Brian's Guitar from Conception to Birth or How to Build a Guitar in 62 Easy Steps!
Hardware & Assembly
33 Drill for the Body Hardware
It is very important to double-check all of your hardware hole spacings on your body template. There is no way to neatly fix a misplaced hole. I noticed that my bridge hole spacing was a few millimeters off, enough so that it would not fit. It is easy to make any adjustments before you start drilling. Carefully mark the centers of the bridge posts and string ferrules on the body template. Drill small pilot holes through the template making sure you hit the centers dead on. Brad point bits are ideal for hitting the marks since they have a brad on the point. Tape the template to the front body panel and transfer the marks with an awl and a gentle tap with a hammer.
Verify the hole size for the bridge posts. Drill a test hole in a piece of scrap of the same wood as the top. You want a tight fit without having to force the posts in with a hammer. They should slide in with finger pressure. Set the depth on a drill press for a hole about 2mm deeper than what the posts measure. This will make sure you don’t bottom out. Carefully line up the drill bit to the mark and drill the hole.
Verify the hole sizes for the front and back string ferrule hardware. There’s two drill bits shown for the back hardware. We chose to take it one step further and recess the outer flange so that the back was completely smooth and flush. You know those things are sharp and you could lacerate your pecker if you’re not careful. Put a piece of masking tape on the back to control any blowout. Since our neck penetrates the guitar past the point where the strings will go through the body, we made sure to dry fit the neck in place while drilling these holes. We’ll probably get a little glue ooze inside the holes when we get to the assembly stage, but that will be easy to clean up. We plan on carving and contouring the top of the guitar later on, so it will be easier to drill on the back of the guitar while the front is still flat. Carefully line up the drill bit to the mark and drill the hole all the way through.
Drill for the flange recess first. Don’t simply line up the center of the drill bit with the hole you just drilled. The thinner drill bit used previously may have deflected slightly when you drilled. Check the hole locations and make any necessary adjustments to the centering. Set the depth stop on the drill press to be a little less than what the flange is and drill for the recess. Check the depth by flipping the string ferrule hardware upside down and test fitting it. Adjust the depth stop and redrill until the flange is recessed just below the surface. Now that the depth is set, continue drilling the other five recesses remembering to make adjustments to the hole centers. Chuck up the bit for the body of the back string ferrule hardware and repeat the steps to seat them properly.
For the pickup bezel mounting screws, find the right size drill bit by drilling in some scrap of the same wood as the top and test it. The screws should go in easily by hand and not pull out. Carefully locate the pickup bezels over their respective cavities. Our bezels were angled and had different thicknesses so we made sure to get them oriented properly. Mark the hole centers with an awl. Check the depth of the mounting screws and set the drill press stop about 2mm deeper than the worst case hole. In our case it was the thinnest bezel. Line up your bit and drill all the holes.
Even though our pickups would fit nicely into the routed area of the carved top, we still needed to add a little depth for the adjustment screws on each side of the pickup so everything would fit. A 5/8" diameter recess would work for our pickups. When the pickup assembly is dropped in, see how much sticks out above the top. This will tell you how deep to make the recesses, so set the depth stop on the drill press about 2mm deeper to make sure you don’t bottom out. Due to our neck design, the guitar had to be dry fit with the neck and rear body panels in place. Line up and drill the holes. We cleaned up the edges of the new holes with a chisel and some 60 grit sandpaper to ease any sharp edges; wires will be going through a couple of these holes. Now test fit all the hardware including feeding the wiring into the control cavity. Don’t skip this step as it is much easier to make any adjustments to things now rather than waiting until the finish is on.
While the bezels are mounted, lightly pencil in the outside edges so you will have a reference of the locations when carving the top. You don’t want to contour the area where the bezels are resting so that they will sit flush without any gaps (unless the bezels you bought are designed with a contour to them). Also, double-check your neck and string clearances. Again, it is much easier to make any adjustments to things now rather than waiting until the finish is on. We discovered that the neck pickup bezel sat a little high. Our drawings located the bezel slightly below the fretboard at its thickest part, but we forgot to take into consideration that the fingerboard had a crown making the corners lower than the center. We could either sand down the back of the bezel a millimeter or two, or we could sand the top of the guitar down at this location to make the accommodation. As you can see in the right photo above (taken after the top was carved), we chose the latter option. A belt sander is an aggressive tool; take it slow and easy and check your progress often.