Back a little over a year ago I was in very bad financial shape. I'm still not doing good by any means, but I'm usually able to pay the bills on time. Sometimes there's even a little left for food. I've come to the conclusion that I really need to find something I can do to make some kind of a modest extra income. Even twenty dollars here and there would be better than my current situation.
Well, I couldn't afford a fancy pedal board at the time, so I started thinking of a cheap way to build one for myself. I wanted an affordable way to make one and possibly even sell a few at an affordable price after I get good enough at doing it. My first board was 14 inches long and held 3 common size pedals, like Boss Pedals for instance. The way I went about it, I wanted to make it as short and light as possible and small enough to fit my gear bag, which happens to be a Winchester pistol shooter case I found on the clearance isle of Wal-Mart I found one day for 10 or 12 bucks. It wasn't made to be a music gear bag but it turns out it make a damn good gear bag overall. And its a well made bag as well. I think they go for about 40 bucks when they're not on clearance but still worth it in my opinion. I'm pretty sure Winchester isn't going to give the go ahead to just anyone, and it had to be a good quality product before they allowed their trademark on it.
Just so happens that case fit my pedal board inside of it perfectly, with plenty of room for other gear like patch cables, strings. picks, wall warts, and adapters. It was also perfect size for my Audix cab grabber mic holder. I highly recommend those too. Someone did their homework when they designed those cab grabbers. No more bulky mic stand to have to pack around just to mic your amp when you're out . You can get them at Guitar Center by clicking the link here,
Tonight I just finished up making an 18 inch long board. I could do a few more thing to make it look more professional (and I will) but its for me to use and I don't care if there's a few minor flaws in it. I'm making practice runs at them and getting the learning curve down, There is cost involved in making these things but I think they will stack up to a lot of what's on the market, which is pretty much a thin piece of metal with velcro stuck to it if you're lucky. A 36 inch long by 1" wide strip of industrial velcro is going to cost you upwards of 8 dollars. The piece of metal these corporations are stamping the popular pedal boards out at at no telling how many units per day are pretty cheap to build. A few spot welds and some paint and velcro and its out the door. Truth be known they charge 79 - 100 dollars for something that may have cost them 10-20 dollars to make. I know, and I'm including overhead and employees and machinery to keep the wheels of corporate capitalism greased. But were does that leave us poor folk amateurs who can't afford to drop over a hundred dollars om a cheap pedal board? Don't get me wrong, there are nice ones out there, but you're going to pay good money for one when you find it.
The bottom line is that I needed something durable and affordable for us poor folks. I had a lot of 1"x 6" white pine lumber laying around so I decided to use it for something. I think it took me more time to come up with sketch than it did actually sawing the boards on a table saw and power miter saw. Once I knew what I wanted it was all a matter of cutting the pieces out and putting them together. I decided to go with Sedona Red wood stain by Minwax. Man, that is some pretty stain if you like reds. I've used that pedal board at countless gigs and its just as good now as when I started with it. Its nothing fancy by any means. I didn't try to hide what few screws I used on it. I used some 1/4" plywood for the bottom cover and it turned out nice for a throw together board. I used a One Spot AC adapter with a 5 piece jumper (the site shows a 7 jumper cable). My five jumper works for me with one left over in case I want to plug in my Dunlop classic 2 tone sunburst Wah pedal. Fortunately I haven't had a bit of trouble with my One Spot and the price sure beats those power modules they sell for well over a hundred dollars, some are closer to 200 dollars. They also have a newer model out that's pricier but not as much as those "bricks" being sold on the market.
This time around I decided to paint it flat black. After hitting it with some fine sandpaper I touched up the spots where any paint sanded off with another coat of flat black. When that was good and dry I lightly went over it with a brown Scotchbrite pad made by by 3M. I got it smoothed out pretty well and hit it with a coat of satin finish clear coat, also made by Minwax. I bought a 36" roll of industrial strength velcro made by Velcro USA INC. in Manchester, New Hampshire. You can check them out at Velcro.com and check out all of their products. The self stick adhesive on this stuff is plenty strong and easily does the job. They also make some nice cable ties I like to use for all my cables. I think you can get a 6 pack of those at Wal-Mart for around 3 or 4 dollars. Each one is different colored too so you can use them to organize different types of cables.
Since I've dug through numerous pictures, trying to find one of my first pedal board, I've decided that pictures will have to wait until another time. When I get a chance to take some decent quality photos of them and post them here. If you have access to a table saw and a miter saw you can make these all day long yourself. For those that are not too good with woodworking I could build one for you and paint or stain it in any color you'd like. I just picked up some Ebony wood stain and I'm going to give it a try as well. I plan on making at least a few more of these to let some friends borrow for a while. Maybe they'll get me some orders for some custom pedal boards. I'm a pretty honest guy when it comes to doing business with folks, so truth be known I'll be lucky to break even on them. Minimum wage wouldn't be so bad. Its something I can tinker with when I'm feeling up to it. My back is pretty messed up with Harrington Rods and I'm in chronic pain most of the time. But every now and then I get a good day and I'm able to accomplish a little something. I take a LOT of breaks when I'm messing around doing wood work. I just can't deal with standing in one place very long and bending forward is a real buzz kill too. It sucks when your doctor tells you to avoid bending, squatting, and lifting more than ten pounds at all cost, ever again. I see why he told me that too. I really pay dearly when I overdue things. Its something I'm still working on training myself at after 6 years and counting.
What can I say though? I've always been an ambitious type of guy. I worked hard all my life doing various jobs that aren't easy on your back, much less the whole body. I always enjoyed working though. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to machinist work. I did that for about 25 years plus. Carpenters don't like me much as a saw man either. I tend to cut the boards to whatever length they tell me. And I mean within 1/64" or closer. I found out quickly that carpenters don't deal with tolerances like we do in the machine shop/tool and die making where we go by hundreds of thousandths of an inch. The last carpenter I worked for finally figured me out and started telling me measurements and saying "short" or "long" when he did it. From there on out we had a system and did pretty good accurate work for people. I was just getting it down good when a pretty big machine shop called and offered me a job. I tested for the job and beat over 75 other applicants for it. They called me back on my last day of carpenter work job (on my way to work) and wanted me there the following Monday morning. My carpenter boss was happy for me that I had finally found a good paying job with benefits. He was so happy for me, he told us all to knock off at noon and call it a day. He couldn't afford to pay very well and was doing work for his mother, the real estate agent, and everything had to be cheap. She wanted us to take shortcuts which I didn't like, My last day there was Friday July 24th 2009. I never made it to the new machine shop job on Monday. I wrecked my Harley that Friday night and woke up from a coma about a month later in August. That whole thing changed my life drastically and 6 years later I'm still trying to get over it. For anyone who's never heard of Harrington Rods take a look at the picture below. Its not my actual x-ray but its pretty close to what I have, One of my vertebrates had to be taken out in tiny pieces. It turned out pretty crooked, but at least I can still walk. No running or ladder climbing though. If I try to run I instantly fall face first into the ground. And if I try to climb a ladder, even a 3 step ladder I loose my balance. Its one of the common after effects of having that surgery. I've also got "trigger finger" in both of my middle fingers. They lock closed when I'm asleep mostly and I have to pry them open when I wake up. There's lots of other health problems going on with me, but those are the major ones. My neck still hurts sometimes from being broken and my right shoulder blade too, but the hospital either couldn't or wouldn't do anything to fix that. I didn't have health insurance at the time and my motorcycle policy was eaten up and then some with just the air life flight.
Anyway, I'm getting way off topic here now so I guess its time to recheck my spelling and punctuation as best I can and call it a night...... I've got a really hot project in the works right now too, but so far its been nothing but figuring cost for materials. I want to make a good product with good quality parts/hardware as cheap as I can and pass on the savings to people who might want to give one a spin. I won't go into details right now except to say it has something to do with guitars. Stay tuned and I'll fill you all in when the time is right.
Until then, may everyone have a great day/week/month/and life ..... Life is too short to sweat the small stuff we can't control anyway. If I can deal with a back like that, you can too. With lots of good pain pills of course lol. Anyway .....Peace out brothers and sisters, and be nice to each other.
~ Its All About The Music ~ .........
Oh, one last thing. I'd like to share a video of one helluva young and up and coming blues lady. Not only can she sing like an angel, she can sure play blues guitar, and she's got some of the nicest looking legs a man could ever hope to see. Seriously, check her out and buy her albums if you like her. She works very hard at what she does, and it shows. This little lady deserves fame and fortune a lot more than some of the crap I see selling records out there these days. This particular video has Paul Nelson sitting in on guitar. He's played for some pretty famous acts over the years and has solo work done as well. Check 'em out doing this Rolling Stones cover of Sympathy For The Devil. Paul Nelson really shines bright on this video. He worked with Johnny Winter a lot during his career and shows no signs of slowing down. Click here for his Paul Nelson's site.
Also, if you're a big time blues fan such as me, check out Blues Broad's Youtube channel for a lot more high quality videos . Subscribe to her channel so you never miss a great blues act when they come to her turf. She's got it down when it comes to HD videos and editing skills ....You won't be sorry you checked her channel out.......... Peace!
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