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I'd grab a 100 or so through-hole transistors or FETs.  Stock up while they are still in production.  At the cost savings of those quantities, you could always flog them off at a minor profit later if you didn't need them.

Are there ANY through-hole FETs or MOSFETs left at Mouser?

BS170 and 2N7000 are both still in production....... for now.

Grabbing 100 of each would be about $20.

I'd grab a 100 or so through-hole transistors or FETs.  Stock up while they are still in production.  At the cost savings of those quantities, you could always flog them off at a minor profit later if you didn't need them.

I think that with boutique effects it is more common for people to expect good looks AND good sound.  It all kind of feeds into the specialized market that commands higher prices than your typical Boss or MXR pedal. 

Certainly there are plenty of people that don't care much about looks.  No doubt gigging musicians are likely to care far more about reliability and sound (probably in that order) than looks.  But gigging musicians aren't the only purchasers of pedals.  There are tons of hobbyists and collectors that have plenty of time to dwell on all aspects, including the aesthetics of the box.

I've had a couple of people tell me they didn't care what was on the box, but most of them actually did.  The majority of people cared quite a bit about what it looked like.  They also care about the aesthetics of their guitars and amps.

I certainly dig good aesthetics on a build.  If it's a box I've spent a lot of time making look good, I definitely have a stronger desire for it to sound equally as good.

In the end, if it doesn't work for me (or I can't tweak it to my liking) then it won't get used much, regardless of what it looks like.  I kind of look at pedals like cars:

1.)  It's totally reasonable to have a pretty car that drives well.  All things being equal, this is my preference.

2.)  It's also totally reasonable to have a really ugly car that drives well.

3.)  It doesn't make much sense to have a pretty car that doesn't run well.

Good analogy. Though Lotus ruins it. Then it's possible to have a pretty car that drives incredibly, sounds like an angry sewing machine and breaks just about every time you use it.

I think of it like a woman. Find one that you really get on with and just seems to click with you and the wrapper becomes all the more attractive to you regardless. Find one that's pretty and more often than not the contents are batshit f**king crazy. Before long the gorgeous packaging becomes tainted by the contents...

Ok that doesn't really work either.

Well, there are always exceptions, no matter how illogical.  :-)

I had a friend growing up whose dream car was a Pontiac Fiero, which was a righteous piece of junk of a car.  He finally got one and absolutely loved it.  It burst into open flames on multiple occasions and he still loved it.  I remember him getting stuck somewhere in the middle of winter and working on it when it was so cold that he needed thicker gloves to feel his fingers.  Yet, he still loved it.

I would've cubed it, then set it on fire, then cubed it again, then buried it at sea.

On second thought, I probably wouldn't have needed to set it on fire.  It probably would've done that itself while being cubed.

Unique-LEDs.com has metal holders for them as well:

http://www.unique-leds.com/index.php?target=products&product_id=1808

That's beautiful.  You've been on a tear lately.

I certainly dig good aesthetics on a build.  If it's a box I've spent a lot of time making look good, I definitely have a stronger desire for it to sound equally as good.

In the end, if it doesn't work for me (or I can't tweak it to my liking) then it won't get used much, regardless of what it looks like.  I kind of look at pedals like cars:

1.)  It's totally reasonable to have a pretty car that drives well.  All things being equal, this is my preference.

2.)  It's also totally reasonable to have a really ugly car that drives well.

3.)  It doesn't make much sense to have a pretty car that doesn't run well.

Here's a teaser shot of the overdrive we're working on.  I haven't had a chance to goop the outside yet.   

Nice Rej!

I like how it's clean and dirty at the same time.

That is one of the nicest wiring jobs I've ever seen.  Fantastic work.

Dude, that is AWESOME.  The graphic is great.  Nice clean guts, too.  All in all a clever build.

Thanks guys!

Dave I use paint.net or Inkscape to set up graphics. This one is a little fuzzy on purpose, I wanted some "contrast" between the graphic and the lettering, so I added some noise to the graphic layer.  The location is off a little because someone changed the zero point and I didn't check first. I'm usually doing laser at the end of a long day, that day wasn't great all around!  I may do an acrylic fixture and reset the zero every time.

I've run into that same issue with the laser engraver, even when somebody doesn't change the zero.  Periodically, the machine requires a complete calibration, which takes a long time.  Those things require more maintenance than I would've expected.

I did setup a job to run a calibration check grid on acrylic a while back.  It's useful as a quick check.

That's a pedalboard worth of fantastic builds there.

Beautiful.

There are a whole lot of cool techniques here.  Just an awesome build.