Custom 4 Tier Pedalboard build

[G.Bisson]

My arsenal of effects continues to outgrow my reaches and stretching to reach effects is working for me. So I purchased a Carl Martin Octaswitch to simplify switching and keep my signal chain cleaner. But the darn thing is so big and heavy and requires so many connections that it isn't working well with my current Gator Pro pedalboard. Obvious solution: Custom Pedalboard. My first board build.

The design will have to include: All my existing pedals and hopefully make room for future additions. Cable routing has to be easily accessible to accommadate top or side jacks and minimize cable lengths. All pedals have to be easily reachable while sitting on a stool without stretching and without disrupting my playing. There must be space available for a splitter, d.i., and more than one power supply. Floor space is at a premium, it is better to go up than out. Elevated pedals must be angled. Pedals shouldn't overlap, all knobs should be exposed and readily tweakable.

After spending spare work hours laying out a design in AutoCAD I have come up with a four tier design built like a cabinet. There will be a hinged back panel for access to power supplies and cables. The top tier also will be shaped for a 1U rack d.i., maybe a future Sansamp RBI? Currently the lid is designed to slide in and out on brakets, but I'm not too happy with this design and trying to rethink something envolving hinges.


All the parts are sized to the pieces of scrap wood I have lieing around: half a sheet of 3/8" plywood left over from a previous home inprovement project, and six feet lengths of 7/8" x 2-1/2", 3/4" x 1-1/2", 3/4" x 4-9/16" pulled from the dumpster near my rehearsal space. Here they are photographed after cutting them up.

[G.Bisson]

Not stopping to take pictures here is the aftermath of five hours of measuring, marking, securing, cutting, sanding, and cleaning up.
Note the holes that were already existing in the 3/4"x1-1/2" boards. LED's may end up going in there at a future date. The piece that is clamped is going to be the top tier and the cutout in the middle is sized for a 1U rack unit.


here are the first two tiers layed out before cutting the angled support.


And here is the supports after cutting, clamped together with a board to guide the cutting blade. This photo also shows most of the tools I used: jigsaw, measuring tape, rasp, sanding sponge, knife, clamps, steel wool, and marking pencil.


everything positioned and matching up before gluing.


Taking out the glue now, first thing is to glue the angled supports to the upper tier and clamp together. The heavy old school grinder in placed ontop to help press it together.


Left that to dry overnight then screwed in the tier to the supports using the screws taking from the holes shown previously. The next day I ran out to Home Depot and bought more clamps, as well as 6 feet of 3/4" dowel for the base of these tiers. The 3/4"x1-1/2" wood I had available was not going to work. Measured, cut, and sanded the dowel, positioned all the pieces for the two tiers, and than glued and clamped the top to the bottom.

[BassistFreak416]

very nice, love the design.
gotta ask, have u ever considered going midi. i know they have rack-mounted switchers that you hook the pedals to, and use a pedal on the floor to select presets of your pedals? or does making a pedal parking structure sound more fun to u?

[G.Bisson]

This is where my pedalboard is at the end of the second day. Takin' shape!



The 3/8" plywood is a little flexible along the top tier so I cut a center support for it then glue and screwed it in place. Left that to dry while I waited for the rain to stop on sunday. When it did it, I took it outside for two coats of spray paint.




Really happy with how the paint turned out! It has an awesome metallic sheen. It's so pretty I wish I didn't have to cover it with velcro. The 3rd tier is shown below along with the paint, Rust-Oleum Brown Hammered finish.



Next day came the velcro. $35 for 15 foot roll, biggest expensive of the project. I only used about 10 feet of velcro to cover the three tiers. For extra security I also stapled the velcro down at the edges and center.

[MNAirHead]

Thanks for posting this..

I'm considering doing something like this as will be going IEM wireless...

I don't like having a ton of gadgets to dork with.

[G.Bisson]

Done with the tiers! Loaded them up for full effect (pun intended). The first two tiers are joined together and will be removable from the cabinet so I can always cut back or go light. For now they are all powered by a 1Spot but when my PP2+ arrives it will have room to fit underneath the upper tier. Because of the number of pedals that will fit in the finalized cabinet (~15) the 1Spot is still going to be necessary. Notice that screw hole in the center support, going to fit a LED in there later and power it from the 1Spot.




And here is the proposed final layout, supported on boxes until the cabinet is built. The 3rd tier will be angled.



I'll start building the cabinet once I finalize my design for a lid. Until then, I have myself modular pedal boards.

[bassteban]

scha-WEENG

[knarleybass]

nice work

[G.Bisson]

Originally Posted by BassistFreak416

very nice, love the design.
gotta ask, have u ever considered going midi. i know they have rack-mounted switchers that you hook the pedals to, and use a pedal on the floor to select presets of your pedals? or does making a pedal parking structure sound more fun to u?

I don't know much about midi and as I've already invested enough in an analog solution so I haven't looked into it.
But I do know that I really want to avoid going to a rack setup and want to keep everything layed out in front of me so I can adjust knobs to different favorite settings.
These pedals are part of my basement noodling setup and never go anywhere. I want to build a piece of furniture to house them in, thus the parking structure . Besides DIY is alot more fun, and it's all CUSTOM to my needs. It serves many many purposes all contained in one secure cabinet that can me moved later on.

