Cattlegrazer Boost/Fuzz Et Finito!

Once again I reach into my stash of vintage knobs and pull some out.  Seems like I keep winding up with pointer knobs (aka 'chicken head') on these things.  So it is.

As you can see, these are Daka-Ware knobs.  Made in the Windy City, City of Big Shoulders, Portal to the West, Second City, Meat Capital of the World, etc, aka Chicago.  One cool town if I do say so.

Since I had the selector switch on the Cattlegrazer, I figured a pointer knob was most appropriate.

Side note: the term "chicken-head" seems to have been coined by vintage geetar/amp aficionados.  There have been a couple of threads on the Antique Radio Forums (see my links) about "why do they call 'em 'chicken head' knobs?"  I agree, they don't look like a chicken's head; better to call 'em pointer knobs.  That's what the old radio guys, who were around back then, called 'em. 

Anyway.

Here's the finished 'Grazer.  As I mentioned earlier, almost right away I swapped some cap values.  There are a good variety of tones in this thing. 

The thinnest setting, at .002 uF, is plenty thin.  I find the middle ranges, .005 - .008, to be the best ones for me.   They range from treble boost with a touch of distortion, to a pretty raunchy/fuzzy tone.  These days I tend to like the cleaner/slightly dirty tones the best.

If you build a clone, you may find you like the fuzzier tones.  In any case, unlike my Weber Cattledrive, this puppy has plenty of gain to burn.  You can just use it as a volume boost too.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how much versatility it had.  Goes to show what a good circuit the Dallas Rangemaster was in the first place.

Now back to the bench for more fun!