Guitar effects pedal enclosure,unique pedal enclosures,vintage pedal enclosure

Wire Cutters / Wire Stripper (Required)

If you think of soldering your guitar pedal as half the job, the other half is cutting and preparing wires.

A decent set of wire cutters and a wire stripper makes this job simple.

The below photo shows a few different options on the types of tools you can buy for this job.Whenever you need to solder wires to a PCB (explained later), you need some of the wire exposed.

A simple wire cutter can be used to strip wires, but it takes some practice. Using a wire stripper is much easier.

I suggest getting a set of wire cutters as well as a separate tool to strip the ends of the wires. The below shows what I mean when I say strip the ends of the wires:

You can see that the wire stripper I use grabs the wire and removes the plastic to the exact length I want.

This wire stripper is very similar to the one I use and I highly recommend one like this. It doesn’t tug on the wires like other types of wire strippers, so you’re less likely to damage the wire or your other components.

Multimeter (Required)

While you can technically build a guitar pedal without a multimeter, you’ll quickly run into headaches if you don’t have one.

A multimeter is a small device you can use to test your guitar circuit, find mistakes, and make sure everything is wired up properly.

Once I learned how to use a multimeter, I found that I could use it for a lot of guitar and non-guitar projects.

The good news is that they’re cheap and they all work more or less the same.

I explain how to use multimeters in my step-by-step guitar building tutorials. So don’t worry if it looks intimidating, you’ll quickly learn how easy they are to use.

Needle Nose Pliers (Recommended)

As you might expect, things can get pretty cramped in a small guitar pedal as you pack everything in.

Wiring up the footswitch and input/output jacks can be awkward if you’re trying to use your fingers to push the wires through the holes.

Using a set of needle-nose pliers makes this job a breeze.

They give you more control than your fingers in threading wires into holes or holding things in place.

Alligator Clips (Nice to Have)

Testing your pedal before you pack it into a guitar pedal enclosure is an important step.

While it’s possible to test everything using only wires and some tape, a set of electronics alligator clips make the job nice and easy.

With alligator clips, you can easily test components or your entire pedal circuit without having to solder everything together.

You can also clip them onto your multimeter probes for some hands-free testing.

Third Hand (Nice to Have)

One of the first things you’ll realize when you get into building pedals is that you wish you had extra hands.

It can be awkward to hold the soldering iron in one hand, hold the solder wire in your other hand, then try and keep the component or wire in position on the board.

There are plenty of ways you can try to keep everything in position such as using tape or Blu Tack.

A better option I found is to use what is called a ‘third hand’ as shown below:

The basic idea is that you use these flexible arms to hold your components, wires, or board in position while you solder them.

There are third arm kits you can buy that includes a magnifying glass, but there are better options if you had poor eyesight (covered next).

Conclusion

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