the old "friend says 'this old fuzz, fix it & keep it' " dream realized...

[hair force one]

hi, i'd liked to share my little adventure with the community (i'm still owing so much to this board, even if my last post is 3 years old now).

today met a friend at the bar.

He gave me an old stompbox.

The thing was so old, never seen one before in real and as soon as i grasp the die-cast silver shell my voice stomped on this special tremolo throat effect...
"It is a solasound Tone Bender professional mkII!"  don't seem to be a reissue, color was hammered gray with a light greenish patine, the backplate was a bit rusty.

So i thought a minute and said to him "this thing could be big money you know, really like 250-300 euros, i can't accept it. I'll be glad fix it and then you'll see."

Next minute i rode my bike back to the workshop, grabbed a screwdriver, opened it... it was immaculate, like new, very well built with shielded wires and 3xOC75, tried to read the date on pot but it said only "176" (for 1976, didn't remenbered if macaris made them till then, in 1976 it was more like the SuppaTB or the mkIII), took some photos, fixed it (the battery holders were too big for a regular modern 9v cell, so i soldered a PP3 adapter on them, didn't wanted to remove anything from what i suspected to be a really real one) and plugged it betwenn my "chinesebecker" and on my crappy Park 10w.  

Wow good fuzz, sustaining long, and when attack is at 2:20 it sounds! So i played quite a long time with it and went home.

Next i searched on the net. On the d.a.m. site there's an exact picture of the circuit board, so now i know it's the real thing. Next i tried on ebay and can't find any auction or one for sale, but what i see is    reissues and clones taged 300€ at least!

wow i left the stompbox craze sum years ago and it doesn't getting butter...

And know i'm having a beer coz my post is over.

[Electric Warrior]

176 sounds right. but that would be 17th week of 1966, not 1976
You do realize that this thread is worthless without pics? 

[hair force one]

it's that old! though looks almost new inside.... u see!




(forgot my camera at the workshop so took this with my old powershot and just drop post it on my blog héhé)

[Electric Warrior]

   NICE ONE! thanks for posting these!

You can tell your friend that this is a 2000$+ pedal 
Hope you didn't throw out the old battery connectors. Replacement batterys are available.

[hair force one]

no i soldered the new holder's wires to the old ones, very carefully, now those pads are taped...
2000$ wow, he's gonna pass out!

[Electric Warrior]

too bad. But it wouldn't be a deal breaker for any potential buyer. Most of vintage units seem to have replacement battery connectors.

[hair force one]

i didn't made myself clear, they're still in it... pardon my poor english

[Electric Warrior]

Oh, awesome! Sorry I misunderstood you. Good thinking!
The replacements are rather pricey: http://www.smallbattery.company.org.uk/sbc_226.htm
Currently only alkalines available..

[Mark Hammer]

Nice score!  Closest I've come to that is a friend giving me a populated board with wires and pots hanging off it that turned out to be a Maestro FZ-1S.  Nice fuzz too, but I suspect the Tonebender is a better-sounding unit.

[deadastronaut]

what a result....one sold for 1400 gbp a couple of weeks ago...

[petemoore]

  The wire strands showing look like somthing to provide power for heater service, the whole thing has a tank like build quality to it.
  Very nice...

[Electric Warrior]

what a result....one sold for 1400 gbp a couple of weeks ago...

Interesting.. where? any pics? I collect Tone Bender gut shots  

  The wire strands showing look like somthing to provide power for heater service, the whole thing has a tank like build quality to it.
  Very nice...

It's still surprising how well most of these have survived the past 45 years. I haven't seen any with replacement footswitches yet and only one unit with replaced electrolytics.

[deadastronaut]

it was on ebay...no pics im afraid!...

[Electric Warrior]

This one? http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280638727033&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
It has the earlier two transistor circuit. Not an MKII... On the D*A*M forum we like to call it the MK1.5 

[deadastronaut]

yep thats the one.....

[Perrow]

Nice, tell your friend to sell it and give you provision :-)

Can't say I have friends like yours but I did find a Shin Ei Super Fuzz in the electro recycle bin once, together with a script logo Phase 90 and a Shredmaster :-)

[deadastronaut]

Nice, tell your friend to sell it and give you provision :-)

Can't say I have friends like yours but I did find a Shin Ei Super Fuzz in the electro recycle bin once, together with a script logo Phase 90 and a Shredmaster :-)

what a find!..i always look in those bins, and its always an old kettle or iron...never anything good...

[Perrow]

There's quite a lot of stereos, radios, computers and innumerable crt tvs in ours and sometimes something interesting, one time there was even a head from a heat seeking missile    Called the police that time.

[deadastronaut]

heat seeking missile    Called the police that time.

blimey, where do you live , beruit?...

[Perrow]

I live in Uppsala, Sweden, but we did have an airforce base here until recently and they had a few practice areas nearby, guess someone found it at one of those.