question about drilling a neck

[JBJ]

i have a project guitar i'm working on.

 

i have the body with holes drilled in it

 

and i have a neck with no holes

 

 

 

i've asked before and guys have said just to line them up with the neck in the pocket and drill through the body and onto the neck.

 

makes sense but i don't get whether i'm supposed to drill bigger holes into the body (using the current holes which seem pretty small as pilot holes) or use the same sized drill bit and hopefully not mess up the grooves inside the body.

 

 

any help would be appreciated because i need to have this done either tomorrow or thursday or else my access to a proper drill press disappears:mad:

[sixtydriver]

This should help.

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Neck_relief,_building_and_repair/i-4005.html

[mikeSF]

this won't be too hard to do, but you must be mindful of the alignment of the neck in the pocket or the strings may not run straight along the neck. what i typically do is place the neck in the pocket and string up both E strings with very light tension to use as a guide. sometimes i find the neck needs some coaxing to make it straight (removing a little wood in the pocket or the neck if needed). when the neck is longitudinally straight, clamp it in place (padding the clamps appropriately to avoid marring any surfaces) and then drill through the body holes into the neck. same size drill bit seems logical but others may have an opinion on that.
good luck!

[JBJ]

thanks man. im thinking for alignment going through the body is the best idea but im really worried about messing up the grooves that are already in the neck.

i suppose i'd just use bigger screws.

i've got one of the boys from the tech department in the school im on placement in to do it so essentially i can blame him if it goes tits up

[Dougy]

Use a drill bit that will fit easily in the hole, but still quite snug. Drilling bigger holes in the body will probably mean that the screws won't have anything to bite into.

[tumbleweeed]

Why would you want bigger holes in the neck than already exist it the body? Use a small bit throught the body and then remove the neck and use a larger bit, no? Not all bodies have grooves either, so I dont know how important that is

[Townshend]

Body shouldn't have grooves afaik, the screws should easily slide through anyway.

[almightycrunch]

yep, shouldnt be any threads in the body itself( I have never seen on myself). Like others have said, make sure the alignment is correct by stringing lightly and sighting down the sides of the board. I'd personally just clamp the neck in place once positioned, then mark the holes with a center punch, remove the neck and then drill. Make sure you know your depth as well, before drilling, how many times have you heard about people drilling straight through the fretboard!!! ouch!!! As far as size of the hole, I think you wanna go like two bit sizes smaller than the screw IIRC, use a bit of bar soap on the threads when screwing it together to help prevent stripping or shearing the screwhead. I've only done this once myself when I built my Warmoth, but thats how I did it. Others with more experience than myself may have a better way.

[Dee Gan]

This should help. http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Neck_relief,_building_and_repair/i-4005.html

 

 

that is an excellent link, sir!

 

and the advice to string up the two e-strings for alignment is a great suggestion, too. (i just might be brave enough to do this myself on one of the projects I'm doing, now)

[JBJ]

thanks for the tips guys.

the body does appear to have grooves in it. it does now anyways

i've got two of the holes drilled. i brought it home and screwed those in so tomorrow we can line up the other 2 perfectly.

ive not got the bridge or tuners rigged up so i couldn't do the stringing thing but it's about as snug and true to the pocket as can be so i'm sure it'll be fine.

the PT of tech was hanging around the shop when we went in and he says he's built a few guitars himself so he gave us a bunch of pointers about doing it right witht he tools at hand.