vintage BJFe Model H Custom Shop (Elfa) serial #16

Model H (MH) - Pete Townshend's Hiwatt (39 DonnerBox, 77 in K-430 enclosures). This was originally designed with a Les Paul. So far there have been two versions of the circuit; like all research pedals the first batch has more "klang" and headroom, which is great on the right rig, but then they get tweaked for wider appeal and the Model H is still in the tweaking process. The first version of the Model H, now known as V1, came in Sparkling Black DonnerBoxes with the majority of the rest being in see-though black with swirls. V2 of the circuit, introduced at serial number #070, has less low mids and is a bit more aggressive and not as "dark" on most amps. The V2 enclosures tend to be in opaque black. There is also a limited research version of the Model H, called the Model HT, that has an internal treble trimmer (see below). There are a few Model H pedals with different paint jobs such as:
- There is a small batch with a textured look/feel - Donner tried to get the paint to react so it would shriven up to look like Tolex on a Hiwatt.
- There is a see-though black one with a H finger painted on top.
- Serial numbers #067 to #069 have a solid black paint job with white lettering - this is because BJ had thought of introducing the V2 circuit and a new paint scheme at #067 but he was not sure of the circuit so he held off and these pedals ended up with the V1 circuit instead. When he did introduce the V2 circuit at #070 he also decided on a more opaque colour scheme rather than the proposed black with white lettering.
- There is one "10th Anniversary" V2 pedal painted by Gunner in black with gold leaf to celebrate 10 years of BJFE - this pedal resides in China.
Some other individual pedal differences are:
- The very first Model H's had such a wide frequency response that one stage could pick up radio under certain circumstances so in later pedals BJ restricted the bandwidth at that stage.
- Due to a smear in the paper of the schematic one value of a capacitor got the wrong decimal and so some V1 units have more low mids than they should.
- Serial number #070 is actually signifiant as it is from and including #070 that V2 of the circuit was implemented. BJ had to make a decision at #067 whether he would implement the V2 circuit and decided to slightly delay its implementation at #070. The owner later sent #070 to BJ and had it further modified to add the second version of the Model HT treble trimpot.
- On later V2 pedals BJ has marked on the solderside of the PCB two points and you can short to convert the pedal to a V1 circuit.
The backplate artwork is a windmill in a field - invoked Pete's windmill action.