Joe's pedalboard build

joeyowen

Dear Diary,

I love pedalboards. A lot. More so then pedals.  Helweg, Salvage, Creation music company, west coast pedalboards etc... are all up my street.  So I've decided to build my own! Because I love DIY and I <sarcasm> have so much spare time on my hands </sarcasm>.

As of now I don't have a space to tolex, so that will wait for a later build, however I'll decide a nice wood and make it pretty.  Plus, tolex is soooo fucking expensive in the UK so it seems.  

The bed will be flat, with a raised tier to house the power supply.  The board itself will be flighcase esq, and will live in a nice case (yep, making the board boring and the case nice makes perfect sense).

I'm going to have an electrosocket input jack to the Boss Tu3.  The output will be straight from the Blue sky.  There will be an IEC input for ease of setting up.  The wires will be Mogami 2319 with hicon pancakes and switchcraft 380 jacks.  The power cables will terminate to length so it's tidy.

So stick around for updates and I'll post as I go, no idea on a timescale.

joeyowen

Numero 1.

Put the pedals on a board to see how big it will be.  The pedals on the board will be (in order):

• Boss Tu3
• Diamond Comp jr*
• Ehx nano pog*
• Prince of Tone
• Bogner Red
• MXR Phase 90 script
• Boss FV500
• Source Audio Nemesis*
• Strymon Blue Sky
• MXR CAE MC403

* I don't own them yet

Here is the proposed layout, with blocks in place of the not yet owned pedals. (probs to Source Audio and Diamond for answering nagging questions on size and power)

joeyowen

Nothing exciting to report at the moment, been away with work and CPC are delivering some stuffs tomorrow!  I'm selling my PT2 so no return now.  

Next steps are to cut the board, laminate the board and put the U channel extrusions around the edges.

joeyowen

I managed to give my pedals some TLC 

Mostly cleaning up the pedals really, removing all the old velcro ready for dual lock.  Making sure all connections were tight, the surfaces were clean using cloth and cotton buds etc... As you can tell by all the crap on the desk, this was overdue.  here is a before and after

I then took all the batteries out and taped up the ends (not sure how much truth is in the tape element, but might as well not risk eh)

Here is the MXR

Mkjackary

What is the tape battery myth? Never heard of it before

randomhandclaps

You did use vintage tape didn't you?

joeyowen

Supposedly that the exposed battery connector can touch other metals and cause mischief. I really don't think there is anything in it, but for the sake of a little tape eh

And nope, used only the finest transparent tape

Danny1969

If the pedals designed right then inserting a DC adapter switches the battery to open circuit I would have thought but you never know 

joeyowen

@Danny1969 I'm inclined to agree. 

I've seen a fair few builds and spoke with some builders who all tape the ends.  I think people do it because someone else did, and it's carried weight that way

joeyowen

Not the most exciting today, but the board is cut.  From 1/2inch birch ply (sorry for the blurred pic)

Next steps,

wait for the feet to arrive, then buy Tnuts and bolts.  Then a spade bit to ident them into the wood.

The the formica laminate will go on

Then U Channel edges

Then the riser

etc..

etc...

joeyowen

Still waiting on the feet, so I painted the underside of the board. (gripping I know)

I used left over blackboard paint we have after painting my son's new art thingy

So here is is, all ready to be written on

joeyowen

A BIG BOX OF HICON! and Mogami 2319  Heatshrink is here too.

Need to get the laminate on first before I build the cables, hopefully it will arrive soon

joeyowen

Trial foot fitted: 

joeyowen

ohhh progress is slow! It will speed up when funds allow, but I need the laminate, adhesive, dual lock and extrusions yet, and I'm all spent up at the mo!

Anyways, sorting our the tier to house the top row of pedals above the CAE power supply.  The power is awkward as you need the front clear for the 9/18v and the side clear for the kettle input

So I made the sides with a cut out for the lead.

enter cock up: The height will increase when the dual lock goes under the supply, so that was a wasted effort really.... anyways, the picture shows the idea: