Wood Enclosures?

[therecordingart]

I've always wanted to learn how to do woodwork, and I've recently started acquiring lots of woodworking tools (router, table saw, scroll saw, etc). I've seen some wood stompbox enclosures, and that seems like a good place to start. Anyone have tips or details on how to get started?

EDIT: Seems like a vague question, but any help is appreciated.

[KazooMan]

I've been into woodworking for longer than I've been building pedals.  I am just into building my first pedal in a wooden enclosure.  I'm making a Tube Driver based on Bajaman's schematic and layout.  I had to do a bit of tweaking with the electronics, but that's another story.

I couldn't find an appropriate metal enclosure so I decided to make on out of wood with a metal lid.  Here are a couple of pictures of this work in progress.  





The enclosure is a simple box with finger joints are the corners for strength.  I make the joints on a router table.  I could send you some more detailed information on building a jig to do this.  I made a regular box and only then cut the sloping sides on the table saw.  The box is made of a wood called Purple Heart.  That's the actual color in the photos.  It will be even prettier when I put a coat of finish on it.  With a wooden enclosure you run the risk of RF interference so I lined the box with copper foil held in place with double sided carpet tape.  This is grounded.  The schematic for the Tube Driver has the jacks mounted on plastic insulators and connected to ground with a cap and resistor.   Therefore, I made a plastic insert on the end.  We shall see how this all works when I put the guts in.  

The lid for the box is a piece of 1/8" aluminum I bought on the net.  I will round the edges with the router (you can do this with aluminum and a carbide bit).  I tried my hand at etching the face of the cover.  It worked out pretty well, but there was a bit of leakage.

You can see that the transformer is  a board mounted style that I mounted on perfboard.  I have it up on standoffs and have  blank piece of board under it to provide insulation from the copper liner.

Basically, I think that all you need to keep in mind is that you want to keep your electronics isolated from the wood with standoffs (damp wood could cause some signal leakage) and you need to worry about electronic shielding .

Post some specific questions and I will try to provide answers or lead you to resources on the net. 

[Auke Haarsma]

That looks incredible KazooMan! Wow!

[therecordingart]

That's awesome. I would really appreciate the info on building a jig for the finger joints.

What I have in my head is very similar. Awesome work!

[KazooMan]

Thanks for the kudos.  We shall see how well the pedal works when I finish it.  I will post some more pictures then.  My woodworking skills far exceed my pedal building skills and both outstrip my guitar playing abiloity.

There are many resources with instructions for building and using a finger joint jig on the Internet.

This looks like a good tutorial.

http://woodworking.about.com/od/woodworkingplansdesigns/ss/BoxJointJig.htm

Have a look and then let me know if you have some specific questions.  The problem with using the table saw is that you are limited to fingers that are the width of the blade and the saw blade doesn't cut a good flat-bottomed kerf.  There are ways to deal with this. 

A router table gives good flat bottoms and you can select the size of the fingers by picking the correct bit.  Of course you would need to build or purchase a router table!

We can take this off line so that we don't turn this into a woodworking forum!  E-mail me with specific quesitons.

Kazooman   (a.k.a. rcthomas@chartermi.net)

[John Lyons]

Cool looking tube driver build!
Here are a few of mine.







Here's a link to my gallery
http://basicaudio.net/

[therecordingart]

John,

These are excellent! Do you have any resources or tips on how to pull off something that nice?

[jacobyjd]

John,

These are excellent! Do you have any resources or tips on how to pull off something that nice?

Step 1: Be John Lyons

Step 2:

Step 3: Profit!

[Ibanezfoo]

I put all my pedals into wood enclosures.  I build too many of these things to be able to afford metal boxes for them.  Theres a thin cheap plywood at home depot thats about 1/4" thick and has a nicer darkwood on the outsides and the inside is a lighter wood.  Smells like cigars when you cut it.  Glues up strong.  Just have to use some forstner bits to thin out where you put your pots and jacks.  Soak those spots with the CA glue for strength.  I've been using aluminum foil inside for shielding.... seems to work ok.  Mine come out pretty ugly but they are functional.  Some of the stuff you see in the pictures thread are very nice... I couldn't see stomping on wood that nice, especially considering how much it costs these days (like $10 for a piece of 7"x7"x2" AAA figured maple is my local cost).

The tools I use are a table saw (a sled helps with the small parts), router, drill press, clamps, and a stationary sander.  Sometimes my bandsaw.  A jointer might come in handy.

I dig making wood boxes because you can make them whatever dimensions you want very easily.

[John Lyons]

It's hard for me to give you any tips.
I would recommend searching around on line.
There are many resources.
It's not something that you will pick up overnight.
That being said I have only been doing woodworking
a few years.
I use a table saw, router, planner, and forstner bits
and a drill press as my main tools.

John

[Ibanezfoo]

It's hard for me to give you any tips.
I would recommend searching around on line.
There are many resources.
It's not something that you will pick up overnight.
That being said I have only been doing woodworking
a few years.
I use a table saw, router, planner, and forstner bits
and a drill press as my main tools.

John

I'm curious how you shield your projects in wood enclosures?

[John Lyons]

Take a look at the pic of the tube driver above.
Foil tape, either copper or Aluminum.
Same as with shielding a guitar etc.

John

[KazooMan]

I love the retro look of the knobs on the second pic.  Also the grain on the third. 

Regarding the cost of materials.  The lumber yard where I purchase my more exotic wood has a bargain bin of odd leftover ends from cuts they have made.  I have pulled some really interesting small pieces of things like zebra wood, cocobolo, bubinga, lacewood, ebony, etc. out of there for cheap.  The bottom of my purpleheart box is plywood. 

As for the shielding, the copper tape proiducts I found at guitar websites was much more expensive that the copper foil I ended up using.  I got some at a chain called "Hobby Lobby"  They had two thicknesses of foil and I used the heavier stuff.  It was about $12 for three square feet. 

[mrscientificterms]

I must say, those are some beautiful pedals. 

[ahermida]

I did these a while ago and it was a lot of work.  It was made out of a solid block of cherry wood.  The outside was hand polished and the inside had conductive paint and brass inserts for the screws that held the back cover.



Alf

[awdman]

Very nice. 
I can get a source of teak wood and was going to try it out on one of my projects.

[madstringbean]

@ahermida, that's a beautiful pedal.  how did you etch the words into the wood like that?

[Paul Marossy]

I did these a while ago and it was a lot of work.  It was made out of a solid block of cherry wood.  The outside was hand polished and the inside had conductive paint and brass inserts for the screws that held the back cover.



Alf

Wow, that's gorgeous. 

[petemoore]

  Starting with wood I had troubles:
  Grain split next to and between potthreads, drilling mistakes: too deep/too shallow, not using a stiff enough bit in a drill-press and getting 'grain grabbed the bit-edge and pushed the bit over here'..holes that ended up missing the centermark causing pots that won't fit, failing potthreads/nuts, pots that come loose, pots that became the pedalboard 'bumpers' requiring replacement when damaged.
  Starting with a metal template/groundplane/panel mount piece:
  I got perfect drill pattern results, quicker overall drill times, recessed knobs, and a reliable hardware mounting technique that doesn't require extra-hard-wood and expert drilling hardware and technique.
  There are various fixes for all the troubles with pots in wood, panel to mount pots on solves all of them, protecting the pedalboards 'end-corner-bumper' pots and knobs from getting hit, I also tend to park my car where it looks like a guardrail from the fewest viewing angles..
 

[ahermida]

@ahermida, that's a beautiful pedal.  how did you etch the words into the wood like that?

Thanks! The letters were milled out on the wood.

Alf