Oak pedalboard build

james

I've made a start on my new pedalboard. Trying to find something in the garage, I came across some 10mm oak, which is what started this idea. While I thought that would be strong enough for the frame itself, it wouldn't give much depth for dowels and attaching hinges. Digging a bit deeper, I found some 19mm, so here we go! 

The design is to overcome the two issues with my current board, namely: having to turn it over to access the power supply; and that two Origin pedals can't fit one above the other. 

I've cut out the basic shape. I'm going to use dowels and butt joints. The idea is a lower tier with the front row and power supply, and a hinged upper tier for the second row. 

It's 450x380, and 120mm at the back, dropping to about 45mm at the front.

james

The next job is to source the sheet wood for the base and shelf. I've got some 9mm cheap B&Q-type ply, but is 12mm a better option? The base will be recessed in to the sides, and the whole thing glued and dowelled together. 

I'm planning on using 12mm birch for the hinged shelf. 

strat84

Nice job so far and a great idea to have a hinged upper tier! I did a similar build earlier this year, also in 19mm Oak 

Looking forward to seeing this progress 

james

strat84 said:

Nice job so far and a great idea to have a hinged upper tier! I did a similar build earlier this year, also in 19mm Oak 

Looking forward to seeing this progress 

Thanks. Your build looks great, and was one of the threads I referenced when deciding on the 19mm. 

How did you make the hand cut outs on the bottom edge? Template and router? 

strat84

james said:

strat84 said:

Nice job so far and a great idea to have a hinged upper tier! I did a similar build earlier this year, also in 19mm Oak 

Looking forward to seeing this progress 

Thanks. Your build looks great, and was one of the threads I referenced when deciding on the 19mm. 

How did you make the hand cut outs on the bottom edge? Template and router? 

Oh, thank you very much 

I just clamped a straight edge on top leaving around 8 or 10mm of the Oak protruding and used a flush trim bit. I set the clamps so they would stop the router where I wanted the cut outs to end. 

Not very sophisticated but it worked well 

james

@strat84 simple is often the best way!

Safe to say, this project will move slowly! Family and work commitments mean the daylight hours are generally filled with other things, but I can keep improving and refining the design from my desk to maximise the efficiency of the time I do get in the garage. 

I've decided on a 3mm round-over (as that's a cutter I have already), so have moved the front and rear verticals in slightly, so as to clear the round-over of the sides, and also trimmed 3mm off the bottom of the rear piece, so that clears at the top as well. 

I've also bumped both the base and shelf to 12mm ply, so I can get both from one quarter sheet. 

Mocked up, everything still looks comfortable for a pair of Revival Drives and a Zuma.

I'm not sure where the hinges will land the shelf exactly, but there is room for a bit of variance. I'm planning on leaving a gap between the shelf and the rear vertical, and only cutting one slot in the shelf. Once I have decided on hinges, I will have a better idea of how it all sits in both the up and down positions. 

james

One thing I'm struggling to find is a signal-only patch box designed to mount on a vertical face with screws, rather than a horizontal one via velcro. 

james

I was, however, really pleased to find these pass-through connectors for the power: https://sinolec.co.uk/en/c13-iec-connectors/1211831-iec-c14-to-c13-converter.html

james

Managed to do a bit more work on the board today, however, the mistakes were twofold. 

Firstly, I forgot to inset the rear panel, meaning it's currently flush with the side panels. Not in itself a problem, other than I messed up one of the dowel locations and it now sits proud. 

The Wolfcraft dowel jig I had bought was okay, but a bit too flex to be accurate so ended up clamping it, which is where I think the misplacement occurred. 



Needing some positivity, and now I had a flat-pack pedalboard framework, I did a dry test run, and I'm reasonably happy with how it's coming together. 



I'm really happy with how the front and rear panels sitting lower than the sides looks. 



Mocked up with some pedals, to give an idea of space on the bottom layer. The CE-5 won't feature, but it was nice to see I have room for a couple of always on pedals tucked under there if required. 

Seeing it like this confirmed taking 1cm off the side depth won't cause any issues, and will allow me to redo the dowel alignment. I had originally designed the depth to accommodate a pair of Revival Drives, one on the bottom and one on the top, which will never realistically happen. Handily, the over-sizing has given me a margin for error. 

The plywood for the base and shelf arrives tomorrow, so I should be able to get the groove it sits in cut, as well as the boards cut to size, over the weekend. 

james

Getting out to the garage at lunch times to do a bit of work on the pedalboard has felt great, especially as the first week back to work after Christmas coincides with the workload ramping up to our busiest period, all of which is desk based. 

Despite not everything going to plan, I'm really enjoying the experience of not only following my original plans, but how to adapt them to overcome any of the issues that come up. 

As per my last post, I chopped 1cm off the rear edges of the sides, then re-drilled the dowel holes using some dowel centre pins to translate the actual hole locations to the other piece. The holes are looking good and like they will line up! 





That done, I cut the 12mm channel around all four inner edges, which the base will sit in. I'll square the ends of the channel with a chisel later.



Then I rounded the edges where required. This felt great to do, and the wood feels so much more tactile and finished with it done.



Test fitting the ply to channel fit, spot on!

I'm picking some sash clamps up from Screwfix tomorrow, and I should get the ply cut, meaning it's very close to the glueing stage. 

Before assembly, I still need to source and cut a hole for the IO panel, and cut the hole for the IEC pass-through. 

james

I'm thinking of hinges like this for the top shelf: https://www.screwfix.com/p/hafele-steel-90-easy-mount-hinges-95mm-2-pack/1121j

Do I need sprung or unsprung ones? 

james

Saturday has afforded me a little more garage time. I cut the base out, then using the new sash clamps, was able to dry fit everything together. I was really pleased that it actually came together and looks like a usable pedalboard! 



