OK, Here we go... ?
I decided I needed a (much) bigger pedal board... Indeed, that I needed a "pedal board worthy of the stars". The hope is that one day, important people will see my pedal board, assume I know what I am doing and invite me onto stages actually big enough to hold my
Big Pedal Board of the Stars TM. Yeah, and verily there will be much rocking. So endeth the first fantasy...
Ummm... Anyway...
I would have liked to get a Pedaltrain Pro, but the PT boards work out a bit expensive and I have other priorities right now (i.e. more toys to make or capture noise - pedal boards are boring in comparison). So I decided to build one...
So far it's all just stuff I had around and I was making it up as I went along - no plans other than made out of wood and I wanted it angled with a slatted surface like the Pedaltrain boards. I didn't go all-out to make it perfect as I figure if it works out really well, I'll make one properly with some decent hardwood. I didn't take any pics early in the process, but this is what I ended up with as a rough board:
Made out of old tongue and groove floor boards that I planed the tongue and groove from (so I suppose they are more UN-tongue & groove). The flooring boards are thicker than normal T&G and this was old wood, so was pretty stable (I generally hate working with SA pine as it's always so green that it pretzels up on you within a few months).
Then I took it apart again and sanded it a bit to round off the edges and smooth the surface. Here is a pic of all the parts before sanding - kind of an "exploded view":
Then I mixed up some red stain and some black stain and sprayed the wood with an airbrush and ended up with this:
The idea was have the slats black so the velcro strips will blend in and the red makes for a nice contrast. Seems to work,
n'est ce pas? Then I sprayed a couple of coats of lacquer and left overnight and then simply screwed it all back together, ending up with this:
Notice how the backboard is slightly shorter than the sides - In my experience, a flat, even stage is the exception rather than the norm so I figured it would help if only the sides contacted the floor. I should have thought to raise the front slat up a little too...
Then I ran into my first problem. I had initially planned on mounting the backboard on the end, but the last slatted board wasn't quite straight and I couldn't be bothered to plane it some more so I made the backboard the same width as the slats and inset it between the sides (I just had to cut the top side at a 15 degree angle). The problem was that I lost some usable depth of the rear slat underneath and my PSU no longer fitted. This is where I wanted to put the PSU, in the middle:
So thanks to my brilliant brainwave and lazily cutting corners, the holes for the mounting bracket didn't have any wood under them any more. :-[ So I moved it down so it could screw into the middle slat and moved it to the side so it wouldn't create as much chaos with the patch cables, like this:
Then I chopped up a power cable and soldered it onto the IEC (kettle plug) socket (which I stole from an old, broken PC power supply):
Then I fitted the socket to the backboard and plugged the plug into the power supply like this:
Yes, I recessed the IEC socket by hand with a Dremel. I like recessing things... Finally, Plug in and test:
All working. The best part? Total cost so far... Nothing.
Still to do:
I want to fit some locking Neutrik sockets to the back and side for input and outputs (two of each) and I must get some velcro and stick it down to the slats so I can mount the pedals and wire up everything properly.
