Pedal Board Fixation
As I browsed e-bay today I found a guy selling hardware to attach effects pedals to a board in a new way. Those that know me understand that a) I’m a cheapskate b) I’m a tinkerer, and c) I love plywood.
I built a lap steel case out of plywood. It weighs a ton, but I can check my steel when I fly and it cost me $16 dollars to build this case as opposed to $99 for the hardshell case I could’ve bought at GC.
I’ve also built a pedal board for my electric guitar effects that uses plywood. The whole thing fits in a suitcase which used to be my merchandise case back when I hawked merch.
So here’s what I love about the guys hardware – Basically, it was an old bike chain. I love bikes, I tinker on bikes, and I’ve got old bike chains lying around so I thought to myself, it’s a bummer I don’t need a pedal board. But wait, where there’s a want, theres a need! So I made myself an acoustic pedal board as an excuse to use an old bike chain to mount a direct box to a piece of plywood.
And here’s how.
1) Here’s a shot of what I started with:
2) Using a chain breaker (twisting a screwdriver between links would work too) I seperated some links:
3) For my A/B switch I had to bend the links at a 90 degree angle, since the screws are on the side of the box.
4) On the DI I was able to use the links flat (as you would on any Boss type pedal), but I did have to put longer screws into the bottom of the box since the existing screws weren’t long enough to hold it together once the link was placed in there.
5) Next I used a square to measure out the placement of the pedals – if you don’t care about symmetry, just get out the drill and pre-drill your holes
6) Next I juxtaposed altoid boxes with the DI to hold picks, capos, and curiously strong breath mints that come in handy when shmoozing the crowd after singing and drinking coffee for 2 hours. The tuner is not attached because the majority of the time I carry it in my guitar/mandolin/banjo case so I wanted it easily accessible. If I run across a deal on velcro I might add that for my tuner, though for the most part velcro has let me down in past pedal exercises
7) Ah yeah, this board is tight – ain’t no pedals goin’ nowhere – y’all down wit dat? If this kid can’t shake ’em off – nobody can.
8) And it fits in a convenient american tourist briefcase that my dad used to carry to work when I was 7. I’m glad I held on to this fine piece of union made luggage.
In conclusion, I probably didn’t need to build this, but c’mon, bike links to affix a pedal? It’s Ikea smart, so whoever came up with this idea is a genius, hats off to him/her. Now that I’ve built it, I do like the idea of being able to have everything ready to go, which makes club gigs a lot easier when you have 10 minutes between bands – and in side man gigs when I have a 3 or 4 instruments to set up I hopefully won’t keep the bass player waiting too long. (It seems like bass players just show up and plug in- what gives Mr. Rimbo? Is it really that easy?) So now I’m ready for some high profile gigs, and if you play your cards right, you might get some of those gigs yourself. Keep praciticing,
Nathan ‘the home despot’ Houge