source for wah pedal shells

[Wounded Paw]

I'm looking for one or two wah pedal shells.  Like the type Small Bear carriers (they're out of stock).

[kierc]

Banzai sell some?

[Leston Braun]

Tube Amp Doctor has them

http://www.tubeampdoctor.com/product_info.php?cPath=94&products_id=1272

[Projectile]

For the price those shells go for new, I always figured it would make more sense to just buy a used crybaby and modify it. I see them go for cheap on craigslist all the time.

[Paul Marossy]

For the price those shells go for new, I always figured it would make more sense to just buy a used crybaby and modify it. I see them go for cheap on craigslist all the time.

That was always my viewpoint as well. I got a bass CryBaby off of ebay once for less than $30. I had a wah shell and a PCB that was easily converted to GCB-95 specs by simply replacing one capacitor. That's what I call a win-win situation. 

[juse]

I hit the pawnshops, too. For some reason if they have one, it is broken & I can talk them out of it for $20. I guess that's why it was pawned in the first place... 

[The Tone God]

I buy those cheap Dunlop "Hi Gain" passive volume pedals and gut them for the shell and mechanism.

Andrew

[Cliff Schecht]

Talk to your guitar playing friends. I've gotten three fully loaded wah shells for $20 a pop from friends (although if not intermittent, I've paid up to $35). Also, like I said earlier, Goodwill (or other thrift stores) can be a great place to find guitar effects. Or, if any of you live in Austin, you need to go to one of the Goodwill Blue Hangars around town. I've gotten a LOT of cool stuff from that place, including a few wah shells, old effects (including a broken Boss DS-1) and even old rack equipment. For $5 a piece I got a Furman Compressor, DOD 15-band, 2 channel equalizer and an old MXR Digital Delay 1000 (I think Mark Hammer has one of these as well, very cool unit!!).

[tackleberry]

Your best bet is fleabay or busted ones. I got a broken crybaby, needed a pot, off ebay for 25$. And a working 1 with extra pot for 35$. Still less than the empty smallbear. Be nice to be able to get them empty from dunlop. But either they wouldnt sell em or you would have to buy a thousand of em. Buying a new pedal either vol or wah and gutting it would get expensive. I found a wah/distortion/chorus pedal on ebay recently. I only wanted the housing to begin with. The info I got was the company who made em made a few then went out of business, obvious why the pedals tone was terrible the wah sweep was really small and they used a cheap regular audio pot for the wah. Good idea but flawed execution. But somebody made a mold and had the housings cast somewhere. Im gonna have my dad, a tool and die maker, look at them to see what it would take and the cost to build empty housings since there seems to be a decent enough demand for them. Make em without any holes for jacks etc so you could put em where you want.

[juse]

Im gonna have my dad, a tool and die maker, look at them to see what it would take and the cost to build empty housings since there seems to be a decent enough demand for them. Make em without any holes for jacks etc so you could put em where you want.

Setup/tooling costs for that would be outrageous, but if you could eventually sell the shells for around $20 a pop, you'd have a winner.

[tackleberry]

Yea I know it wouldnt be cheap. My dads retired but has always been good at building things from welding race car frames to building a 55' steel hulled sailboat by himself. And hes got another retired friend with a machine shop at his house. Im sure they wouldnt mind making a few bucks. Im gonna show him various designs out there from the cast dunlops to the folded steel of other brands. See what he thinks. The ernie ball vol pedal looks pretty simple to make. I kind of like some of the other designs vs the dunlop. Dunlop you have to put everything on the side where its not so easy to see. The new vox big bad wah has the controls on the top with space for a stomp switch to incorporate other stuff into the pedal easier. Depending on the design if could make a really nice versatile housing like the bigbadwah and be able to sell it for 40$ to 50$ be nice.

[Paul Marossy]

It wouldn't be hard at all to make a Colorsound type wah enclosure. The CryBaby enclosure is a little more difficult to replicate, but it could also be done.

It seems to me that the two most cost effective ways to make a wah enclosure is to either use stamped steel (as in the Colorsound wah) or a casting (as in the CryBaby wah).

I suppose if you were good at welding and stuff, you could weld some plates together, grind and polish as necessary. Then you would have to drill holes and devise a method for holding the pot. I  guess another plate welded on could suffice for that.

[cathexis]

Tube Amp Doctor has them

http://www.tubeampdoctor.com/product_info.php?cPath=94&products_id=1272

I just recieved two of these via UPS, just a few days after I placed my order (I'm in Sweden). Classic crybaby enclosure, nice silver metallic paint job, smooth pedal action. These come fully equipped, but TAD does not guarantee that they work. You still get the jacks, pot, inductor etc. Both of mine worked. Not the best wah circuit I've heard, but definitely mod-able. All in all, this is a real good buy!
LARS