Over all, we are mighty happy with the results, though it took quite a few tries to get it right…

As seen in an earlier post, the first step was sanding the finish off of the back of the neck, and of course sanding the generally glossy finish down to a dull matte.

After this step, we spent a fair amount of time dinging and scratching the neck and headstock with various tools around the workshop––razors, screwdrivers, socket wrenches and the like.

It was also at this point that I finally decided to take a risk and really try to emulate the look of a worn out fingerboard.

To that end, we quickly bolted the neck back onto the body, and strung the whole thing up loosely, so that with guitar strings in place we could have something of a template for wearing down the the wood between the frets where your years worth of string and finger rubbing will leave its mark.

That done, we busted out the sandpaper and worked away…. it was tedious stuff… but kind of creative… I did it while watching TV.

With the wood sanded down in various places to well below the original finish, and dings and scratches placed as naturally as possible across the neck, I got my trusty oil-based wood stain and doused the entire fretboard and neck.

Let sit for 20-minutes. Wipe off. And you’ve got one seriously beat-to-heck looking Relic guitar neck… worked like a charm!

Once dry (overnight,) it was time to start applying the Guitar ReRanch Fender Neck Amber nitro finish.

Now, this is no place to rush… trust someone’s who has been through it––ouch!!

If you screw this up the first time the only way to start over is to soak your neck in paint thinner, which works like a charm, but means you’ll have to go all the way back to the last step, because you’re going to lose all of that wood stain you just applied.

Anyway, I learned the hard way. TWICE!

On the third and final try I applied the amber finish in very thin coats. Letting it dry for an hour or two between applications.

The only way to control how bright the amber is, is to apply the right number of coats (by eye!) so you want to take this really easy now. Do it right the first time and you won’t have to suffer like me! hehe

Once it was all dry, and we liked the tint of amber, it was just a matter of sanding some of the sheen back off of the neck and fretboard, re-installing the machine heads and such, and then taking a flat-head screwdriver to the tops of the frets to chisel off the excess finish.

And wala! We’ve got us a very nice, pretty damned authentic looking Relic Telecaster neck… sweet!

We will now be taking questions…

First things first, we tossed aside our Baja Tele’s single-ply black pickguard and went hunting for a nice retro-style mint green one to replace it. Unfortunately, finding a mint-green guard in a 5-hole configuration wasn’t as easy as I expected, but in the end we purchased a nice one from Callaham Vintage Guitars & Parts online.

The screw holes weren’t a “dead match,” but they were damned close, and certainly good enough for our purposes.

After some rough sanding to generally rough-up our pickguard, the next step was to bust out a nice straight razor (be careful, folks!!!) and whittle down some of the edges and whatnot.

Obviously, you’re going to have to get creative here, and do your best to emulate the wear & tear of a good many years of hard playing… how you do this will really just come down to personal taste.

After banging the pickguard up real good (including many dings and scratches from various tools in our workshop––screwdrivers, pliers, etc,) we sanded everything down a bit more to soften up the razor-sharp edges, and then got to adding some grime to the whole thing.

As we discovered while dirtying-up the body of the guitar, a nice can of brown oil-based wood stain is perfect for adding some nasty layers of crud to your Relic.

Pour some onto a cotton ball or rag and you can just rub it right in. It should seep into the cracks and dings that you created in the last step, making them look age-old and doused in sweaty goodness.

If you find that you’ve used too much you can always remove it with some light sanding or some strategically placed paint thinner––both work well.

In our case we were aiming for a final pickguard that was aged yellow with time and grime, so after getting all the nicks and scratches just the way we wanted, it was time to bust out the nitrocellulose paint.
Once again we turned to our trusty can of Guitar ReRanch Fender Neck Amber, and after a few practice runs managed to get a nice, light coat in just the right shade of yellow.

After painting the whole pickguard and letting it dry for a few hours, we went back in with some sandpaper and sanded a soft-edged “corridor” down the center of our pickguard (see photo at top.) IT came out really nice.

Then it was just a matter of putting a few clear top-coats over the yellow, and we were done. Of course, the top coats were way too glossy for our purposes, so we had to sand the pickguard yet again to take the sheen off.

That’s pretty much it, but don’t be fooled.. this process actually took quite some time. We made numerous mistakes in learning how to apply the wood stain and paint, and often had to use paint thinner to take everything back down to the original mint-green and start all over again.

It was arduous for sure, but also a lot of creative fun. Here’s a nice, fat high-res photo for those who want to see the pickguard close-up. It’s a bit grainy, but probably worth a look.

So having put the body of our so-called Tele Relic to rest (save a few minor dings and scratches that still need to be added,) we have moved on to the most dangerous and delicate part of this entire project––aging the neck and fretboard.

Yes, we intentionally put this part off until we had enough experience damaging the other, less sensitive areas of the guitar––in the hopes that we’d build up lots of wisdom about what NOT to do. I’m glad we did, because with experimentation on the body pretty much behind me, I’m definitely feeling more confident about not screwing this part up.

As you can see, we’ve dug up a few photos to help us visualize the final piece, and in that spirit we’ve begun to wear down our Telecaster’s neck bit by bit.

First step was just taking off the general sheen of the poly––I used 600 grit sandpaper for this. Ultimately we will be spraying the entire neck (fingerboard, frets and all) with Guitar ReRanch Fender Neck Amber nitrocellulose finish, and that stuff just isn’t going to stick well to a glossy poly coat.

Roughing it up is pretty much required.

And it’s here, before you start blasting the finish away and spraying the neck with amber, that you need to give some serious consideration to all of the steps in this process.

As I understand it, to get the kind of aged, darkened and grimy looking dings and worn-out spots that you see on Relic necks, you pretty much have to sand and ding the neck down to bare wood in those areas and then apply a suitably colored dark wood stain (oil based.)

Of course, once you start spraying with amber, any unfinished areas are going to go bright orange, so after dinging and staining, but before finishing with amber, the best bet is to give your neck a few coats of clear nitro. Once that dries, and those unfinished areas are protected from overstaining, you can apply the amber.

So, after the basic sanding (which was fairly light, and left the neck still with all of its finish intact,) I decided to try my luck emulating the wear along the back of the neck.

So far so good. It took about an hour of dry sanding with 200 grit sandpaper to get the finish off like I wanted. Next step for this side of the neck will be to stain that freshly bared wood, and perhaps add some extra dings and such.

Much to my surprise, the fingerboard was actually easier to do than I expected, although I did come to the realization that I would need to put the entire guitar back together and then string it up in order to have some really good guides for where my strategically placed “wear and tear” should go.

As you can see, it went quite well. After sanding down the areas I thought looked most natural, I pretty much doused the whole fretboard in a medium-dark wood stain, and let it soak in good.

It’s not perfect yet, but I believe with a little more work, and a nice dark amber stain over the top, the neck is going to look amazing.

I guess we shall see, eh? Wish us luck!

Of course, it was far from an overnight transformation, but as far as we can tell at this point, the body is pretty much ready for prime time. Next week I promise to get into the nitty gritty of how we accomplished a number of the effects you see here, but to tide you all over, here’s a short photo gallery of our Relic Tele as it stands today.

For a truly close-up look you can dig through these high-res versions as well: photo 1, photo 2, photo 3, photo 4, photo 5, photo 6.

Of course, we’ve just barely begun to work on the neck, but I hope to get it sanded and stained in nitro amber over the weekend. In any event, we will soon go into greater detail on how we aged the pickguard, dented the body, and otherwise wore the hell out of this sweet Tele.

Until next week…

OK, so here are a few various iterations of our Relic Tele as we play around with different types of faux aging. Since this is truly an experiment, and we have absolutely no experience applying wear & tear to guitars––other than the good old fashioned way––we are taking our time to find out what works and what doesn’t.

The pickguard and hardware are not attached, but have simply been placed on top of the body to give us a better look at what the finished product may look like. Neither the pickguard nor body are anywhere near finished, though the hardware is pretty much ready for prime time.

While the top photo will undoubtedly appeal to many of you (as it does me,) I have to admit that in person this iteration simply doesn’t look real… in the photo it looks great though.

The Baja Tele’s original Blonde poly finish is just way too bright, even after sanding, to look natural as it pokes through under the Oly White nitro. So while I like the general look of the exaggerated arm-wear, it really doesn’t hold up to an in-person inspection.

The contrast between the white and blonde is just way too extreme. On top of that, when we attempted to sand down the white finish a bit, in order to let some wood grain show through to better match our “inspirational” relic over at the Music Zoo, we found that sanding it down evenly across the body is harder than hell. Once again it just doesn’t look real.

Our second version (above,) while not as extreme, looks a helluva’ lot more authentic when you get close-up on it… now, we are far from being finished in our experimenting, but what we will probably end up with is kind of a hybrid between these two photos––something like the body on the bottom photo, but with a pickguard similar to that in the top photo, albeit with a lot less orange.

