alexnyc
11-30-2007, 09:45 AM
So, as many of you have, I broke my pedal the other day and could not deal with the idea of not being able to play for a while, so I decided to repair it myself. I thought about epoxying it together or joining the snapped pedal with a metal plate on top, but decided it would be better to just replace the whole pedal section.
It ended up being a bit labor intensive, but very cheap, and the result feels rock solid.
I ended up using a regular kitchen cutting board (polyethylene) as it is strong but not brittle, and it is very close in thickness to the original pedal. You should be able to pick one up for easily less than $10, just make sure to get one that is similar in thickness to the original pedal (the cheaper cutting boards tend to be thinner)
Take a hammer and punch and knock out the hinge pin at the base of the pedal. Pull the rest of the assembly out of the base. Unscrew the orange thingamabob and take care to keep the 4 screws and the magnet which activates the reed switch in the pedal base.
I clamped the original pedal to the cutting board and traced the outline with a marker. I cut out the general shape of the pedal and smoothed it out with a sander. I also traced and cut the slot for the part of the orange detent that fits through the pedal, as it would help as a positional reference for that part. After that, I inserted the orange detent in the slot and marked and drilled pilot holes for the four screws, as well as a recess to hold the magnet under the plate and one to keep the spring in place. I then drilled the final hole for the hinge pin and crazy glued two bits of pencil erasers to act as bumpers.
The end results plays great and I have no more worries about durability.
My advice to anyone wanting to try this is to make sure you have enough tools to do the job. I am fortunate in having a decent collection of tools, but I would imagine you could do this with just a jigsaw, drill, and dremel tool. A drill press would also be very useful in drilling the hole for the hinge pin, as it could be difficult to get it straight just using a hand drill.
It ended up being a bit labor intensive, but very cheap, and the result feels rock solid.
I ended up using a regular kitchen cutting board (polyethylene) as it is strong but not brittle, and it is very close in thickness to the original pedal. You should be able to pick one up for easily less than $10, just make sure to get one that is similar in thickness to the original pedal (the cheaper cutting boards tend to be thinner)
Take a hammer and punch and knock out the hinge pin at the base of the pedal. Pull the rest of the assembly out of the base. Unscrew the orange thingamabob and take care to keep the 4 screws and the magnet which activates the reed switch in the pedal base.
I clamped the original pedal to the cutting board and traced the outline with a marker. I cut out the general shape of the pedal and smoothed it out with a sander. I also traced and cut the slot for the part of the orange detent that fits through the pedal, as it would help as a positional reference for that part. After that, I inserted the orange detent in the slot and marked and drilled pilot holes for the four screws, as well as a recess to hold the magnet under the plate and one to keep the spring in place. I then drilled the final hole for the hinge pin and crazy glued two bits of pencil erasers to act as bumpers.
The end results plays great and I have no more worries about durability.
My advice to anyone wanting to try this is to make sure you have enough tools to do the job. I am fortunate in having a decent collection of tools, but I would imagine you could do this with just a jigsaw, drill, and dremel tool. A drill press would also be very useful in drilling the hole for the hinge pin, as it could be difficult to get it straight just using a hand drill.
