First Warmoth build(s), first post and a tuner hole question!

[Vallhagen]

Hey folks.

I got my stuff from Warmoth a bit more than a month ago, and as the bodies will be finnished in a few days, im about to assemble the hardware.

I am fairly handy, but as i by no means am a woodworker neither a luthier (i'm more qualified in electronics...) i need a "foolproof" answer to a somewhat newbie question regarding the handling of these "hard" woods: I have right here this Warmoth canary tele neck with pre-drilled 11/32 vintage holes for the Gotoh vintage tuning machines. The holes "seems" to be just a little small for the tuner inserts though, means i cannot push them in place with just finger force. Is this intentional, or do i risk to get cracks in the head if i use tools to force them in place?

A second question, also regarding holes-in-wood but more in general: When i drill those holes for the pick-guard, pickups, strap buttons etc, is there any "rule of thumb" for the hole size vs screw diameter?

***

A few words about myself in this context? Swedish guitarplayer and diy stompbox builder/designer. I did re-build an old Tokai strat (literally replaced everything besides the body and tuners) back in the late 80:s, thats how far my guitar-building experience goes so far. I found Warmoth through internet browsing and forum recommendations, and i am a happy customer so far.. and as you may notice i'm not afraid to shoot away stupid newbie questions.

***

The builds? A dual humbucker black korina tele with strat tremolo and canary/ebony neck for myself, and a Mahogany Diamondback with birdseye maple/rosewood neck for the young teen guy to finnish and assemble. Gotta say this is extremely fun and satisfying!

I attach pics as well. Excuse the poor pic quality, but you get an idea about what to come. I will update with more pics as the stuff gets in place

Cheers
/Bengt Vallhagen
Sweden

 

[Cagey]

First of all, welcome to the board! We have a lotta fun here and look forward to seeing your build come together.

As for the tuners, they will be a bit tight. This is by design, so there's no cushioning effect to deaden your strings. Usually, just threading on the ferrules that hold the tuner in place will pull the tuner body up tight to the headstock.

When drilling the holes for various parts, you'll probably encounter more than one size of bit necessary. Rather than call out sizes, a good general rule of thumb is to just hold the screw up behind a drill bit that looks about right, and if the only thing you can see are the threads, you're good to go. If you can see any of the screw shaft, the bit's too small.

Also, when running screws into hardwood, you want to wax the threads to lubricate them. Beeswax is best, but without that you could use paraffin, a candle, a crayon, etc. Stay away from soap - it often has chemicals in it you don't want on your wood.

 

[misterfinn]

If your tuners are the vintage Kluson style you might have to go after the holes with a bit of sandpaper and a rubber mallet to get the bushings in. I've done this on two Strat-style headstocks. Wrap some 200 grit around a dowel or a chopstick or something, sand the hole out just a little bit until you can get the bushing to stick but not slide all the way in. Be careful - as Cagey says, you don't want to deaden your strings. Once the bushing sticks but you still can't push it in with your fingers, tap it in carefully with a rubber mallet.

+1 to Cagey's advice about drill bits and beeswax. It helps to eyeball the screw/drill bit in front of a piece of white paper. Makes for better visibility. The beeswax is especially important with the tuner screws because they're so tiny and the headstock wood is so dense. You don't want the heads snapping off of your screws.

Looking forward to seeing how your projects progress. I've got a Diamondback on order myself.  :headbang:

 

[bagman67]

Rather than use a rubber mallet, you can do the same thing with either a drill press, an arbor press, or a common c-clamp with an appropriate caul, and be less likely to whack something in a regrettable fashion.


Congratulations on that green Diamondback body.  I had the devil's own time of it trying to make a mahogany body turn green the way I wanted it, but eventually I got there.  Am I right in guessing you used a dye on it, as opposed to a pigment?  Looks a lot like Transtint green.

 

[misterfinn]

Rather than use a rubber mallet, you can do the same thing with either a drill press, an arbor press, or a common c-clamp with an appropriate caul, and be less likely to whack something in a regrettable fashion.

...if you have those tools. i live in an apartment in oakland without a garage and don't have any presses. clamp with a caul sounds like a great idea. since i have neither, i've done 12 bushings with the mallet without incident. careful is the watchword. not the best way to do it, just the way i did it and it worked fine for me.

no disrespect. you and cagey are way more experienced at this stuff than i am.

 

[Vallhagen]

Thanx guys for welcoming words and good advice. I have been lurking around on this forum during last month and it seems like a nice place with lots of good advices!

Yes, i do have a drill press, sounds like a clever idea to use it for pressing the bearings in.
Thanx also for the visual way to decide what drill size for a specific screw. Exactly the kind of answer i was hoping for!

***

Yes i am truly in love with the diamondback shape too ... It was actually one of the specific reasons for going with Warmoth in the first place. I (or rather, the kid) wished for something SG-like, but I didnt dare to build something with a glue-on neck for the first build... Then this body showed up and everything fall in place. It's even more cool than the SG shape if you ask me ...

@ Bagman: Was it you that had a thread here showing that transparent green mahogany tele body? I had problems getting it green too, the way i wanted. More things to learn i guess (mixing green (color) and red (wood) gives brown, right...), but it turned out pretty good in the end, though a slight more "moss" than "grass" green nuance which i aimed for in the first place.

It is Wudtone color on both guitars (the green is "Emerald Isles").

Cheers!

 

[dmraco]

to Cagey's comments...make sure the bits are sharp to avoid cracking the finish if there is one.
Additionally i sometime tape the surface before drilling.  This allows me to make the surface perfect and the bits do not slip around on masking as much as the would a slick finished surface.

 

[Vallhagen]

Thanx for the hint about tape DMRACO, as well as the headsup on sharp bits. Good thinking.

**

Maybe i can share another idea on how to insert "tight" inserts/ferrules. I have used thismethod for inserting ball bearings in inlines and scooter (kickbike) wheels (metal in metal, can be really tight), and it should work for tuning machine ferrules too, i guess. You can do this on your kitchen table:

Things needed:
1 bolt + 1 screw-nut, about the size of the ferrule hole
2 suitable washers, fairly thick and wide, with inner diameter NOT wider than the inner diameter of the ferrule
2 (ring) wrenches of suitable size

Process:
Place the insert/ferrule in place, gently with thumb force (it shall go in just one or a few millimeters, if i read you guys right(?)).
Place a washer on top of it and drop the bolt through the hole.
On the "bottom side" of the guitar head, slide the second washer on the bolt, then
Secure the whole thing with the screw-nut. Only finger-force so far.
MAKE SURE everything is perfectly lined-up
Lock the bolt with one wrench.
Screw the screw-nut clockwise.
...slowly the ferrule is forced in place.

The obvious warning: Use this methid at own risk! I will try it on my neck this weekend (today or tomorrow depending on the neckhead topcoat drying...)

Cheers!

 

[Vallhagen]

I just used mentioned method (prev post), it worked very smoothly, and saved me those 3 minutes of running down the garage to the drill press...

...just an m5 bolt, an oversized washer (bigger area=>less preasure, right) against the wood, a big nut giving distance, smaller washes to match the nut.

looks as it should

second to go

three minutes later

Cheers!

 

[DavyDave53]

Well, Vallhagen,  that is amazing.

Would this method work for those pesky ferrules?

You have my vote for the Nobel Science Prize!

 

[Vallhagen]

You have my vote for the Nobel Science Prize!

Hehe... can you please call my boss and repeat that?! :icon_biggrin:  :laughing7:

***

But hold your horses, ^^ so far really good. Next post will include my next moment and disaster caused an hour ago, really. I had to take a walk and proclaim all the bad words of my vocabulary before i calmed down ... breath in breath out ...

 

[Cagey]

You certainly won't be the first one to invent new cuss words while wrenching on a guitar. But, as long as you learn something, it's all good. The only guys who don't make mistakes are the ones who don't do anything.

 

[Vallhagen]

Awrite. The disaster post.

I really don't know what i did wrong here. Maybe i didn't, and if so, i guess it will be a guarantee case. If - on the other hand - i caused this by myself, i guess i will spend the rest of the weekend banging my head against the wall or something equally creative.

I cracked the headstock.

It happened when i mounted the tuning machines, i e when i gently tightened those small screws which holds the machines in place.

Before that moment, i had, in turn:
* Sanded and cleaned the 11/32 holes and mounted the ferrules, all smooth and without problem or "inconvenient resistance" (pictures in the nobel prize(!) post above).
* Carefully measured and marked for the seven small wood-screws.
* Predrilled the holes with a 1.5 mm drill bit, i drilled the holes about 2 mm deeper than the length of the screw. The screws measure 2.0 mm at their widest place (just under the head), meaning 1.5 mm drill bit cannot be too small.
* Waxed the screws with candle-grease (correct word? stearin?).

Then i just positioned the six machines, checked alinement and attached the screws, just a few turns. All lined up good. Then i tightened the screws gently. They fitted perfectly smooth if you ask me. Then when i go over the screws for that "last 1/12 of a turn" just to "set" the screws, the headstock whispered "CRRAACCKK" to me. #¤%&/()=, #¤%&/()=!!

... I have calmed down a bit, but really, i dont know what to do about this.

Pics:

The crack is clearly viewable from the head-top (right in picture) through the small hole to the far right 11/32 hole. Then another crack is visible from the far right tuner hole to the tuner hole 2nd from right, through next small hole. the cracks open more with inserted screws.

Two pictures basically just showing the line-up of the machines.

Picture shows that the crack does not go all-through the head.

 

[Cagey]

That is bizarre. That has to be a flawed piece of wood that wanted to split. There's no way those sloppy-assed beer can tuners could have caused that - there's nothing tight about them. It had to be the stress of the screw, which is next to nothing. You'll typically twist the head off the screw before you could exert enough pressure to split a headstock. I'd call that a warranty issue, even if I worked for Warmoth and had to eat it myself.

 

[Vallhagen]

Thank you Cagey. Truly encouraging words. I will e-mail the Warmoth ppl then.

Bummer though, I was really about to get this instrument up and running in the next few days...

***

Cheers!

 

[Cagey]

Yeah, well... shit happens. Wood is pretty variable and it's not always easy to see where it's going to fail. I'm sure it's not anybody's fault, it's just an unfortunate circumstance.

 

[Rick]

. They should've worked.  I'm sorry man ... It's A tragedy.  I like planet wave, and recently discovered Hipshot tuners.  The hip shots with the ump are great because they fit like glove in the hole and there's no drilling.  This is appalling.

 

[Rick]

Here's a vid showing installation of the Hipshot https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9R9s_mz_X8.          https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YijSKBGSZ64

 

[Vallhagen]

Wise words Cagey. I don't really blame anyone either i think, not everything that happens is predictable. Now i just hope that the Warmoth ppl are reasonable for warranty handling of this task. We'll see during upcoming week. When this is solved - and it will be - this instrument will be a great thing. Though by now the assembly process is ... delayed. Ups and downs... on the UP side is that i have the diamondback to assemble with the kid. And i have other instruments to play.

Rick; thanx. Those hipshots looks cool, the idea of staggered tuner heights to avoid retainers are clever! To be honest, when i orderred the "vintage" tuner machines for the tele, i didnt really pay "that" much attention to possible quality drawbacks, i picked them by look and just took for granted that they are good enough (which i still think they are?). And generally, i dont mind drilling a hole and mount a screw or two! For the diamondback (with "Warmoth" style neck), i orderred a set of Gotoh SG38.

Cheers

 

[stratamania]

Vallhagen, hope this gets sorted for you.

Just in case anyone stumbles on the thread, if you want to use Hipshot griploks on a WArmoth neck, you need the Schaller tuner holes ideally.