In this second iteration I’ve added a fair amount of grit and grime to the finish, because straight out of the bottle (and even after sanding,) that Olympic White Nitro is just way too bright and clean… it looks brand new.

However, I managed to very successfully imitate the grimy look of a few decades of sweaty man-handling (photo left,) by rubbing oil-based dark wood stain right into the finish (make sure you don’t get it on any bare wood!)

You have to rub it in with your fingers, gently sand some off, and then repeat until you’ve got just the right amount. If you do it carefully and strategically, it looks dead-on. The photo here is an extreme close-up.

I’ve also begun experimenting with dinging the finish and generally roughing this poor guitar up. It’s a heck of a lot of fun.

So far I’ve pounded on the guitar with screwdrivers (see two pockmarks in this photo,) rubbed dark stain into the gashes and cracks, sanded various areas with heavy grit sandpaper (60 GT,) and even knocked a few small sections into the cement.

Once again, it all takes some experimenting, and usually a soft touch––though every once in a while you really have to pound the crap out of it ;)

Compared to aging the hardware, this part is much, much more difficult, but also a lot more creatively fulfilling. However, if you ever decide to do this yourself, be prepared to take your time.

I’ve sanded and re-finished numerous sections of the body (too many times to count,) due to my own errors & experimentations, and while it’s all fun, when dealing with paint you have to wait a loooooong time in between sessions.

Sometimes I’m just about pulling my hair out waiting for the paint to dry so I can have more fun.

Next up: aging the pickguard, and a  better look at our relic’d hardware.

One of the beauties of building a Relic, I suppose, is that the finish doesn’t need to be absolutely perfect, so we were able to get away with painting this thing in less-than-desirable conditions. There were high winds all week, and the weather was all over the place, but my little cardboard box pretty much did the trick.

Nitrocellulose lacquer finish was purchased from Guitar ReRanch (we went with Olympic White,) and came in easy to apply aerosol cans. It took a few coats to get the hang of just how much to apply, but we managed to get the whole thing painted quite nicely with a single can.

The basic process was A.) lay the guitar on one side, B.) give it a solid but not too thick coat of paint, C.) come back in an hour and lay down a second coat, D.) wait another hour and lay down a third coat, E.) let the whole thing sit for 24 hours before flipping the guitar onto its other side and repeating steps A through D again.

That’s pretty much it… when the front and back were done we just stood the guitar on one side at a time and repeated the process along the edges. Because of the wind and dust that was flying around we made sure to always cover the top of the box while the finish was drying.

In five day’s time we had a really beautifully finished guitar, and then last night I rather hesitantly went to work sanding a lot of that lovely nitro finish back off again––ouch.

Up Next: a look at all of our Telecaster’s Relic’ed hardware after a few hours of heavy tumbling. It came out really sweet!

And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for… here is our first batch of hardware after spending about six hours in a rock tumbler filled with pea gravel.

As you can see, it came out quite nicely. It’s hard to say whether I will attempt the “acid bath” on these as well. I guess I’ll have to wait and see how the rest of the pieces come out. So far I’m mucho happy with the results.

In fact, if you look really closely (here’s a close-up) you may even notice that the strap buttons have developed a small amount of rust––nice touch, eh?! I quickly washed them off when they came out of the tumbler yesterday, and apparently that was all the water it took to start the process rolling.

Amazingly, during the six-hours of my second batch I actually managed to seriously bend the post on my high-E tuner… I could hardly believe it when I saw it. Now that’s a freakin’ Relic.

Checking that my tuners still worked I noticed quite a bit of popping and grinding in the gears when I first started to turn them, but after a few minutes of twisting each of the machine heads the grit seems to have worked its way out.

Hehe, and I love the fact that the bent tuner is the high-E––the exact one you would most expect to get hammered out of shape when you accidentally swing your guitar’s headstock into your drummer’s thick-ass skull ;)

All parts were put into separate containers and labeled with blue sticky notes, just to be on the safe side and to keep everything as organized as possible. The tear-down actually took longer than expected, but with a little luck we managed to get all necessary hardware removed from the body without undue difficulty.

Sanding The Body  Much to our surprise, sanding of the poly finish wasn’t nearly as difficult as expected––while Fender’s site doesn’t list it in their official specs, many online retailers claim the Baja Tele has a “thin” poly finish, and it’s likely that this explains the ease of sanding.