[Robertron]

Boiyoiyoiyoiyoiynggg

Nice build

[One Bad Monkey]

That thing is CRAAAAZZZZZYYYYYYYYYY!!!!! And it makes me happy in that mad scientist, "It's alive! ALIVE!" type of feeling.

Nice job, it really looks great! You've got me looking at my scrap wood in the basement, thinking about making a new board.

[bassbmx]

Look great! I really like the idea of multi tiered boards. The Pedal Train boards are really nice but I'm sure I would knock my settings with my heel with them all on the same level.

Planning ahead to my mega-board, I'm going to put half a dozen pedal underneath with the power supplies and use bypass loops to turn them on and off.

[G.Bisson]

Originally Posted by One Bad Monkey

"It's alive! ALIVE!"

I totally shouted that as loud as I could after jammin on it yesterday!

[G.Bisson]

Here is my progress over the past few weeks. I begin building the cabinet that will support and enclose the pedal tiers.

Continuing to use up leftover 3/8" plywood cut to 22" wide for all the lateral walls. Below is a picture of the base that will cradle the OctaSwitch. The sides are cut from the 7/8" scrap. The back of them are cut to 30degree angle for attaching the hatch panel later.



After working with 3/8" plywood for awhile I realize it just isn't sturdy enough to support weight without flexing. For the main vertical weight bearing walls I went out and bought 3/4" plywood, a 2'x4' presanded panel ($20). Also bought 6' of 1" square dowel for the rest of the framing ($3). Below are all the main walls cut, framed, and laid out.



Time to piece it all togeather. Started with gluing the back wall to the sides wall. Very important that these corners fit up as perpendicular as possible. Will be securing everything on the tile floor because it is a flatter surface than my gnarly workbench, and lay down scrap paper to protect both surfaces! Really could have used some long slide clamps here, but I work with what I've got. Two- 40lbs buckets of kitty litter, that will hold it tight.



Leave that to dry overnight. The next day I nail on some feet.



And then glue on the base. Hurrying to align the base flat to the other edges while the glue gets tough and readjust things as tightening the clamps causes it to slide.



Leave to dry overnight. Then comes the hatch panel. Cut out the inside of the panel by starting a hole with a drill than using the jigsaw. The jigsaw had trouble making tight bends around the corners so I used a scroll saw to make a pilot cut. Nailed the panel to the base during gluing as the clamps weren't helping on this angled piece.



A view of the hatch panel access.



And what it looks like from underneath.



One solid week of progress. Another posting coming in a moment as I show what I've been doing this week. Trying to have this pedalboard semi-completed for the Virginia/DC area GTG coming this sunday.

[Robertron]

Very impressive. I can't wait to see the finished product!

[G.Bisson]

The box portion of my pedalboard cabinet has been completed. Time to fit in the shelves and thier supports. I ran into obstacles at this point. The shelves wont fit, but its close, oh so close that a little (LOT!) work will make it fit togeather. All the lateral pieces were cut to 22 inches... well my cuts aren't perfectly straight (hey, its hard cutting straight lines with a jigsaw!), my angles aren't exactly perpendicular (my workbench is pieced togeather from coarse wood chunks), and my glue joints aren't perfectly flush (limited number of clamps, and patience).

It all adds up. Trying to squeeze in the tiers it looks like they are about 1/8" too wide. After taking my time to figure a few possible solutions the best option presented itself clearly, the grinder I used as a weight earlier. Its going to get a lot more use. The plan is to grind down the non-uniform edges of the tiers to fit into the box. This is going to get messy, and require repraying later, but it's worth it to fix my problem.

Protected the precious velcro with masking tape then brought my pieces outside.



I dont have a table in my backyard to secure the pieces to, so the 40 pound kitty litter buckets will be used again. Let the grinding commence. And the final result:



Now flat, flush, and smooth. Slides into and out of the box with a little effort. I was worried that after repainting the tier and also painting the box that it wouldn't be able to slide in and out again. So I take the grinder to the box and grind away one ply layer of seven from the 3/4" thick side panels. After choking on way more sawdust than I care to swallow in a day the tier fits in with enough clearance to give it room to jiggle side to side. The top tier has been nailed in place, also serves as a lateral support to prevent the upper front portion of the side walls from flexing inward giving the removable tier it's clearance.
Below you can see the ground away wall.



Finally the small inner supports are added. At the top scrap 7/8" thick boards are glued and nailed to the side walls. These will support the lid later on. At the bottom scrap pieces are cut to support the bottom of the removable tiers. A one inch cube is cut out of a triangle. The triangle was measured to create the proper angle for the tiers. The cube in glued on the hatch panel to prevent the removable tiers from being pushed into the box too far. And lastly, the remaining scraps from the 3/4" dowels I purchased are nailed in place, they just happened to be the right length to act as the remaining portion of support for the removable tiers.
All inner supports in place:



This is where I concluded last night. Everything in place for painting when I get home from work today. I'll give it a once over review and some sanding prep work then brake out the spray cans.



By this point, from the very start of this project I have ~28 hours of build time invested.

[G.Bisson]

Here are some teaser shots to put some perspective on how the cabinet will look loaded up.

[Kwesi]

The concept is cool and the construction looks awesome but it looks like you'll basically have to Sparta kick everything on the 3rd row and up... that seems a little cumbersome.

[BassistFreak416]

^
yes, but watching a bassist sparta-kick his pedals on...
that would be pretty sick

[xed]

Just put a strip of text on the top tier that says "Steve Harris Mode".