Building a Custom Boutique Guitar Pedalboard – Part IV

So, if you remember from the last installment, I bought some tweed, and some chrome car logo and mudflap girls. What’s up with that?

Well, the design of my board had an oval cutout on the front of it, under which I wanted some vintage tweed – like you would see on an amp. I also thought it would be cool to pimp it out with an old chrome logo from a car (that said “Deluxe”) and some chrome Mudflap girls, to REALLY pimp it out. Believe it or not, I found everything I was looking for online – even the girls! I got the car logos from Ebay, and the tweed from Mojo Sound. One other thing I bought was some piping to go around the surface of the pedalboard. This isn’t really necessary, but does give it that old amp type of look. I didn’t do the best job with the piping however, so I probably could have skipped it all together.

So, I had all of my materials and my sketch ready. Unfortunately, I know NOTHING about woodworking, so I turned to someone who does – my cousin-in-law! Maybe you are handy around a saw, but I definitely am not. I wouldn’t recommend trying to do anything on your own that you’re not comfortable with – especially if it involves power tools!

I took my design down, and we did actually tweak a few things that were structurally unsound/impossible (that’s why it pays to confer with someone who knows this stuff!). I’m sure every town has someone under “woodworking” or at least construction in the phone book. They might think you’re nuts, but give them a call and explain your project to them.

Once we had all of the bugs worked out, I left him alone to construct my board. The one odd request I had was that once it was put together, that I be able to take it back apart, so I could affix the tolex and tweed. Thus, the main screws should be visible from the surface; we actually made them part of the design.

Next time, we’ll look at some actual photos of the board in process!

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