Help Me Rescue A Fuzz Face For A New Guitarist? (Wiring Help Needed)

[MrShake]

Hey everyone!

[TL;DR = Please help me rewire this fuzz pedal to give to an adorable little eight-year-old beginner guitarist.]

When my bandmate and (still-) best friend moved away after college, he gave me a bunch of junky gear ‘cuz he knew I had a garage and hoarded gear. Flash forward 15 years and he has two beautiful daughters, one of whom is starting to play guitar. Dad stepped away from playing music for a long time and it’s caused him to tentatively start playing again, which I love. I fell in love with the idea of refurbing some of her Dad’s old gear and sending it to her as a gift, so I hauled out the dusty box with stuff I've never gotten around to fixing. I’ve already rescued a volume pedal and a Rat that had some issues, and have cleaned, polished, and set up that Epiphone Les Paul, just needs some cheap new humbuckers dropped in the routing.

But this Fuzz Face is killing me.

It’s a JH-2 model, the black, apparently pre-“Fuzz Face” Dunlop one, with pot codes dating it to 1987. When it “broke” back in about ’04, I’d be willing to bet one of the pots had spun around and then yanked a wire off of one of jacks or something. Since we had no concept of “fixing” stuff like this yet, he razed it for spare parts -- both of the jacks and the switch.



He and I were never much for Fuzz Faces in the traditional sense, but we liked the nastiness of this one, we’d even trade it off during practice sometimes for noisy freakouts.*

I can’t read a schematic yet, though I can poke around a circuit board alright with some instruction. But wiring, while coming into focus, is still confusing as hell to me. I understand the concepts, but putting them into practice is still rough, and I honestly don’t wanna kill this pedal by fixing it to death due to my own poor skills.

So, I’ve spent a couple days going over it carefully, mapping it out, etc. I’ve looked up a million wiring diagrams, but there seems to be something I’m missing, since both jacks and a switch missing is just too many variables for this amateur. But I want to learn, not just be handed a fish, and seeing how this is done might be a big breakthrough for me.

I spent a long overnight shift with pretty much just pen and paper, so please pardon the crude diagrams, I didn't work out the resistor values on the board detail, ceramic caps are vaguely football-shaped, and diodes have marked ends. Here are my problems to solve:



1) The DPDT switch is missing. I know I can use a spare 3PDT switch, but don’t know how to adjust for it and match these wires to the terminals. There are 5 loose wires, snipped right where the switch was. Two from the board, two from the input jack, and one from the middle lug of the volume pot. (See Diagram). Can anyone please match these up for me with the info provided ("E to 7", "C to 4", etc), as well as any terminal jumpers on the switch itself? (I’m aware of how to orient the 3PDT poles for the task, fwiw, see diagram?)

2) Those two wires (blue and orange) that stretch from the switch location to the missing input jack obviously aren’t connected to anything at either end. I don’t know which spots on the stereo input jack to connect to the battery or the two switch locations. Can anyone help? (i.e. “Tip connection on input jack to Switch 3”/“Sleeve connection on input jack to output jack tip”/“Ring connection to battery black”)

3) There’s no output jack, but also no wires headed to that empty spot. Where do I connect the tip and sleeve, respectively, from the (mono?) output jack terminals?

Assuming there weren’t any other wiring connections that disappeared (I don’t think so?), that SHOULD get me up and running, right? I have no reason to believe that the board or the pots have any problems, so it’s really wiring up the jacks and the switch, right? If I can get it fired up, I’m gonna gig it for a few months, make sure all the connections are solid and that it’s pretty bulletproof, then send it to the young lady to rawk. And I sure bet her Dad is gonna dig getting to play with some resurrected toys.

Thanks so much in advance for all your help. It means a lot being able to rescue sounds and memories from the scrapheap/junk box of time, especially since there’s a lot of sentimental reason for it.





[*Also, I’m aware that this is a largely undesirable Fuzz Face to connoisseurs. Frankly, neither of us were big Fuzz Face users back in the day (or now, really), but this one played right with our big noisy sound. So this isn’t about giving the young lady the best Fuzz Face I can, it’s about bringing back THIS SPECIFIC ONE. If it’s truly unusable, I can just buy a DIY kit, follow the instrux, and drop it into the housing. I just wanna bring this back from the dead bone stock, and I can tweak from there if it calls for it.]

[MrShake]

Did it! Scoured a bunch of wiring diagrams that weren't exactly how what I had was wired. Scared to screw with that handmade-tinfoil looking board. Made a few educated guesses, a few stabs in the dark. At one point, i had 2 wires and one terminal. I had a hunch they were both ground. So i twisted em together and slapped 'em in.

It was the first of my projects where I didn't have any hope of it working on the first test. But sure enough, it passed clean signal, and then... click... fuzz!

Harsh, nasty fuzz. I was and am thrilled it works. But have to confess, I was secretly hoping I'd think it was better after 15 years. In some ways.

But, most of the decent volume at the last third of the dial, but don't hit unity gain til 8-9? Check. Weird fuzz range, and not much of that SiFF I hear so much about? Check. Pretty far from that classic Hendrix vibe? Check. Basically? Exactly as I remember it. (Mostly. Just a little weaker in our modern Fuzz Golden Age.). Frankly, if I didn't have some long-ago experience with this one and know what it WASN'T, I might have worried I'd screwed something up.

So, I get the reputation, but it's not worthless. And the story about it being non-Fuzz Face back in '87 lends it some charm.

That said, I remember why I liked it. A nasty, almost-splatty grind. I dunno what I'd liken it to with a little volume boost and fuzz maxed, but maybe closer to something like Mudhoney than any other Fuzz Face I've played.

I'm gonna enjoy messing with it a bit more, but it's nice to have it back in order and have a chance to give it a second life on it's fuzz journey.

Thanks for reading.

[Shadoweclipse13]

Great job repairing it! Cool story, and I totally dig the idea of giving it to your friend's daughter. She'd probably get a kick out of using some old gear of her dad's. Love it!!!

[somanytoys]

Damn, that’s a really cool story and a great thing for you to do, fixing old things from her Dad’s Time Capsule box to gift to her. I would think that would jazz her desire to play as well.

It may not be a great fuzz, but I would think that she’s going to like just having a fuzz, and especially that it was her dad’s and that you repaired it just for her. I bet he gets a big kick out of it as well. Really cool.

Thanks for sharing that, and glad you got it going again.

[fuzzjunkie]

Often the nasty, splatty fuzz sound terrible alone, but are the ones that cut through in a band.

Not something to leave on all the time, but to accentuate that riff that sounds boring on own.

[Stratelejazzuar]

This is great, I also just dug one of these out of a buddy's old parts bin. No awesome daughter back-story, but I want to get this non-FF running to play with and maybe modify a la JHS style.

The main problem I have is that the board was transplanted into a Jaguar style rhythm circuit, and several wires were disconnected and or replaced... so after digging around online, I found your post with lots of pics that should help me piece things back together

[somanytoys]

It’s pretty cool how things like this come back around and help other people. Good luck, I hope you get yours working as well.

That line above in the OP still cracks me up - “don’t want to kill this pedal by fixing it to death”.