what to do with three low gain Ge transistors?

[thetragichero]

before purchasing the transistors for a Ge fuzz face from small bear (13$ for gain-checked transistors and the resistors is a KILLER deal for a killer box), i tried my hand at ordering NTE102s (at 6$+ apiece) from mouser (big mistake)
of course i got three transistors with too low gain for the fuzz face, and now they're sitting in my parts bin with no home
anyway, anybody have any bright ideas of what i can do with them?

[jrod]

There are TONS of suggestions on this site. Just use the search function.

What are the measurements of your NTE102s?

[thetragichero]

i'll have to measure them sometime i am not at work and not caught up with other projects
but i tried them in while breadboarding my fuzz face and they sounded WEAK
apparently that product can have an hfe as low as 30 and still be within spec 

[jrod]

Yeah, that is kind of the deal with buying untested germanium transistors. The specs can be all over the place.

See if you can test the gain and leakage. There may be a project that will work with them.

If they have enough leakage one may work for Q1 in a Tone Bender MKII or in a Maestro FZ1, but they do need to be leaky.

[Electric Warrior]

i'll have to measure them sometime i am not at work and not caught up with other projects
but i tried them in while breadboarding my fuzz face and they sounded WEAK
apparently that product can have an hfe as low as 30 and still be within spec  

So can the NKT275s they used in the original Fuzz Face. hfe was 30...90 according to the Newmarket data sheet. 

[petemoore]

  1 They have a B/E diode, it's a germanium device suitable [can be measured] for passive applications, better than a sixbuk tidbit in the tosscan.
  2 Ge's tend to leak, and GEO has the transistor gain - leakage circuit and articles which enable the user to to test and know a GE's effect suitability.
  Leaky characteristics show leakage masked as Hfe in regular DMM Hfe checker, weak output/noise, apparently you have a good Ge set in FF and heard this circuits response change when using suitable Q's.
  either the leakage/gain characteristics suit the application or they make good diodes, I have a few NTE103's in use here, one was able to do bias duty in my OS comp, others are clipping in Dist+/ OD250's, apparently the large body makes them more likely to end diode-searches because they're easier to spot as something containing an actual Ge diode. 

[aron]

If they are not too low, you might want to try them in the Fuzz Face. I tried some lower value Ge and they sounded great!

[thetragichero]

i tried them while bread boarding the fuzz face and they sounded WEAK compared to the ones i got from small bear

[rousejeremy]

How about using them as clipping diodes and mounting them through drilled holes in the enclosure like the Keeley Freak Fuzz Blues Driver?

[thetragichero]

first order of business would be to test them (i took monday off to fiddle with various projects)
maybe i could make a diy darlington with the two lowest gain ones and hope to make them work in another fuzz face?

by the way: thanks for all the help for a relative newbie!