My teenage son has been playing guitar for several years, it’s one of the real treats in life for me to kick back and listen to him play. He plays both guitar and bass, he plays in a couple of bands.

He’s accumulated a collection of effects pedals, some for guitar, some for bass, some for both. So I figured I’d put some scrap wood to good use and make him a nice pedal box to lug his pedals around in. A plug and play unit. A bit better than the canvas bag full of pedals and cables that he was using.

I made a hollow rectangular box out of scrap pieces of finger-jointed trim board and plywood, then covered that with a veneer of teak. The teak is 1/4″ thick on the corners, 1/8″ thick on the faces. After veneering the six sides of the box I cut it in two using the table saw to separate the top of the box from the bottom.

Interior of the box is covered with acoustical speaker carpet padding (I think that’s what it’s called), it’s fuzzy enough so velco strips on the bottoms of the pedals sticks to it. There is a removable shelf in the bottom half of the box that hides the wiring, the cables, and the pedal power supplies.

The bottom contains the pedals, the top houses an optional lighting stanchion.

To register the top to the bottom for carrying it around, I drilled holes in the edges of the sides on the top and bottom halves. One had pins, the other sleeves, the pins slip into the sleeves and register the top and bottom together. Lockable latches on the sides of the box lock it tight for transportation.

I can’t figure out how to embed photos in the text in this gallery, so I’ll just link them at the bottom and try describe them here:

#1: Pedal box with suitcase-type carry handle.

#2: Rubber feet for when standing it on end like a suitcase. There are also rubber feet on the bottom, for when he lays the box flat on the floor to play, like in the previous photo.

#3: Used scrap teak for the veneer, so lots of little strips.

#4: Locking latches, one on each side. You can sort of see the angled cut on the side of the box that separates the top half from the bottom half.

#5: Top removed, this is the inside of the top of the pedal box which is where the lighting stanchion is stored. A couple of pieces of teak with holes drilled in them secure the wire legs when the ends of the legs of the stanchion are inserted in the holes. In the upper middle, that rotatable teak clip latches over the edge of the stanchion and secures the top of the stanchion in place.

#6: The bottom of the box where the pedals are stored. The removable shelf is not there, so you can see the strip outlet that the step down transformers (pedal power blocks) are plugged in to. Pedals are powered by 9v to 18v supplies. The “control panel” is in the upper right corner. Light stanchion is in place.

#7: Side view. The light stanchion is just a piece of 2″ schedule 40 PVC with teak caps on each end. Aluminum duct tape lines the inside surface of the pipe for added light reflection. The light itself is a short piece of rope light. I ripped a couple of thin strips of teak on the table saw then contact cemented them to the outside of the PVC so they conform to the outside radius of the pipe.

#8: Removable top shelf, the holes are for wiring. The five small holes along the top are where the power supplies for the respective pedals pass through the shelf. The larger holes on each end are for the 1/4″ patch cables that string the pedals together. The bottom hole partially covered by my thumb is for a threaded bolt that locks the top shelf into place on the base.

#9: Top shelf in place.

#10: Some of his pedals set in place. It’s designed to hold 11 pedals, 5 on the top shelf, five on the bottom shelf, and a large Cry Baby pedal on the right side, below the control panel.

#11: Plugged in and powered up. Angled cord on the far right is power in. Red switch turns power ON/OFF. Blue switch powers up the outlet on the upper left, which is where the lighting stanchion plugs in to. Two 1/4″ jacks are “Guitar IN” and “OUT to amp”. The two green LEDs are showing that the two transformers are outputting power, the upper LED for the power block that powers the pedals on the upper shelf, the lower LED for the block that powers the pedals on the lower shelf.

#12: Lit up by the lighting stanchion. He’s played on a few dark stages, sometimes he uses the light, sometimes it stays stored in the top.

#13: Another view.