Pedal Board Talk

Just a short blurb about these pedal boards. I'm one of those people that see things and have a way different outcome in mind than when I started. Right now I'm in a strictly experimental stage with these pedal boards. Right now my only agenda (if you could call it that) is to show people a good way to build their own pedal board and save some money from buying store bought pedal boards. I've got a ton of ideas about these things but I have to keep in mind the affordability factor. I'm doing this for the little guy that doesn't have tons of money to throw at music gear. So far its not looking like spray painting is not the best way to go about this. A decent can of paint is upwards of 8 dollars in some cases. And it takes a can to do one right.

I bought some ebony Minwax stain the other day and I'm going to use it on my next pedal board. Of course I'll put a satin finish on it at least before its said and done but the spray can type of clear coat is a little pricey. My last board was an 18 inch board and I used a .97 cent can of Wal-Mart flat black on it. Naturally it came out with a rough surface, so I used a brown scotch brite pad to smooth it out. I had to do a touch up once and then lightly went over it again with the scotch brite pad and clear coated it until it was pretty smooth.

I will probably end up changing the design of the pedal board eventually and make it really cool. I've got it in mind to make a flight case around the pedal board. Right now I'm getting prices together for the aluminum extrusions its going to take to do this right. Also some small latches are in mind for holding it all together. I bought a rack case about a year ago and its a well made case, so I have something to go off of at least.

I have some doubts about this being very cost effective versus buying a case already made and on the market already. They make them pretty cheap from what I can tell so far just by the hardware prices and other materials. I've got some vendors lined up already for these DIY cases. One of them is http:/orangealuminum.com and I've noticed that they have been advertising on my website already. How cool is that? Or is it a little too "big brother" seeming? Either way, they are placing relevant ads on my blog already.

I'm also kicking around the idea of doing some more work to a cherry wood guitar body I have roughed in already. When I got the wood it was said to have been aging over 40 years. I took the two slabs and glued them together about 20 years ago and its sat there in that state since then, so this cherry wood has aged a good 60 years now. One thing for sure is that its going to be unique when I get it finished. I modeled it on the bottom half of a Strat body. I just doubled the bottom and used the same cutouts on top. Its similar to a Les Paul Jr with the equal double cuts. I used my Jackson/Charvel Strat body as a guide line for doing this. It should be pretty interesting when I get it done.

Next time I'm going to show some pictures of my 18" pedal board in black. I took some pictures of it tonight with the pedals on it and tried to get some shots of how easily the patch cords sit under this board, along with the jumper wires for powering the pedals. I've got a lot of cool things in the works so just stay tuned and keep jammin' folks!