossy]

You did all that since receiving the pedal yesterday?  I'm still putting together an order I started two weeks ago.

Well, everything but etching the PCB and populating it. I did that part a few days ago. That only took a couple of hours or so.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the only thing different about this shell is the mounting holes for the jacks are a lot larger than for a standard jack due to the funky PCB mounted jacks that they used. The shell is still quite useable with standard jacks in spite of that, though.

[AL]

Nice and tidy. Nice work Paul. Looks great - how's it sound?

AL

[Paul Marossy]

Nice and tidy. Nice work Paul. Looks great - how's it sound?

AL

Thanks. It sounds pretty good actually. It sounds most like my 80s Dunlop CryBaby, works great with a scooped mid type of distortion.

[Paul Marossy]

Just a little update:

The feel of the pedal just wasn't as smooth as I'm used to. I got to looking at it closer and found that the gear attached to the pot shaft has 2 to 3 more teeth than what is used in a CryBaby. This makes the feel considerably different - it makes it feel like you have to work harder to get the same effect. I used a Dunlop gear instead, and now it feels just like the rest of my wah pedals. I wouldn't have thought that something that simple could have such a large effect...

[Dragonfly]

btw paul...the "glue" that holds the rubber tread on the pedal isnt the greatest, so expect it to detach after a while...you can just reglue it afterwards

nice job so far....

AC

[Paul Marossy]

btw paul...the "glue" that holds the rubber tread on the pedal isnt the greatest, so expect it to detach after a while...you can just reglue it afterwards

Yeah, I noticed that and was already planning on having to do that at some point in the future. With a little work, it can turn out to be a pretty cool looking, functional project.

[Paul Marossy]

Just a little update. The "heavy duty" pot is already scratchy after only a few weeks of use. I guess I'm going to have to get a real wah pot now...