The last home made one I built was pretty good. But pedalboards are one of those things where what's good in theory isn't always good in practice. After using it for a bit I decided there were quite a few fundamental changes I wanted to make so I knocked a new one together pretty quick. WIP obviously.
There were a bunch of changes I wanted to make. The ultra nice 3' Boss cables that I got for using with the other one for connecting the FX loop and the front of the chain to the amp input ended up being too short and restrictive in terms of usability. So I went back to a big ugly detachable snake for the footswitch-amp/loop/front end. I wanted a design where all the cables from the pedalboard to elsewhere were firmly battened down. I wanted it to be higher off the ground, shorter and wider, strong enough to stand on, angled rather than parallel to the ground. I wanted the power supply mounted on the bottom rather than on the top. I wanted to have more room for expansion. Etc. Etc. Etc.
The point of having the perforations on the other one was to avoid velcro all together. Securing the cables as well as the pedals with standard zip ties and the nicer reusable cloth ones. I fucking hate velcro. Unfortunately, the cable tie thing almost never works well because the areas where you can fasten the tie around the pedal are resticted by the location of knobs and jacks and displays on pedals. So I just get the ultra strong Godlyke stuff and only use it where I place the pedals. If I want to switch configs I just chisel it off and resand the top. Regular velcro is weak as fuck, but the Godlyke shit rules.
I wanted as few holes as possible. So instead of making the whole thing perforated like the one I made a couple months back, I kept the main wiring holes to four sections of 9. There are smaller holes at other intersections that can be used for fastening and securing stuff I'm not super thrilled on having the small holes there, but as you can see under the Talisman, they are useful for keeping cable runs tidy because you can feed a zip tied through it and crank them down.
On the last one I wanted to keep it clean by running almost everything under the board, but I changed my mind and decided I wanted the patch cables up top but the power connections as underneath as possible. I actually wish I didn't have them as visible as they are here, but I don't want to drill holes through the bottom angled wedge supports for running cables.
This one is actually not done, because I'm giving it a trial run to see if the layout is going to work before I do the final finishing/sanding/etc. I wanted to have a grid type thing, because it's easier to place pedals neatly and evenly if you have lines for reference, so another wood is going to be inlaid in the parts that are roughly gauged with carving tools to give a general idea of where the grid will be. I learned from the last one though that before going through the trouble of completing the final steps I should first give it a test period to see if the layout works. Which is why it's pretty ugly now.
As it is, I am pretty satisfied. Although the angle of the board could be steeper by like, 5-7 degrees and the board could be another .5-.75" higher off the ground. It's bearable though. Instead of flat gloss black I tried a textured "distressed aged metal" black paint. Not sure if I like it or not. It certainly looks gnarly. Kind of like a nasty old leather couch actually. With some more layers and clear it might be cool.