As promised I've got a few pictures to share of my last and bigger pedal board. This one is 18 inches long as opposed to my original 14 inch board that just holds 3 regular sized pedals, this bigger one holds 4 regular sized pedals, You could also get a few more spots on the board if you used some mini pedals which are becoming more popular these days. I learned a little something new today while watching a video with Brad Wampler and a couple of his guys. Brad says the more digital circuit pedals you run on a daisy chained power system, the louder of a hissing noise will be produced. In my own case there's no problem with the pedals I'm daisy chaining together. That could be partially due to the Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor I'm running. If you're going to run pedals, especially several of them it might be best to think about an isolated power source for your pedals. Of course you'll be looking a quite a price increase too. You can get a One Spot for around 20 dollars and an extra 7 or 8 dollars will get you a jumper wire for powering up to 5-7 different pedals. Below you'll see the newest pedal board all set to go, This is a front view of the board and you can see how the patch cables just found a home of their own and sit nicely inside and under the top of the board. I also used a 1x6 bottom on this board as opposed to the 1/4" plywood on my 14 inch board. Its crossed my mind to put a cover over the front but I don't see a useful purpose for it other than cosmetics. With this set up I still have another power plug in my daisy chain line for powering a wah pedal or something else that's bigger. Wah pedals are made to sit as flat as possible and the more area they cover the more stable the pedal will be. I'd need a little bigger board for my Dunlop Cry Baby but I can also just set it on the floor beside my pedal board and it would work just fine that way.
And there you have your top view of the pedal board. I actually like the way this turned out because of the way the finish ended up being on it. I sprayed it with flat black paint. When it dried it felt like sandpaper, so I used a brown Scotchbrite pad on it and smoothed it out. Naturally it took the paint off in spots but it had a used look about it. I hit those spots again with some more flat black and smoothed it out again with the Scotchbrite pad. It just has a used look about it while still being a brand new board. I am totally making these boards out of 1x4's and 1x6's in white pine lumber.White Pine is easier to work with, its softer than yellow pine and doesn't tend to warp as much as yellow pine. The board is not heavy despite using the thicker overkill bottom I used. I'm sure it is a little stronger than my first one with the 1/4" bottom on it. But this board is strictly glued together using Gorilla Wood Glue and its pretty damn strong.
I've got a 14 inch board in the works and its close to being put together now. I'll get some pictures in the different joints I'm gluing and we'll catch up there. I'm thinking of maybe using a Hammered looking paint or maybe camo or something wild. In the mean time, check out this short video from Brad Wampler and friends discussing ways to power these pedal boards. The pedals you see hooked up here have no hiss or any kind of noise at all. A lot of that could be because of the noise suppressor I run. I think I only have one pedal that might qualifiy for "digital" and that would be my Digitech Screamin' Blues Driver but other than that my pedals are not noisy like pedals were 30 years ago. If I get what I have I mind to get I'll probably sideline my blues driver before long anyway. I've got my mind about set on a Wampler Ego Compressor. I know there's cheaper compressors out there but I already own one Wampler pedal and love it. Brad Wampler is a guitar player himself who happens to be an electrical engineer genius dude. I've been around rockin' since the 70's and one thing about it, the effects pedals industry has gotten so much better than back in those days. All those old pedals had tons of hiss in them no matter how you hooked then up.
Anyway, take a look at this short 5 minute video from Wampler Pedals and get the low down on powering your board. Especially if you want something twice the size of mine. I could carry my 14 inch board around in my gig case. My 18 inch board isn't going to go inside my gig bad so there's yet another thing to think about on the 18 inchers. I make even build some bigger ones capable of holding 10 or 12 pedals. Something like that would require you to invest in one of those VooDooLabs type Power Conditioners. With the price of 9 volt batteries these days you're money ahead if you can power your whole board from one unit even if it does cost you a hundred dollars or more. It doesn't take that much to run through those 9 volt batteries when you're gigging
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