Starting with coarse 60 grit paper we managed to take off a good amount of poly in just over an hour of heavy dry sanding (by hand.) Perhaps we could have used an electric sander, but as you can probably guess, the sanding was a great way to get out some of my pent-up aggression!

By that time we had already hit bare wood on many of the corners and edges, and it was at this point that I switched up to 100 grit for about a half-hour, and then on to 200 and 400 grit for detail work. While some resources recommend wet sanding, we stuck with the dry stuff, and were quite happy with our progress.

The plan is for our final instrument to be topped with a thin coat of Olympic White nitrocellulose finish, so there were two main goals to this first sanding––1.) generally prepare the body for nitro by roughing up that shiny coat, and 2.) strategically expose some bare wood to emulate the natural wear and tear of many years of hard playing.

The idea is that we will sand the Tele’s body down yet again once we’ve got a coat or two of white nitro and clear top coat applied. At that point we will further expose these bare areas, and with a little luck I think we can get a few different layers of color coming through––white on top, the Baja’s sanded-down Blonde underneath, and below that the natural Ash.

It’s my assumption that exposing these bare areas now will make it a lot easier to produce the very natural worn-in look we are hoping for.

Tackling The Pickguard  If you were paying attention you may have noticed in the top photo that our mint green pickguard came in as well this week. So, following the many great suggestions over at Relic Deluxe, I began to sand that piece too.

Unlike the heavy-handed sanding of the body, sanding the pickguard requires a much lighter touch, and I can already see my own tendency to over-relic… luckily, it’s just a pickguard and it can be easily replaced if I screw it up.

I will post photos and detailed explanations of what I did to relic the pickguard in another post, but for now, let’s just say I’m having a lot of fun with this part of the process.

Aging The Hardware  After reading through a number of online “relic” resources, we finally accepted Relic Deluxe as our main bible, and so far they haven’t let us down. In keeping with their recommendations we decided to age our guitar’s hardware via the Rock Tumbler approach.

Yep, we managed to purchase a brand new 6-lb capacity rock tumbler on eBay for about $50 US, and late last night I loaded it about 3/4-full with rough gravel (Home Depot) and a few guinea pig pieces of hardware for testing purposes (neck plate, strap buttons, and their respective screws.)

In the photo here you can see all these pieces loaded into one of the tumbler’s heavy rubber cylinders. After taking this photo I popped the top on, sealed it down good, and started the whole thing tumbling.

Relic Deluxe recommends just a few hours, but for giggles I left it running all night. G and I were quite happy with the results… but you’ll have to wait for the next post to see ‘em.

I’m happy to say that this guitar plays beautifully, and is in really incredible shape save for the few nasty dings on the back. Even if I hadn’t been attempting this relic project I still wouldn’t have passed this deal up.

Being a Classic Player’s Baja Telecaster, the guitar is outfitted with Fender’s S1 Switching system, which basically allows you to get a number of new pickup combinations out of the instrument (in series, in parallel, and in and out of phase.)

With a 4-way pickup switch that adds up to eight different pickup combinations, and while I always thought of myself as a bit of a Tele purist, the reality is that I just LOVE this setup. in Position one, with the S1 switch up, you get a really gorgeous humbucker tone, albeit with a shimmery Telecaster twang.

Really cool. Not sure yet about the out-of-phase combos, but I suppose time will tell.

The guitar also sports a really mean sheen (poly finish at play,) and I can already tell it’s going to take some serious sanding to get that down to something more manageable.

Unfortunately, the finish is also a bit too yellow for what I’m ultimately after, so this is going to turn into quite a process––first sand the poly down some, then add a somewhat transparent coat of Olympic White nitro (until we get the color we’re aiming for,) then add a clear topcoat, and then finally sand that back down a bit to remove the brand new shine.

Whew! Should be a good workout anyway. Of course, there’s little hope of removing all of the poly, so I won’t even be attempting that, but if I can get some of it off, and get a few nice nitro coats on top, I’ll be more than satisfied.

I’ve also picked up a few other extras that will be needed for the project––a cheap rock tumbler, for aging the hardware, a whole bunch of wet/dry 3M brand sandpaper, and a nice mint green 5-hole Tele pickguard (not easy to find!) that I finally managed to order from Callaham Guitars.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot––the upside of that yellow coat is that while the body of this Telecaster is a bit too lemony for my taste, the neck is already decked out in a nice vintage-style amber tint.

