Acoustic-Electric Wooden StompBox With Piezo PickUp

This instructable is intended to walk you through the building of an acoustic-electric stomp box.

This type of stomp box is a percussion instrument normally played by tapping a foot on the top surface but may be played by hand while held under the arm or on the lap. It is sometimes played with a hard tipped drum stick or a rubber tipped mallet. This is not a solid state or tube type electric guitar effects pedal. The only electric or electronic components in this build are passive.

Demonstration of the completed unit being tested is at http://youtu.be/65vHiao_L34

For this build, I used the following:

MATERIALS
--------------------------------
.180" Luon ply wood
.0625" synthetic felt
various scraps of wood

CHEMICALS and SUBSTANCES
--------------------------------------------
PVA glue
clear liquid glue
hot glue
silicone
solder
solder flux
shellac
cyano acrylate
denatured alcohol

PARTS and COMPONENTS
-------------------------------------
piezo element
1/4" female mono audio jack
thick hardware store washer
22 AWG copper wire
polyfill fiber padding
cardboard tubes

TOOLS
--------------------------------------------
table saw
power sander
soldering iron
hot glue gun
3" paint brush
razor knife
hemostats
various sized "C" clamps
12" quick slide bar clamps
laptop computer
50 watt CO2 LASER
LASER control software
graphics software for raster and vector
compressor with pressure regulator and air drier
dremel rotary tool
bits for dremel
dremel workstation
bungee cords and wooden bar for makeshift clamp/hold-down
dust mask
safety glasses
cotton work gloves
strap  clamps/tie down straps
sandpaper - 80, 100, 150 grit
steel wool


*some notes
-----------------------------------------------
put a sealer coat of shellac on the wood right away, so it will have plenty of time to dry. It will help with LASER residue wipe-down afterward.

don't try to glue it all at one time. apply the glue in stages before proceeding to next glue joint. the joints shrink as the glue dries, causing warpage of the box dimensions. by glueing in stages, you can adjust the box as you go along.

don't leave much slack on the piezo wire going to the audio jack. it will hum and possibly slap the inside of the cabinet during use, which can be annoying.

I did not glue the bottom on mine because I intend to add more piezo elements to other locations inside the cavity. I will use PVA glue and clamp it every 4 inches around the perimeter and allow 12 hours to dry. I suggest you do the same. If the humidity is above 70% for you, allow additional time to dry or bring it to an air conditioned environment for the final drying stage.

if you want to make your box the easy way, try rahulbotics.com and look for the boxmaking app within his site.

In total, from start to finish, this project spanned 3 full days. Most of that time was waiting for glue and shellac to dry between stages. Time spent actually laboring was about 9 relaxed hours with liberal self administration of beverages to stay hydrated...

Please find vector and raster files attached in Corel .CDR v12.0 file format, SVG v1.0 format, and PDF v6 format.