"I'm no master chef. i just like to put m&m's in my gumbo and serve it in faux fur covered bowls."

Interesting bit of history. Archive of Aron Nelson's Stompbox Forum from 2000 with Zvex and other notables talking shop.

For instance... Zack gives advice on getting into pedal building and design :

here's a set of simple rules.

6) only use batteries. if that means making a power supply out of 6 D-cells, do it. get a battery holder or two that can handle it. or buy a 9V clip and a few 9V cells.

2) engage in the surreptitious collection and theft of every possible circuit you may have interest in. study what they have in common. study their differences. make notes to yourself on what you think you can copy successfully, and get as many ideas as possible from the devices that keep you intrigued. keep these notes in a box close to your bed. look at them often, until you are sick of it.

5) purchase an experimenter's socket. radio snack sells them, as well as many other electronic supply companies like mouser and digikey. purchase a set of pre-cut solid-core wires for use with said experimenter's socket. it's worth every goddang penny. radio snack is a ripoff when it comes to precut wires, but buy them from somewhere. at this point, you may have to spend at least 4 hours worth of your hard-earned pay. oooh, gosh.

4) hammond boxes are interesting. 1590B boxes are made of a slightly different material from the larger 1590BB boxes. you may not care about that until you try to drill one with a varibit. (what the hell is a varibit? find out.) buy a variable speed drill, preferably makita or milwaukee, and get a varibit that handles the sizes of holes you need to drill.

3) switchcraft 11 and 12B jacks are the stiffest and longest-lasting jacks you can buy in America today. don't pay more than $1.25 each for them in single quantity. there are many switches available for stomping. i prefer the eaton DPDT, available from gopher at 612-490-4900, jeff. certainly there are others. listen to your heart.

1) don't do anything. imbibe. study what comes to you. wonder, as often as possible. dream. wander. stare at the sky. go to the library and use the reader's guide to periodical literature to research every interesting guitar circuit published in electronic experimenter, popular electonics, and radio-electronics magazine from 1964 to 1976. don't stop until you find something that makes you run to the copy machine with a handful of change. remember that the future is then, because they were where we wish we are now. if that makes any sense to you, go directly to sleep. put the xerox/photocopies in a safe place first.

2A) you need a meter! radio snack meters are cheap, but they are slow. if you have time, buy one.

7) breadboard up a few designs. don't stop until you have something that works. when the weekend comes, forget the wife, and work on a circuit until you succeed. next weekend, do it again. don't stop. preferably, don't get married. get laid... girls love inventors. i am living proof. lately, however, i have spent the last 7 weeks only wiring up ideas. i have a future, and you will too, but your present is to try as hard as possible to make something that works. you can socialize later. i hope i recover. if i don't, please inform my relatives.

10) you have succeeded! rest on your laurels, and collect your income from the dealers that sell your pedals by the tens of thousands. alternatively, work as a chef in an italian restaraunt. italian food heats up easily at any time of day. wrap in foil, warm at 350 degrees.

9) follow step 8 again.

8) never go out in the sun for more than a few minutes. the sun will reset your sleep system. there is no reason to sleep. or wrinkle. use sunglasses, stay in your car, or in bed, or at work. don't swim or do any other sports activity during the day. only go outside at night. this includes jogging (choose sunset) and gardening. you will live much longer and be able to think much more clearly if you spend a maximum of 20 minutes in the sun per day, unless you are in vacation in mexico (use sulfa drugs to avoid problems). use tons and tons of sunblock in mexico. they can assemble electronics cheaply in mexico. write off your visit there.

9A) stop for a second and think about your motivations... do you want to be a rock star or make pedals? then, forget ever thinking that, and plunge forward. you want to live. if you can't eat, you can't live. i met someone once that didn't eat. she had bad teeth. maybe it was bolemia, but gosh, those teeth were grey.
anyway, eat well, stay on your feet, beg, borrow, steal, and succeed. never stop. and for gosh sakes, get a new tip for that soldering iron and wipe the damn thing on a wet sponge. and get yourself a decent solder sucker. the big soldavacs work. and never use any solder other than 60/40 rosin core.

11) buy your favorite commercial pedal and force yourself to try to draw a schematic. draw in the parts that you think are correct. assume that you are correct. gloat. then, if you were terribly wrong, tear up what you drew and have a nightcap, falling into a deep and rewarding sleep. forget what happened in the morning, and carefully elude a sexual harrassment lawsuit the following day at work. stay away from prescription drugs. if you choose to drink regularly, stay away from tylenol, nuprin (and the chemical that it's made from) and aspirin, unless you are having a heart attack, in which case you should take a few to save your butt.

good luck!

http://www.muzique.com/schem/Aron_archives1.html