Sure, it still needs to be aged, but I’m relieved that we won’t have to tint it as well… that’s just one less step. And besides, Fender’s got that vintage amber color down far better than I ever will, I’m sure.

So next step: take this bad boy apart, take lots of photos of the inside cavity just in case I can’t figure out how the S1 Switching goes back together, and divide up all of the hardware into separate bowls in order to keep everything organized.

First things first… I guess it’s time to get sanding.

Oh yeah, and please keep in mind: THIS IS NOT A “HOW-TO” KIND OF POST. I’VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE, AND I MAY WELL DESTROY THIS INSTRUMENT. I AM DOCUMENTING THE PROCESS FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT, BUT I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY IF YOU ATTEMPT TO MODIFY YOUR GUITAR IN ANY WAY!

I say “taunting” because there’s no way in hell I would personally pay Fender over $3,000 just to pre-age a guitar for me… but that said, this curvaceous beauty just keeps calling me back, and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to say no.

So what’s the next best thing, I ask? You guessed it––in the Grand American Spirit of destruction, experimentation, and good old “I-can-do-better-than-that-guy” chutzpah, I’ve decided to take a stab at creating my own Telecaster “Relic,” one piece of sand paper at a time… ooooh, you just know it’s gonna’ hurt.

And to be honest, while it would be great to walk away with an artistic masterpiece like the one above, my prime motivation for potentially demolishing a perfectly good Telecaster is really quite simple: it just sounds like fun!

Exhibit B And so we come to the “guinea pig” of our experiment… thanks to the magic of eBay, late last night I managed to purchase a slightly dinged Classic Player Baja Telecaster for what amounts to literally a song and a dance.

This is the much raved about MIM ‘52 Tele Reissue, designed by the Fender Custom Shop and packed with modern niceties, like S1 switching, medium jumbo frets, a 9.5“ neck radius, and a pair of Custom Shop ‘69 pickups.

And yes, that’s a poly finish, so I’ve got some heavy wet-sanding ahead of me… I can hardly wait.

The Players  Luckily, through a bit of creative conniving I’ve managed to recruit the brains, beauty, and braun of a top secret partner-in-crime, whom will hereafter be referred to only as ”G.“

Between the two of us we should be able to manage most of the necessary requirements for artistically deconstructing an otherwise perfectly good guitar.

Timeline  Who can really say… 60 days? 90 days? I haven’t a clue.

Resources  Relic Deluxe, Guitar ReRanch, Callaham Guitars, Fender Custom Shop (for inspiration,) and of course Music Zoo.

Why You Should Care  Because this whole ill-fated experiment is likely to turn into one giant train wreck, and who can resist the temptation to watch one of those?!

Total build time for me was about three hours. In comparison, I spent at least five hours soldering together the mighty TriBooster. Oh yeah, and BYOC just dropped the price on this kit by $10… it can now be had for $59, which you will agree is an absolute steal once you’ve heard this thing in action.

Populating The Circuit Board  OK, so let’s get down to business. First thing is to print up the full PDF directions from BYOC. You’ll want to keep the Parts Checklist handy, because it describes in detail what each of the components looks like, and if you’re like me you wouldn’t know a resistor from a diode if it bit you on the @$$.

This step is particularly easy––there are comparatively few parts to solder to the board, but don’t be in too big of a rush. The first step––installing the resistors––is probably the easiest one to screw up.

I say that because the resistors are absolutely tiny, and you can only tell which one is which by deciphering the miniscule color-coded lines on each component (left) and cross-referencing to the checklist. Take your time… I installed one of them wrong, and discovered that there is little I like less than de-soldering a tiny resistor from a printed circuit board (PCB.)

With the resistors in place, follow your printed instructions from BYOC, and in no time you will have your PCB almost completely populated. It should look something like the photo below right.

Installing The Hardware  OK, so now it’s time to install the jacks, potentiometers, and footswitch. This is pretty basic stuff, and if you follow the diagram in your instructions it should be fairly easy sailing.

The input and output jacks, and the footswitch can all be tightened in pretty good, but I wouldn’t tighten down the pots or the power jack too far yet… you may find that you need to adjust them when it comes time to wire everything up.

With everything in place you should be staring at an aluminum chassis that looks at least somewhat similar to the photo on the left here.

Wiring Her Up  As it turns out, this is the tedious part. You really need to take your time here, and make sure you understand the process BEFORE digging in. De-soldering ain’t not fun, so take a good look at the directions, run it through in your mind, and take a look at the photos to get an idea of how this is done.

