Fixing Rock Band: Part 1

Let it be known: I have a tendency to break things. Maybe I don't know my own strength; maybe it's my own form of "survival of the fittest"; or maybe I'm just a klutz (I prefer the first). Whatever the reason, I noticed a couple months ago that a crack had developed on the kick pedal for my drum set for Rock Band.



The engineer in me immediately started to think about how to fix it. The first step was to diagnose what went wrong. After operating the pedal with my hand a few times, I noticed that the pedal flexed when it was pushed down all the way. The was a rubber stop at the end of the pedal to absorb some of the shock, but when I used the pedal, my foot applied the force in the middle, and that's where it cracked.



I thought about using a metal plate to reinforce this area, but I don't have sheets of metal sitting around, and I don't really have to tools to work with it. I do, however, have some extra wood and the proper tools to work with it. I found a piece of 3/8" thick poplar that was just the right size and went about making a repair piece. The plastic pedal had a lattice of plastic ribs on the backside, which was perfect for hiding some washers and nuts so that they wouldn't interfere with the operation of the pedal.

Here is the final repair piece:


And here it is installed:




At first, I thought about painting it black to blend in, but then I thought "why not stain it and make it look really nice?" I think it looks pretty slick, and it is MUCH stronger than the regular pedal. I'm going to be able to stomp on this thing without giving it a second thought. I can't say the same for the drum pads.

Right after I fixed the kick pedal, I noticed that the far left drum pad sounded a little funny. It turns out that it was severely cracked. Here's the damage:



I decided to try and reinforce the cracks by super-gluing a piece of plastic across the crack, but where to find some pieces of plastic...



Yup, that's the Rock Band case that I melted a couple months ago. I thought I would fix the drum pad with a little irony. Here is the result:



The repair worked pretty well for for a couple days, but the glue gave out tonight. I looked for some replacement drum pads online, but after shipping, a replacement pad costs about half as much as just buying a whole new drum set. I think I might just buy the new drum set, and salvage the good pads off of my existing set and save for future repairs.