The pedalboard

I just thought I would share my most recent little project. Now that I am becoming an 'official' electric guitar player I have a few pedals that I run in front of my amp. At this point I only have 3, but it is still cumbersome to transport them in my backpack without getting all scratched up.

I decided it was time to make a pedalboard. For those of you who are not familiar with guitar pedalboards, they are just mechanisms to keep guitar pedals secure and organized.

Traci and I were out on a saturday morning hitting the yard sales and I found an older suitcase that I thought would be a cool platform to build from. I brought it home and realized that for my whopping 3 pedals, it was just too big right now.

I was talking to my mom and dad about the project and they said they had an old suitcase I could use. Turns out it was my great grandma Marie's. I would guess it is from the 50's. This was a much smaller suitcase and would work great for my project.

I set up the suitcase, now guitar pedal board, so that the lid is the bottom. I built a platform to raise the pedals up above the edge of the lid and covered it in carpet. I use velcro on the bottom of my pedals to hold them in place on the carpet.

In the other half of the suitcase I knew I was going to have a little extra room so I built a hinged door with a gate latch that I can open and close. This provides a great place to store cords, music, etc. I then attached foam to the door so that when the two pieces are together, the foam gently holds the pedal down on the carpet.

On the outside I had to cut and remove the pins that hinged the two pieces together. I then added two more latches to that side that are similar to the originals. With judicious use of the wire wheel along with brown and black spray paint I was able to get a pretty good vintage/rusty look to match the other hardware on the case. (In this picture it is actually upside down, feet sticking up.)

So now I have a good pedal board that will allow for a little bit of expansion (maybe 3 or so more pedals with the right wiring) and is different than anyone elses.....