Real estate is at a premium inside the OptiComp’s little chassis, and that means things can get pretty tight, and more than a little nerve-wracking when sticking a hot soldering gun in there. Just take your time and give it your best. I think this part took me about an hour.

OK, so here’s the BYOC Optical Compressor in all its full glory, right before you slap on the back plate and fire her up…

Hopefully, between the well-written directions from BYOC, and the photo here, you can pretty much make out how this thing goes together.

As you can see, the wiring gets pretty crazy, and it really is pretty tedious, but it’s also a fun challenge to get things soldered together without burning a hole through that purple insulation or accidentally melting the face of your printed circuit board.

Me, I kept the the tedious part interesting by watching (or more correctly listening to,) Futurama re-runs on Comedy Central… but that’s just me.

If all went well you should be able to plug a chord into the input jack, hit the footswitch, and see that lovely little LED light up. If all didn’t go well, the pedal will self-destruct in exactly 45 seconds… tick, tick, tick  ;)

Plug It In!  So there you have it… screw the backplate on, install the little rubber feet and control knobs, and you’re pretty much ready to rock.

Personally, I absolutely love the sound of this pedal… it’s fairly transparent, but even just a few minutes with this thing will show you why many guitarists absolutely can’t live without their compressors.

It may be a subtle effect, but it really does sweeten-up everything just right. Build Your Own Clone has definitely done it again…

I’ll try to post some sound samples ASAP.

Enjoy The Squeeze!

Oh well, it’s got to be done. The key here is to take your time. If you’re going to make a mistake building the Tri Booster this is where you’re going to do it.

Luckily, once again BYOC’s diagram is pretty easy to follow, and even taking it slow you should be able to get your pedal all wired-up in less than an hour. Make sure you keep a 9v battery handy just to make sure that none of your creative wiring is going to get in the way of installing that battery.

Installing The Germanium Transistor

OK, so here it is: the last piece to install!

The Germanium transistor should have three different leads: what are known as the emitter, the base, and the collector. You’ll know the collector because that side of the transistor will be marked with a dot.

Follow the diagram in your official BYOC Instructions pdf, and you should be able to quickly get your transistor installed––you my need to clip the leads from the transistor a bit to get a nice fit, but what you’re aiming for is enough extra lead in the “base” lead so that you can easily bend the transistor down until it is parallel with the circuit board (upper right corner in photo.)

Solder that bad boy into place and you’re done with the build!

Testing And Biasing  Well, it’s time to plug your new pedal in and see what it can do. I personally prefer 9v batteries, but if you purchased an AC adapter you can use that as well.

Flip your chassis over (don’t screw the back on yet,) plug a 1/4” guitar cable into the right side (input) jack, and test that your LEDs are working. If your build was successful you should be able to produce three different colors depending on your settings.

With the rotary switch turned fully clockwise you should get a red light––that’s the Germanium Boost.

With the rotary in the middle position you should get a blue light––that’s the Linear Boost.

And with the rotary in the full counter-clockwise position you should get a green light––that’s the Clean Boost.

In Germanium Boost mode the tiny toggle switch at the top of the Tri Booster will give you three different tonal boost options: left is “Full,” right is “Mid,” and center is “Treble.” (Full is my favorite.)

Flip your chassis back over, and with a very small phillips head screwdriver you can bias the Clean Boost setting by adjusting the trimpot (bottom right corner of the installed circuit board.)

Turn your amp down to a low volume, turn up the volume on your new Tri-Booster pedal (left knob,) and then strum your guitar hard––adjust the trimpot until you get a good “clean” tone that you like (don’t tell anyone, but I actually adjusted mine kind of dirty, and it sounds sweet.) The effect of adjusting the trimpot is pretty subtle, so don’t worry if you don’t hear a huge difference… just find a sound you’re happy with.

Assuming everything is working well, screw the bottom onto the chassis, and then carefully place the rubber feet that came with your kit.

Final Word  You’re done! You’ve built a badass boost pedal with nothing but your two bare hands (and a little help from Build Your Own Clone.) I’ll have a full review of the TriBooster in the next week or so, including sounds samples, but for now, suffice it to say I am VERY HAPPY with this kit––the build was fairly painless, and the finished product is easily one of the best boost pedals I’ve had the pleasure to play.

