For my attempt, I’m fairly pleased with the results. The sound is pretty transparent. It’s a good circuit, not a tone killer like most of the cheap comps out there. In fact, I’ve found it to be transparent enough to double as a clean boost pedal. It has enough gain to drive my amp well into distortion without adding too much noise.

In case you’re interested, Small Bear Electronics and the Thaishine eBay store are great resources for parts, and there are a ton of sites out there with various schematics, such as Keen’s GeoFex and General Guitar Gadgets. I’m thinking about trying to build an octave-up pedal next.

The story goes (all secondhand information, BTW) that the owner of Stigtronics was an electronics repair guy who began modifying effects pedals (Tube Screamer conversions, etc.), got hooked, and started making his own effects.  They had a whole pedalboard full of his effects at Roadworthy, so I got to mess around with a bunch of stuff.  The Electron Drive sounded fantastic with my amp.  From what I’ve heard, it’s kind of like a modded Fulltone OCD design.  I found it to be a very musical distortion, full of beautiful overtones and depth.  Definitely worth checking out.  I wish there were more info out there about these pedals so I could link to some audio clips, but I guess you’ll have to wait until I get my hands on one…

I found the Marshall switchable jackplate at Antique Electronic Supply.  It allows the use of both speakers at 4 ohms or 16 ohms, or either speaker at 8 ohms.  With two heads or a stereo head, the cab could be run in stereo for more spacious chorus and delay effects.  So far I’ve used it with the Stulce SA-10H shown in the picture below, as well as my friend Pete’s Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier head, and it sounds great with both.

The speaker grills are basic 12″ metal waffle grills.  When I painted them, I achieved a texture similar to the amp head’s texture by spraying them with Valspar Stone paint and then spraying the red over that. If I wanted it to be durable, I could buy Valspar’s fixative spray and cover the stone paint with that before spraying it red.  But I think they’ll actually look better when they get a little scratched up, so I’m leaving them alone.

I installed two different speakers: One is a Tone Tubby Hempcone H1E Alnico, and the other is an H1E Ceramic.  I ordered them from South Valley Vintage Amps.  As I researched speakers, I found a really helpful GearNet review of a ton of speaker combinations—definitely worth checking out.

One of these days I’ll post some audio clips.  For now, pictures:

Back of cab

By the way, these pictures were taken in the elevator behind our stage, which has become our makeshift amp isolation booth.  We put the amp heads in the stage hallway so we can run cables to them, and we mic the cabs in the elevator or the back room.  Of course, it would look cooler if they were all on stage, but at the volume we run our services (roughly 90dB), there’s no way to get a tube amp to sound good and also make a sound guy happy.  :)

After staining, I applied three coats of semi-gloss polyurethane to the box, sanding lightly between each coat with fine sandpaper (220 or 320 grit).  I’m really happy with the color and sheen.  I debated between semi-gloss and glossy;  while I liked the glossy look, I was afraid there would be too much reflection off the cab from stage lighting.  After three coats of semi-gloss, I’m glad I went with that finish.

In this picture, the box has been stained and polyurethaned, but the speaker baffle has not.

Rear braces with a hole cut for the jackplate…

I added casters to the bottom of the cab.  It will be much easier to move that way.  If they rattle when I play, though, I’m taking them off.  Basically, they’re on probation.  We’ll see if they get chucked or not.

Getting ready to glue a brace.  I used the bracing technique described on the Dr. ZEE Workshop 2×8 cabinet project page. My cab is going to look quite different, but his instructions were helpful.

I clamped each brace before screwing it in so that it wouldn’t move.

I used larger clamps to put pressure on each side as the glue began to dry and I screwed the sides into the braces.

Here’s a close-up of how the sides are connected to the bottom:

Next up: Choosing stain colors for the box and the baffle, more sanding, staining, and polyurethane for shine and protection.