Kids Pedal Workshop!

[Willybomb]

Gudday all, after a year of procrastinating about it, I finally ran the pedal workshop for my guitar students who were interested.

I chose Brian's Madbean Sprouts, etched by Haberdasher, got the components from Jaycar, and the outboard stuff from Pedalpartsaustralia.com.  I spent yesterday afternoon sorting parts for the kits and drilling enclosures.

Got a few kids and their dads interested, and we spent the day putting them together.  The first hour was spent learning how to solder....

Anyway, the day was a great success, everyone went home with a working pedal and everyone had a ball.  I'd like to say that everyone's pedal fired up without issue first go, but it just wasn't the case.  I think two fired up first pop, and the others had issues that got past the QC but were solved pretty quick (a dry solder joint there, a solder bridge there) once we realised they didn't work!  Pretty good considering the ages ranged from 6 to 14.

Thanks to Brain, Haberdasher, and To RobA for his time in my troubleshooting thread.

Willy.

[GermanCdn]

That is awesome, well done.  Figure we'll be getting more members here soon, lol.

[pryde]

Fantastic man. Great job. 

[Willybomb]

Few more pics.  The older lad in the second photo is my stepson (who is a better solderer than I am) who spent the whole day working with the 6 year old.  He made the 6 year old solder EVERY part in the pedal and walked him through it all.  Between him and I we troubleshot every issue that occured.  Couldn't have done it without him.


And yes, we rocked everything before we boxed it!

[Haberdasher]

Awesome Willy
Glad everything worked out!

[Willybomb]

I forgot about the r5 mod (increase to 1k from 82r) though (which I only just remembered about now after reading our earlier PMs).  For some reason the first couple of pedals seemed to be plenty loud with plenty of gain (through a Squier strat), but the later ones seemed to be just under unity through humbucker equipped guitars and a lot mellower.  Either way, all good. 

I suppose they all have the knowhow to replace r5 if I tell them about it now!

[pickdropper]

I can't express how cool of an idea I think this is, Willy. 

I setup a soldering workshop back when I was in college.  It's amazing how quickly people pick it up if with just a little bit of guidance.

[RobA]

Very nice. I love all the focus and concentration in the first photo. Congrats on how well this went.

[icecycle66]

This is an excellent thing.

[slimtriggers]

That's really great! 

[gtr2]

Very cool!

Josh

[Cortexturizer]

fantastic event it was! props to you man!

[jprizz]

I'm giving you an "air" High Five right now... Where was this when i was a kid???

[selfdestroyer]

This is just epic on so many levels.. I can only imagine what it would have been like to not only see the process of building, but to build a pedal with my own hands at the age.. I would either be a rich man or a very broke man from all the pedals I would have made by now. lol

I commend your efforts and I hope you know what kind of impact this could have on a child. Very awesome.

[eldanko]

Yep, this is a brilliant idea... well done!

Taking this one step further.... may I suggest....

The Pedalbuilding Merit Badge