Installing The Transistors & Capacitors 

If you check out Step 7 in the official PDF instructions you’ll see that our next move is to install two of our transistors (the BS170 MOSFET, and the 2N5088) into the PCB. All you have to do is follow the diagrams, and make sure you get the transistors in going the right direction––pretty basic stuff.

Step 8, installing the ceramic disc & film capacitors isn’t any more difficult, though it is considerably more time consuming. These babies aren’t polarized, so they can go in either direction. In my kit the ceramic disc capacitor was a tiny round orange unit (towards the upper right in the photo,) though the directions from BYOC state that this may very.

Either way, once you install this capacitor your board should look something like this photo… at this point we’ve invested a lot of time and effort into this very small piece of machinery––here’s hoping we did it right, eh?

Installing The Rotary Switch  Now’s where things get a bit more interesting. Before we install the rotary switch into the circuit board we need to set it so that it will only turn to three different positions.

Take the bolt and the first serrated washer off of the unit, and you will find a second washer with notch poking out of it. Just lift the washer a bit and you can turn it until the notch falls into the slot marked “3”––you’ve just successfully set the switch for three positions.

To actually install the rotary switch we need to flip the unit over. Line up the marked prongs on the back of the switch with the marked diagram on the PCB and insert the unit (top left)––double checking that you’ve got the prongs in the correct holes.

Now solder. Simple as that. At this point it should look something like the photo on the right.

Loading Up The Chassis  Excellent––now we’re ready to move on to Step 10––installing our hardware into the chassis. This step is pretty much self-explanatory: we’re going to flip our chassis over so we can get to the insides, and then just start loading up and bolting on the various pieces of hardware listed in the diagram.

Caution: One thing I learned the hard way is that if you install the AC Adapter Jack in the exact manner suggested in the directions, you simply won’t have enough room in the chassis to fit a 9v battery. Grab yourself a battery, just for checking the fit, and you should find that you can rotate that AC Adapter Jack enough for the batter to easily fit. Now tighten the plastic bolt.

With the hardware installed we need to start wiring it all up. Take a good look at the diagram for Step 11. The easiest way to do this step is to just set your PCB into the chassis upside down exactly matching the diagram (you aren’t connecting it or anything––just set it in there gently,) and then cut three pieces of wire from the spool included in your kit and attach them as shown: from the A100K pot to the three connectors on the PCB.

With the PCB still sitting in the chassis, move to Step 12 by inserting the LED into its slot on the PCB, with the longest lead going into the hole marked “C.” DO NOT SOLDER just yet.

Installing The PCB  For Step 13, loosely mount the small three-way toggle switch to the chassis, and then carefully flip the PCB over into its final position at the top of the enclosure. Take your time, and guide the toggle switch into its place on the PCB, while simultaneously fitting the LED into its hole on the chassis, and of course the rotary switch as well.

This all sounds fairly difficult on paper, but in practice it’s actually pretty easy. To their credit, the PCBs from Build You Own Clone seem to be perfectly designed and sized, and you should find that everything fits together quite neatly.

With these pieces all mounted, finish tightening up the bolts on the toggle switch, and then flip the chassis back over and solder the LED and the toggle into their places on the PCB.

At this point your kit should look something like the photo on the right… woohoo, you rock!

It’s time for another break, so head down to the local pub, order yourself a fat pint of beer (I’ll take a Guinness Stout, thank you,) and get someone to pat you on the back for the hard work you’ve just finished.

We’re heading into the home stretch.

Populating the circuit board is easily the most time-consuming part of this whole project, so while I think you’ll enjoy the process––don’t expect it to be quick work. This section of the build took me a few hours to finish (it’ll go quicker next time.)

Installing The Diodes & Resistors  BYOC has done a very commendable job making the instructions easy to follow, but there were a few times that I found myself a bit confused as to the parts I was looking for.

In Step 1 of the instructions you’ll be soldering two diodes to the printed circuit board (PCB,) but unfortunately there is little identifying info provided. Luckily we’ve got deductive reasoning on our side ;)

Ultimately, in my kit the 9.1v zener ended up being a small black cylinder-shaped diode with a gray bar on one end, and the 1N4001 is the tiny orange & black diode in the center of this photo (right.)

When you place them on the board make sure you solder them with the striped end of the diode matching the striped end on the PCB’s diagram.

In Step 2 however, the many various resistors turned out to be much easier to decipher (you can see three of these in the photo,) though you’ll need to have your Parts Checklist handy for identification. They aren’t polarized, so you can solder them in either direction. There are 14 in all, so expect to spend some time on this step.

