Pedaltrain-Inspired DIY Pedal Board

This was my old SKB PS-25 pedal board, mid-2012.

After the pedalboard power supply died last year, I purchased a Visual Sound 1 Spot, and continued using the old SKB just as a convenient velcro surface to hold my pedals.

As the Drop Daddies’ repertoire of cover tunes has expanded, so has my need to produce an ever-increasing variety of sounds.  So my complement of pedals has gradually been expanding.  I’m generally not a big fan of modelers, but I added the Zoom G3x for flexibility with delays, choruses and phasers, etc.  It has a fairly sizeable footprint, so I pulled off my Ernie Ball volume pedal, since I could use the G3X for volume if necessary. 

Even so, I needed more space.  I have been intrigued by the Pedaltrain Pro– but the price is high for such a simple thing.

Time for some creative woodworking!  I rarely get a chance to combine my woodworking and guitar hobbies.

I was planning to paint it black, so the wood didn’t need to be beautiful.  I chose poplar because it’s a strong hardwood, and  it’s relatively inexpensive since it tends to be an ugly shade of greenish yellow.

I had some rough poplar lying around from another project, so I thickness-planed it down to a bit under 3/4”.  I cut five 32” long strips, around 2.5” wide on the table-saw.   Then I cut 3 triangular leg supports, 16 1/4″ in length, and tapering form 2 1/4” to just 1/4” (more on the taper jig below).  Wood flexes more than aluminum, so this approach with 3 leg supports will provide a sturdier base in wood, than the PedalTrain’s single back-edge support. Avoiding flex is important when you consider how much force is required to kick on a wah pedal, etc.

On the drill-press, I drilled three countersunk holes in each strip- to screw into the leg supports.

I’ll come back and add a few more holes later, for stability.

Then I laid the top and bottom strips over the legs and screwed them into place with drywall screws.  Next, I did some math, based on the space between these boards, and the total width of the rest of the strips, and cut a couple of spacers.

Once the pedal board is fully assembled and loaded up with pedals, there will be wires running everywhere.  So to give a little more space for routing the wires through the gaps in the center leg, it’ll be helpful to cut some notches.

With all the strips in place, I used a pencil to mark the gaps onto the tops of the center leg, and then removed the leg and extended the lines down.

I marked X’s in the notches to remind myself where the waste would be. 

Then I used a bandsaw to cut the notches in the center leg.  A jigsaw or handsaw would’ve worked fine too.

For good side-to-side stability, to avoid racking, I  drilled an additional 2 holes at the top and bottom of the two side legs.

Should’ve done this earlier at the drill-press, but better late than never!

Ready for finishing!  I laid out the project on a big piece of cardboard, resting on a couple of thin strips.  This doesn’t need to be perfect- so I didn’t bother priming.  Just a quick sanding, and then a can of semi-gloss black spray paint.

As is inevitable in quick projects like this- only after finishing did I realize that the whole thing was a bit too tall.  With a few pedals resting on the back of the pedal board, I felt like I was having trouble balancing, while raising my foot so high in the air.

Time for a minor adjustment!

I removed all the screws and took the legs back to the table-saw to down-size a bit.  I clamped a couple of spacers to my cross-cut sled to make a simple taper jig.   I had originally made them 3” tapering to 3/4”- here I’m reducing them to their final size of 2 1/4” tapering to 1/4”.

To finish off the pedal board,, I bought a pack of heavy duty rubber feet at the local hardware store.   And I ordered 10 feet of Pedalboard Carpeting from LYT Pedalboards.   I cut this into strips sized to fit the wood strips of the pedalboard.  I cut a hole in the center where the screw fits into the legs, just in case I ever need to disassemble this thing.   After cutting strips of velcro hook for all my pedals, I ended up ordering an additional 6 feet of Velcro Hook.

A few days after completing the project, I used it at a local bar gig, and it worked out great.  But I quickly realized that I needed a case.   What could possibly work better than the soft case made for the pedal train pro itself?  I lucked out and found one for a reasonable price, but if I had to pay full price for that case plus the cost of the wood, and the velcro, it would only be a bit more to buy the actual pedal train pro with gig bag.

I enjoyed the project, and it’s rock solid.

In the last year, I’ve used this pedal board at dozens of rehearsals and gigs, and it has held up great.  Here are a couple shots of my current pedal board: