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How to build a bass – Drilling the headstock / pegboard holes

Drill Bits

When building and drilling new holes in a blank, the most important thing is to have the right bit for the tuner you intend to install.

The ideal drill bit type is either a brad point or forstner; they are preferred for their accuracy and clean cut.

Hipshot 3/8″ Ultralite and Gotoh GB7 will fit properly into 7/16″ (14mm) hole. For the Hipshot Ultralite 1/2″, that will mount in a 11/16″ (17mm) hole.

As long as you are aware of the measurements to use up front, which you now are, you can drill the right size hole and know the tuner will fit.

Generally speaking, hole sizes for certain tuners will have a range of between 14mm to 18mm.

It is very important that you test not only your drilling equipment but also tuner the fit itself on a scrap piece before actually drilling into the actual blank. If there is any place where you want to know whether the tuners you have will fit or not, it’s on the scrap and not on your blank.

Notes on bushings

The two styles of bushings for bass tuners are screw-down and press-fit. The screw-down type (a nut goes over the post and is tightened to a washer with a wrench) generally requires slight “wiggle room” in order to ensure a proper fit. The press-fit style requires a snug fit, but not so snug that it would otherwise damage the wood, e.g. cracking/splitting.

Layout of tuner holes

In the last step, we laid out the headstock from a template. This template has the proper tuner hole locations right on the template itself.

While the template’s location for the tuner holes is most likely correct, we need to check the alignment of the tuner holes.

On an inline (4-in-a-row) set of tuners, alignment is checked by drawing a parallel line from the headstock’s edge through the center of where each tuner hole is to be drilled. After that, a protractor is used to then draw a perpendicular line to get the measurement as exact as possible.

holes

Concerning the 2×2 tuner style, they are usually not equidistant from the headstock’s edge. The general rule of thumb is to make sure that your string that comes from the tuning post is as straight as possible to the nut.

The reason for the crosshatches is that if we only marked the center of the hole, we would have nothing visually to confirm the bit is in the right place after the cut has started because the center point mark would be otherwise eliminated the moment drilling starts.

Use of a drill press recommended

A standard drill press available in most larger hardware stores is suitable for drilling your holes. The press is necessary to ensure the drilled holes are are straight as possible. More often than not, the best drill speed to use is a medium-to-low speed, however, what bit you use depends on what speed works best with it. Again, it is recommended to drill a few test holes in a piece of scrap before moving on to the blank itself.

The importance of using a backer board when drilling

The backer board is a piece of flat virgin scrap you put underneath your blank before you drill. Being you will be drilling through the entire blank, what the backer board does is prevent two things. First, it prevents from drilling into the drill press table itself, and second, it prevents “chip out.” Chip out is when the bit exits the blank and causes breakage. With a backer board in place, breakage is significantly reduced if not altogether avoided, and allows for a cleanly drilled hole all the way through the blank.

Safety and accuracy tip

For best results when drilling your holes, drill slowly to ensure the most accurate hole possible, and to avoid unnecessary damage. Drilling slowly greatly decreases the chance of damaging both the headstock and the drilling table.

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