Pedal board design

Anybody made a custom pedal board for an electric guitar setup? I want to make one as a gift for my nephew, and want to make it nicer than the basic utilitarian designs I see.

A nice touch would be to make it "road worthy" and have a detachable case top. You can get materials like Tolex for covering it as well as road-case type hardware to accomplish this. Be sure that the design provides the space...and spacing...that he prefers for his pedals. You may need to pre-disclose to him that you're making this for that reason to insure that it's going to work for his particular style and preferences.

Thanks Jim. I hadn't considered portability as a design feature. I will be making a prototype to show him first. It wont be a surprise gift.

Sounds like a good plan. Something like this can be pretty personal because every guitar player has preferences around pedal arrangement and, well...different pedals have different sizes. Zeroing in on what works for him will dictate everything else. I mentioned portability because one of the primary reasons anyone would use a pedal board is so that they can avoid constantly dealing with the cabling, whether in their home/studio or elsewhere. The pedal board essentially provides one input and one output (in general and there are exceptions depending on the gear and some other factors) so to setup or tear down...things are quick and there is less chance of damage to the individual connections between the various "toys" on the board. A removable cover protects everything during transport or even just during down-time for some folks.

Checkout a you tube video on custom made pedal board out of walnut by a guy who publishes under Made by Mitch. He ordered electronics from West Coast Pedal board. I made a much simpler version for my son out of pine that I painted with flat black paint. To Jim’s point he now wants some type of case to transport it with. I should have integrated that into the board.

This is designed for the cords to be stowed away under the boards, but my son doesn't take full advantage of that as you can see.

Joe, I think you could easily retrofit a lid for that very nice pedal board to satisfy the need to transport. I like your clean design.