A gorgeous, very old looking handmade wooden guitar pedal board and case

I made this case for my best friend Chris, who also happens to be my bandmate in Yugen (the one from St. Louis).  The security of his equipment is close to my heart since he is half of our band, so I really made the crap outta this one.

 

Here she is.  A delicious mixture of all "reclaimed" (read: found in the trash at Wunder Woods) pieces of wood.  I used everything from furniture plywood to pine 1x2s, ash, sycamore and red oak.  Keep in mind, this was made of pieces I mined from the garbage bin at the lumber mill I work at.

After I selected the nice ash board piece and sized it up, I basically built a box upside down.  What I mean is the bottom of the box is shorter than the top, the opposite of normal.  I built the very bottom of the box using a strip of furniture grade plywood.  I google searched the rise of traditional pedal boards and found that a 10° grade is standard.  I chopped down some pieces of trashy oak for risers. They would never have gotten used but were virtually out of sight, so out of mind too.

 You can see the simple 1x2 pine wood band around the base.  I used this because I thought it would be easiest to work with and I was just starting the thing.  Doing it again, I would use something much harder here, preferably something that matched the top.

 The nice looking hunk of sycamore that Scott gave me.  This wasn't necessarily "garbage" but I asked if it was, and he let me have it.  It was right next to the garbage can.  Gorgeous. 

 I decided I would use some new window sash locks.  I bought them at Home Depot.  They lock the top in place perfectly so there is absolutely no play when you carry it around.  Good idea.  Oil-rubbed bronze color.

 After the first coat of stain on the inside of the box.  By this point, it was looking pretty delicious.

 The very bottom.  The stain makes the weird plywood look even more weird.  But not necessarily bad. 

 

 Here it is.  mmmmm.  I used the "jacobean" color stain from Minwax, then a couple coats of shellac, then a fine finish of wax.  Mmm, put on those window locks, the rusty old handle from my croquet set and put those pedals in.  Here are some more pictures.

 I didn't use wax on the actual pedal board of course...the velcro for the pedals wouldn't have stuck.  Mmmm mmm mm, just gorgeous grain on that ash board.

 The finished product.  It feels cohesive, and looks like it is about 85 years old.  It kind of looks like a treasure chest.  I may add black metal amplifier corners to reinforce the strength of the wood on the corners, but Chris only wants those if they can be pounded into place to fit the shape of the corners.

Mmmmmmm.  Tasty.  I make custom pedal boards out of reclaimed Missouri hardwoods starting at $200.  I work closely with each person when I make custom pieces to make sure it is the absolute perfect fit, color and style.  It was honestly hard to give this one up at any price.  I thoroughly enjoyed the creation of this piece.