The rounding over and joints have worked out really nicely. 



At that point, I should have patted myself on the back and called it a day. Buoyed with the progress above, I cracked on and managed to mess up the top shelf. Checking a few images online would have been a good sanity check at this point, but the 32mm flat bit was out and the holes were made. I've made the one on the top edge way, way bigger than it ought to be. 

With some pedals on the board, it looks like I may have got away with it (provided I do some creative velcro cutting), but I'm still in two minds about ordering some more ply and redoing it. 

Bottom layer:



And with the shelf balanced in place:

Chris.B

This is shaping up to be a really elegant pedal board, a world away from the folded metal type - good luck with the remainder of the build. 

james

@Chris.B thank you for the kind words. Quite different to the pedal train it replaces. 

james

I've decided to persist with the shelf I cut out yesterday. Ultimately, it's a case of unscrewing the hinge from one shelf, and attaching the other, if I ever decide to replace it. 

By keeping it, I save a bit of wood, and I'll get to trying rounding over ply, which I haven't done before.

Also, populated with pedals, it's not really noticeable! 

viz

Yours is lovely! I just hinged my shite-wood one and it works well. 

james

viz said:

Yours is lovely! I just hinged my shite-wood one and it works well. 

Well that's awesome! The functionality it brings is great. I'm looking forward to never turning my board upside down to access wiring again! 

james

No work on the board today. Hopefully I'll get out there tomorrow over lunch to round over the shelf. 

I've had no luck finding a vertically mounted I/O panel, and looking at the construction of the Schmidt Array one, I can see why no one else makes one, and why I probably won't either. 

As such, I think a Bright Onion (https://brightonion.co.uk/products/7-gang-patchbox-side-sockets) will do the job, and I'll dual lock it up against the hole in the side of the board. I have five cables (stereo return on the fx loop), and having a couple spare seems a good idea. 

Hinges and ball catches have arrived. I've cut my top tier with 4mm clearance at the sides, too much for the catches to work, so I think I'll use the catch side of the catch, and a dowel pin for the other half.

The hinges close to an angle slightly less that 90º, which handily puts their closed angle almost spot on to the angle the board sides slope. 

james

Today's headache is courtesy of the hinges. So far, I had designed the slope of the upper tier in really nothing more than a vaguely ergonomic and aesthetically pleasing angle. It roughly matched the angle of the sides, designed in much the same way.

The closed position of the hinges gives roughly 6º drop. The sides are 12º. Therefore, to keep the shelf 'in' the pedalboard, with no part showing above the sides, the whole shelf needs to sit lower than I had originally planned. So long as my power supply and, slightly taller, a Boss pedal will fit underneath, I don't mind. 

That sorts the aesthetics and function of the closed position. However, with the hinge-and-shelf assembly lowered, the open position will hit the back panel. 

A picture probably speaks a thousand words here. The grey parts are the already built frame and base. The red group is the shelf and hinge in the lower position. That gives 55mm (front) and 72mm (rear) clearance, enough for a Boss pedal so long as it's more to the back.



When open, the hinge unit separately and this is shown by the green group. It wouldn't actually make it to that position. The point of impact on the back panel would prevent it really opening at all. 

As I see it, my best course of action is to take 8mm off the top of the back panel, so I can run the shelf from the red position, and clear the back in the green. 

That's quite a wall of text for anyone reading, so my apologies for that, but this is probably written to get it all straight in my own head! 

james

Here's today's brain dump. 

I'd been thinking about cutting down the back panel to give the shelf the space it needs in the up position, but I wasn't happy with how that would leave the back panel to side panel relationship. 

I can't cut down and reprofile the sides because of the uppermost dowel location. 

Instead, I think I am going to cut the rear panel out with a step down to it, then cut out the matching corner of the shelf. This will allow the hinge assembly to sit lower, and the cut outs in the shelf will clear the higher edges of the back panel. 

Here's another mock up showing the above, with the shelf in the up position, as viewed from the inside of the board. The red area is what I will cut away. The green shows the hinge contact points in the open position. I think this mockup retains the overall aesthetic I am aiming for, and keeps the individual parts cohesive. 

I'll make sure the oak rear panel is cut exactly where it needs to be, or perhaps less so I can do another, deeper pass with the router if needed. The shelf is somewhat disposable so I will make sure any trial and error is done on that side of the pairing. 

I should be able to fit the IEC connector in the bottom corner as well, meaning I can place the Zuma as close to the left hinge as I can. 

I'm also thinking the spring sprung hinges might be a bit too strong, so I'm going to pick up some unsprung ones. I think they will be easier to position too! 

james

Here's the rear panel dip roughed out. I'll tidy the ends up and do the round overs this weekend. I'm happy with how it came out, despite my router guide slipping at one point, and having to do another pass 2mm lower than I had planned to finish at. 

I was a bit nervous making this cut. I had what looked like a completed pedalboard frame sitting in my study, and I was about to take the router to it again. As each piece receives more steps of the process, the risk factor of messing it up and losing that work goes up too. 

On a similar note, I am thinking of redoing the shelf again. That's why I haven't cut the corners out yet. I'm not sure it's worth taking a piece of wood I'm not happy with through all those steps and processes. 

The hinges, catches, power connector and Osmo finish are all here now, but I can't really progress things until the patchbay arrives, as that will be easier to cut out from a flat piece of wood on the bench, than an assembled board. Then, I can glue it together! 

Shown here with my two test pedal scenarios; RD on front row, and Boss under the shelf. Both tests still passing, and the takeaway box is a bit too short, so the shelf is a few mm lower than it will end up. 

I keep wondering if I should have just bought a Schmidt Array. With how much goes in to the design, I see more value in them now