Oh Goody! Me and Cagey's first fight! (or is that Cagey and I's... naw)
I'm just a bit lost, right now. Is there any validity at all to my fear of taking a 3/8" drill to an 11/32" hole?
Well, sure - even with a brad point drill bit, you can't center the drill bit over a hole that doesn't have a center - because it's a hole. The danger of that is obvious, the drill bit "grabs", it goes in crooked, comes out the back
and chips the finish. This may not happen to Cagey, but it's going to happen to somebody without a lot of experience with power tools. Cagey's advice:
Running that bit into the hole is going to be a fast operation, so be prepared for it.
"Be prepared?" What - take a shot of whiskey, pray to Jesus, "prepared" how? Are you talking about cutting a specific length of tube from a BiC pen* or something, fitted over the drill bit to act as a positive stop for the drill bit so it
can't go too deep, or is this "preparation" more metaphysical... I used to have to write recipes and train cooking staff, and you learn the hard way to accommodate the advice to the skills and tools of the recipient. It's not safe to tell somebody "Bring the water to a boil, then add the noodles...". You have to tell them to "take the noodles out of the package" or they'll throw the whole goddam
box in the water (it happened).
*(probably have to be a "widebody" BiC for that size)
It's a tiny, tiny adjustment that's needed. And if you're not experienced with power tools or the way a bit can grab (the technical term is "runaway") and if you don't have the body clamped down and if you haven't devised some positive stop for the drill bit, that's a real recipe for fast & major problems. I mean, I personally would probably use a few woodcarving chisels in there too, but to cut perpendicular to the grain they have to be devilishly sharp and I'm not going to advise somebody about the whole process of sharpening outcannel gouge chisels (which they don't have) with slipstones (which they don't have either).
This part was a bit baffling to me:
You can't make the hole perfectly round, or perfectly cylindrical. You may, with some perseverance, get the hole to where you can fit something in it, but it's less than ideal.
I think what Cagey must've meant to say is that "
I can't make the hole perfectly round..." Because many, many people have made round holes with hand tools in the past, and many many more will do so in the future. Name Stradavarius's top five power tools... It takes some concentration, but that's why I said it may take an hour or two. And it's a lot more "ideal" than drilling a big crooked hole right through the body because your "preparation" was... well I don't even know. By the time I'd finished "preparing" I could have the friggin' holes the right size with hand tools.
And the reason the thimble toppled over was because the hole was still too small. It was impatience, and the need to spend a bit more time on the hole... "You may, with some perseverance, get the hole to where you can fit something in it.." Great! That's what you want it to do! And if you've taken the time, and the hole is round enough to contact the thimble all the way down 2/3 of it's surface, the act of pushing it in will pressure the rest of the wood to hold it - and since it's the string pressure downward that actually holds it there and the downward force that transmits vibrations, it just needs to be - not wobbly. I'm sure Cagey has seen a jazz guitar with a bridge that's not screwed, glued, doweled to the top at all, it falls off every time you change strings - but it works just fine!
It bugs me that the holes in my peg head, which are supposed to be 11/32" are actually 5/16" and that the holes for my bridge, which are supposed to be 3/8" are actually 11/32"
I don't know if anybody's ever assembled a guitar with parts from four or five different suppliers and NOT had to do some minor adjustments. Heck, the holes that Warmoth drills for the big doofus-ear bass tuners are too small for the Schaller tuners they sell! Here come de rattail file.... These just are not quite Model T's yet, as far as mass production and uniform standards. If you've ever seen pictures from the Fender or Gibson or PRS factories, they have racks and walls with files and chisels and sanding blocks, because even coming from the exact same place & CNC machines the parts don't just snap together like Legos. And it's always better to have a fit that's too tight and needs to be loosened, than to have everything sloppy and wobbly to start with and have to tighten the fit with layers of superglue held in place with paper etc., whole 'nother story there.
And I don't mind having ME AND CAGEY'S first fight, because I know beyond a shadow of doubt that I'm blindingly right, and when he sees the error of his path he will repent and OWE ME.... :evil4: But in the meantime, we can't let the proof of his wrongness be your sacrificial guitar body, so maybe you ought to hold off on those holes until tfarny takes a look at them. And don't let him have any of the wine until the goddam thimbles are banged in. :evil4: :evil4: :evil4:
