How to make a guitar pedal board

A while back I made a shovel guitar for YouTube musician Rob Scallon. Well, Rob is about to go out on tour and he asked me to make him a small pedal board to take with him. He only uses four pedals, so the board needed to be pretty small but also tough enough to take a beating.
He gave me some dimensions to get started and I started building with some hard wood pieces that I already had. They were pieces that really weren’t useable for anything larger due to some splits.  I used an aluminum kick plate for a door as a thin top and bottom plate.  They’re strong enough to protect is (although they’ll take some wear for sure) but light enough to help cut down on overall weight.

I’ll have plans available as well, if you want to make your own.

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I used some scraps of hardwood that I’ve been hanging onto for years. Maple for the front and oak for the sides and back.

The edges were rough, so I cleaned off one edge of each piece on the table saw.

Using that clean edge against the fence, I cut the opposite edge to be parallel.

I used a crosscut sled to cut them to length.  This ensures that these cuts are perpendicular to the previous cuts.

Then I ripped them all down to the final width.

I lined up the pieces in the configuration that I wanted and marked numbers on them so I didn’t forget their placement later.

I put my dado stack on the saw to make a1/4″ cut. Then setup my box joint jig to match the blade size.  I cut box joints on the end of all four pieces.

This takes time to setup precisely but the end result is totally worth it.

I did a dry fit of the box once all of the fingers were cut.

I put a slot cutting bit (the one I used on my arcade) in my router, to create a slot for the aluminum top plate.

I cut the slot into each piece being careful NOT to cut into the fingers, just the main section of the board.

I cut down a thin aluminum kick plate to size. This material will be used for the top and bottom.

The aluminum was thin enough to slide under my fence, so I clamped on a piece of wood that sat completely flush with the table saw surface. Then I cut the piece to it’s final width.

Before assembly, I sanded the inside of the box pieces, since I wouldn’t have access to them again.

I added glue to one end piece and the two long pieces before knocking them together with a mallet.

I slide the aluminum down into the three slots.

I knocked on the final end piece, making sure to adjust the aluminum plate as I went, keeping it in all four slots.

I clamped up the box to hold everything in position while it dried. I didn’t add a lot of pressure here, just enough to keep everything in place.

After it was dry, I used the disc sander to shave off the extra length of the fingers and make them flush.

The disc sander has a rough grit paper, and it’s very powerful, so it leaves the surface pretty rough.

I used a belt sander and orbital sander to get all of the surfaces very smooth.

I set the table saw fence to 2″ and ran all four sides of the box through the same, cutting it into two pieces. This is tricky and feels dangerous when you do it.  Please be careful.

I lined up two off cuts from earlier and marked both pieces for cutting biscuit slots.

I used a biscuit jointer to cut the slots, then added glue and biscuits.

I clamped these, very tightly, to dry.

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