Why is it some trannie legs have plastic wires on them......
going into the board? What I mean is take an old super fuzz or tone bender. When you look at the trannies going into the board you do not see the bare metal of the legs. It looks as if there was some sort of plastic sheilding that is around the legs. What is this and why is it there? Sorry for the crazy question but I thought I would ask.

Like this around the OC76 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260265743564

As the legs are long and are so close together it just stops them shorting against each other.

Thanks for the reply. What material is used and where do I buy it? Is it like a heatshrink?

I just strip some wire and use the plastic jacket for insulating transistor legs.

I've never seen a Superfuzz or any other silicon transistors with any insulation wires or anything like that. Its a germanium thing I'm gonna make an educated guess and say that the colors denote the legs of the trannies (collector, base, emitter). Since germaniums can be fried by temperature you gotta make sure you put them in the right way before soldering. If you put them in the wrong way and need to desolder/resolder them to put them in the right way there probably no good by then. --Brad

I met a trannie in a bar in Hamburg a long while ago who had a false leg that may have been plastic :lol: