need to ream tuner holes, best way?

[telest]

Ok in the past when ordering from Warmoth, I've always talked to a sales guy and go through everything step by step. This time I did it all online and of course my tuner holes are too small. They are the standard vintage 11/16" and I need 10mm/13/64". This is the size I always get, just an oversight or I forgot the dimenions. Anyway I need to ream out the holes to 10mm. All I have is a crappy hand drill that is way too slow. If I can find a hand reamer that would be great, worst. case senario is using a Dremel as carefully as possibl. I've done this before using a rat tail file but not with this much material that needs to be opened. Any nifty ideas would be much appriciated. I don't want to send it back to Warmoth to see if they will redrill it for me because I'm on a schedule. Thanks.

Steve

 

[Cagey]

A good reamer of the size you need is a surprisingly expensive tool, but it's the right thing. Filing is a non-starter, as is the Dremel solution. You're just begging for trouble with those ideas. But, I can't imagine a drill motor being too slow to do it. You don't want to go tearing in there anyway. While I wouldn't normally recommend a twist drill to make those holes, it's too late to use a Forstner, so that's the way I'd go. You can't need to increase the diameter more than 1/32" or so, give or take 1/64", so the the twist is just going to behave much like a reamer anyway. Drill from the beauty side, and tape over the hole before you go at it. It'll be fine. There are ferrules or washers to be installed from the face side, and the machine will be on the back, so if you chip the finish, it'll be covered and you'll never see it.

 

[telest]

Going to some hardware stores today. A reamer is my first choice, then a dril bit. The ream for Grover/Gotoh tuners is technically a countersink ream two diameters. One for string shaft and the larger for the body shaft. Not too concerned about pulling that off if I can't. The neck I've been using for the longest time just has single diameter ream. Thanks for your input...will post results later.

 

[Strat Avenger]

I know this thread is a month-old, but I thought I'd mention that I had to ream the tuner holes a little bit for my Sperzels.
I wasn't about to spend the money for a reamer, but I know the destruction a drill bit can do, so I managed to borrow a reamer.
I did it by hand (no drill), taking my time, going in small increments, checking each time, until the tuners fit. Everything turned out perfect.

 

[pabloman]

Let me post in a dead thread too then........Unibit! They are lovely things. :headbang1: :laughing8:

 

[stubhead]

Hand reamer. LMII sells some nice ones, but they are guitar-priced.
http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts.asp?CategoryName=Reamers&NameProdHeader=Peghole+Reamers

Hand tools are so easy and so much safer, there's rarely a time when Ebay doesn't have some disastrous, forlorn mashup of Warmoth wood and power tool incompetence for sale. If you know how to sharpen chisels, (AND MEASURE) even pickup routes are a one-hour job.

 

[Strat Avenger]

Let me post in a dead thread too then........Unibit! They are lovely things. :headbang1: :laughing8:

Bad idea. I used a Unibit to enlarge tuner holes on a Fender Squire Strat, and it suffered tear-out on the back side of the headstock.

 

[Cagey]

Unibits come in a variety of sizes, configurations, and degrees of quality, so it's tough to say baldly whether or not one would be a good choice for doing guitar work. But, in my experience, they're generally used for drilling in thinner things, usually sheet metal, and the steps move in larger increments with shorter distances between steps than what we're used to seeing for guitars. So, they're not what come to mind when thinking about drilling headstocks for tuners.

 

[pabloman]

You got to know how to use your tools. Drill from the front but not all the way through. Then drill from the back.

 

[leo12.]

A reamer is the safe option,but  it will give a slight taper to the hole . I got one a few years back it was quite cheap i will have to go find recipts on where it came from.
I have  done this with a piller drill with a jig i made to hold & support the neck, moving right to left one hole at a time centering each hole then drilling in half millimetre increments, then moving to the next hole slowest speed on the piller drill.
End result was good with maybe half a mill off centre moving left to right on two holes not visable on finished job.
Sending it to Warmoth may be the best schedule you get on. If i find the reamer lead i will post it for you good luck.

 

[pabloman]

Here's the one I used.

 

[Cagey]

That's an interesting bit. Where'd you find it?

 

[pabloman]

It's an Irwin bit. It came in a set with 2 others. I got it off one of the tool trucks. I never used it working on cars so it was nice and pristene. Like you said they are usually used for sheet metal and whatnot. That one to me seemed more prone to cause panel distortion so I always used the finer increment ones to create my sneaky access holes. I believe I have seen them at the big box hardware stores too though. The one pictured is a #2MT, I think. Seems a little more logical now huh?

 

[Cagey]

It's not a #2MT, which looks like this...

But, that's close, which let me find it. It's actually a titanium nitride coated version of the  Irwin Industrial Tools 11101CB.

 

[Strat Avenger]

You got to know how to use your tools. Drill from the front but not all the way through. Then drill from the back.

Well of course you can't drill all the way through. It's a tapered bit. It was a cheap-ass Squire, so I didn't care, but I'd never use one on a Warmoth project. The hand-driven reamer worked beautifully.

 

[stubhead]

The one I've used (it's buried in the "tools-not-used-much department) looks an awful lot like this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/TAPERED-REAMER-MACHINING-PLUMBING-ELECTRICIAN-TOOLS-/170692803789?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27be157ccd

If you look at the pitch of those things, it can't be more than 4 degrees off center, right? Of course you go in from the front and back, and end up with a hole that's tight right in the middle, and flares out a little tiny bit on both sides. But the washer on one side way more than cover it, as does the body on the other. The washer and the screw hold everything tight, if fact it seems to me that all the tuners vary a bit from each other, maybe it's in the plating. Our friends at Stew-Mac just call it 10mm across the board. I've had factory-drilled holes that needed to be reamed a bit to be right, and holes big enough that the tunes rattled in them till I built up a few layers of superglue on the sides. We all DO check tuner nut tightness every time we change strings, I know... :laughing7: I'm actually fanatic enough that if I was OCD about perfectly straight tuner holes I'd  use the reamer just to get the top and bottom hole diameter and then use a dowel (tie rod) with some 150 grit sandpaper to flatten the walls to a cylinder, slowly, slowly. I mean, you've got the tuner right there to check your progress...
It's Foolproof! Wat could possibry go wong....*
It wouldn't make any difference - but I might do it for the zen of it. I think I even did once.


*(My new motto!)

 

[Strat Avenger]

The one I've used (it's buried in the "tools-not-used-much department) looks an awful lot like this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/TAPERED-REAMER-MACHINING-PLUMBING-ELECTRICIAN-TOOLS-/170692803789?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27be157ccd

If you look at the pitch of those things, it can't be more than 4 degrees off center, right? Of course you go in from the front and back, and end up with a hole that's tight right in the middle, and flares out a little tiny bit on both sides. But the washer on one side way more than cover it, as does the body on the other. The washer and the screw hold everything tight, if fact it seems to me that all the tuners vary a bit from each other, maybe it's in the plating. Our friends at Stew-Mac just call it 10mm across the board. I've had factory-drilled holes that needed to be reamed a bit to be right, and holes big enough that the tunes rattled in them till I built up a few layers of superglue on the sides. We all DO check tuner nut tightness every time we change strings, I know... :laughing7: I'm actually fanatic enough that if I was OCD about perfectly straight tuner holes I'd  use the reamer just to get the top and bottom hole diameter and then use a dowel (tie rod) with some 150 grit sandpaper to flatten the walls to a cylinder, slowly, slowly. I mean, you've got the tuner right there to check your progress...
It's Foolproof! Wat could possibry go wong....*
It wouldn't make any difference - but I might do it for the zen of it. I think I even did once.


*(My new motto!)

`My Sperzels are tapered, so I had to ream only the tops of the holes, and only very slightly. There was no reason to enlarge the holes on the back of the headstock.

 

[jrybicki]

looking through alot of old posts for tips..and spotting bad info...
im new here and found nobody used a half round file without any taper to file around the i.d. a little bit. slowly and testing the size will be super safe!? this week is my 2nd build since i was 15 yrs.
p.s. back then the neck,kramer evh style was $150
schallers                                                      $99
emg81                                                          $99
kahler flyer trem                                            $150
fu*kin expensive!

 

[stubhead]

If you can do a good job with a round file, by all means it's a usable tool. The people who post here have all kinds of kinds of variant skill with wood, with wiring, with finishing, with metal-working in jeweler-like measurement and dimensions (fretwork). Sometimes you get somebody with absolutely no experience who thinks they're going to be sly and end up with a $3,000 guitar for $900. If you know yourself that you can hold a file vertical - really vertical - and you know what "round looks like and you spot-check all the time, what's not to like? With the file you do need to be a little careful about the finish chipping (which is why I'd use an automobile tie rod wrapped in varying grades of sandpaper instead). But you know your own skill level. Wood is just wood.

 

[mgaut051]

Wood is just wood.

Except when it's 1.75"x12.75"x16"; then it's a tease.