The Saga of the Pedal Board (pt.4)

Ahh man. Now I can totally understand why a durable and efficient pedal board goes for $250-300. This is seriously hard work. I do not envy carpenters and the like, especially if they hate their job. If they like the job, then I'd probably envy them, getting a job that you thoroughly enjoy is hard to come by.

Anyway, I was working on the pedal board until about 11pm last night. I didn't want to test the neighbors too bad. I meant to quit around 9:30 but I just couldn't stop. I shaved some pieces of wood to make a border for my routing mishap and then proceeded to glue the pieces with some Gorilla Glue.

I started to drill the sides of the boxes together when I discovered two things:

• One-my length side board was cut slightly crooked
• Two-drilling is effing hard!

I actually had to get my dad to come out and drill the first 3 boards together after attempting several times on my own. Turns out half the reason I was having so much difficulty was because I was using a broken drill bit to make the initial hole before I screw. Couldn't get that sucker to penetrate the wood. When we exchanged the bad bit for a good one, I finished up the sides and turned in for bed.

I woke up at 6am this morning to continue where I left off last night...but I didn't actually get to work until about 8am because of those damn addictive Law and Order Criminal Intent marathons. I would have to say that my biggest personality flaw and strength is confidence. Well, this morning, I was very confident about using the drill...a little too confident. Not realizing that the reason the drilling went well the night before, was because I had the assistance of my dad. So here I go clamping everything down, listening to some MGMT, marking my spots, and starting my drilling.

I happened to make a mistake

after mistake

after mistake

after mistake

after mistake

after mistake


I was so disheartened. I was ready to quit.

"Maybe Paul was right", I thought. "This is way to frustrating...what was I thinking...thinking I could build this..." Around this time my dad was leaving for work. He asks me whats wrong and I proceed to show him all the mistakes I've made and how I'm afraid it's not going to be strong enough to hold all the weight.

"Oh this is all fine Syrhea. Quit acting discouraged. We can puddy all of this up. You didn't think you were going to build this perfectly the first time around did you?"
"Yeah...I kinda thought this would be easy..."
My dad laughs at me and leaves for work.

I head over to my buddy Elshua's place to record some guitar (yes guitar. I'm no prodigy but I can play a little) tracks for one of his songs. I cooled off, wrote some new stuff, and was eager to get back here to finish what I started. I managed to get the bottom drilled to the sides of one half of the box this afternoon. I took the advice of El and my dad: Drill straight and be assertive.

All in all, I think everything is fine. The picture above will be the lid to the pedal board in hopes that when I start bottom, I'll do a better job. We'll see.

On a serious note, my finger tips are all irritated and brownish looking...even worse now than this picture taken earlier.

Turns out that the Gorilla Glue is apparently a skin irritant. I also read on the back of it's label "Asthmatics, consult doctor before using". Ooooh! This explains why I've been having trouble breathing for the past two days! Who knew? Not me...

...that is all...

~Syrhea