Installing The Trimpot & Jumper  Moving on to Step 3 of BYOC’s official instructions, we’re now going to add the 100k trimpot, and also a small jumper.

The trimpot installation is pretty straight forward, but you’ll want to note that it’s a circular unit, in spite of the PCB’s square diagram (see photo to the right.)

With the trimpot installed, flip the board over to the un-printed side to create the jumper.

Don’t know what a jumper is? You just need to create a solid connection between the two spots marked with yellow in Step 4 of the instructional PDF. You can use a piece of discarded lead from the resistors you’ve already installed. Just cut it to the correct length, bend it in the appropriate places, and solder it down.

Installing The Transistor Socket & Capacitors  In Step 5 we’ll be soldering the transistor socket to the PCB. Once again, being a complete newbie to this sort of thing I had no real idea what I was looking for, and BYOC’s instructions don’t really give you a clue, but suffice it to say that  the transistor socket is the circular black piece shown here.

Luckily, you really can’t screw this one up, because it will only fit into the board in one direction. Whatever you do, don’t go digging up the transistor itself––this is not the time to be soldering the actual transistor into this socket.

Step 6, adding the “47 micro” aluminum capacitors, is pretty straight forward. The capacitors are round and black, with one long lead and one shorter lead. The longer lead is the positive side, and it goes into the square soldering pad.

Solder these four pieces in and then take yourself a nice long break… go down to the corner cafe for an iced Mocha, take your dog for a walk, or hey––pick up your guitar!

In the next step we’ll finish populating the circuit board (you mean there’s more?) and we’ll start installing hardware into the chassis. Ciao!

The kit itself is just chock full of good stuff, including BYOC’s custom printed circuit boards (PCB,) which I’ve been told are so easy to use it’s like painting by numbers. In fact, taking a closer look at the board I’d say that’s probably true––these things are thoroughly marked up to show you where everything goes, and every thing’s been pre-tinned, which means the boards don’t have to be cleaned before use, and you’re much less likely to get a bad soldering joint.

Get Your Things In Order  I suppose the first thing we want to do here is head over to BYOC and download the PDF instructions (nope, there weren’t any with our kit,) and if at all possible print it out in color––if you don’t have access to a color printer, you can always follow along right from your computer screen.

OK, so once you’ve got your kit and instructions, you’re going to want to amass the basic tools required to put this bad boy together. Now, I don’t have a whole lot of experience soldering onto PCBs (read: none,) but from what I can gather all we should really need is:

1. Soldering Iron - decent quality, probably $20 - $30 from Radio Shack or the like.
2. Solder - a roll of medium duty resin-core solder, not too thin, not too thick.
3. Desoldering Braid - an easy way to clean up minor screw-ups.
4. Wire Clippers - something small for getting into those tight spaces.
5. Heat Sink - may not be necessary for this project, but good to have just the same.
6. Power Source - 9v battery, or ac adapter with 2.1mm ‘center pin negative’ power jack.

Of course, a tutorial on basic soldering is beyond the scope of this little walk-through, but if you Google it you should be able to learn the basics with just a bit of practice.

And wrapping up this first step––you might also want to take a run through your Tri Booster kit’s Checklist, just to make sure you’ve got every little capacitor and diode that you need before you get elbow deep into this project.

In the next step we’ll get into populating the printed circuit board.

Heck, I figure if I’m gonna’ get my hands dirty poking around inside various guitars, amps, stompboxes and the like I may as well invite you all to join me, right?

The way I see it, I’ll let you know in advance what projects will be coming up, and then if you’re interested in participating (and sharing a bit of the pain,) you can get the supplies you need to join in the fun. I’ll be documenting my work as I go, including photos, diagrams, and mp3s as required.

So Let’s Get Started

To make things easy, I’m kicking this off with a little pedal project: the B.Y.O.C. TriBooster. I chose the TriBooster as my first project because:

1. It comes in a kit with all the parts you need (minus the soldering iron and basic tools of course.)
2. I’m in bad need of a Boost pedal for my rig… I mean bad.
3. This pedal is getting rave reviews over at Harmony Central.
4. The TriBooster is actually three pedals in one––a classic Dallas Rangemaster treble boost clone, a silicon based Linear Power Boost clone, and of course a MosFET based Clean boost clone.

The entire kit runs just over $100 with shipping, which is a steal when you consider that you’d pay nearly twice that much for a pre-built Rangemaster clone alone.

OK… any takers? I’ll be starting the TriBooster project in about a week.