would this work?

[kcs]

well im building a mini amp. i know its not a distortion pedal but i figured you guys would know.

bassicly this is my first project and i cant make my own circut boards and stuff. bassicly what im gonna do instead of a pcb im gonna have a bit of plastic with holes in it and solder wires to the components. would that work?

[birt]

if you don't elt the plastic all over your soldering iron, yes

[jpm83]

Or you could use perfboard like this http://www.smallbearelec.com/Detail.bok?no=71 it wouldn't melt.

Janne

[petemoore]

  I used hardback book covers...
  Countertop material.
  Hanging Garden circuits.
  circuit in/around dowel rod.
  Copper 'nails' in epoxy in wood as 'turret board'.
  Copperless perfboard's nice and re-useable, I use it sometimes.
  Plenty of copperpad perfboard with circuits on them around here...

[soulsonic]

I would use thick cardboard before I would use plastic.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Speaking of soldering irons & plastic, I notice that PVC seems particularly bad for soldering iron tips (at least, it stuffs up my expensive iron coated Hakko tips). Maybe the chlorine in the PVC, who knows? Something going on, though...

But to get back to the point, anything non-conductive & rigid will do.

[petemoore]

  No board works...for awhile...or...  Board helps keep the stresses off the solder joints, copper pads hold both sides of each component firmly...
  Just built an amp using copperless perfboard, instead of turrets, I just knotted the parts across the board, and used the leads as stays and contact/soldering points..never heard it recommended so I won't be the first, works fine [afaict.
 

[soulsonic]

Does anyone know where I can find the perfboard with the large holes? It's thicker too. Like the kind you see in old Marshall amps. It looks like they just have the raw perf and then stake the turrets into it; that would be really useful to have.

I saw a pic of an older Egnater amp that was built with pad-per-hole perfboard - it looked funky.

[Mark Hammer]

The first Electro-Harmonix boxes wired the components directly to the lugs on the various pots, switches, and jacks, and sometimes to each other.  It looked like a little spider web in there.

[theundeadelvis]

Soulsonic I sent you a PM about the amp perf board.