anyone else lousy at drilling?

[brian mastro]

I just realized that all of the worse faults in my first build are from drilling actions.

Free hand or with a press, I can screw it up.

Maybe I am just ignorant or cocky on the (assumed) simplicity of drilling.

list of drill related faults:

1. head stock I drilled 2 of the tuning peg holes too close together, so I ended up having to drill a 7'th hole.

2. inlaying dots on finger board some are off center

3. drilling the jack plate hole I went in a little off center, this is at least covered  by the jack plate.

4. worst for last: trying to drill between the pick up cavity and the controls cavity last night I somehow went through the top of the guitar leaving a 3/8" hole near right bottom of the pick up.

I still have to add strap buttons, drill volume and tone control holes and screw holes for tuning machine mounts so I am going to be extra super careful with those.

[brian mastro]

neither of my real drills run backwards unfortunately, the 18V one doesn't count. I was drilling out tuning peg holes from 3/8"s to 25/64" today and the bit caught the wood and seized up on a couple of them, causing tear out on the exit holes. the drilling woes continue!

[Ned Knepp]

If you are not doing it already, limit the tear out on the exit with a block of wood. For the record, that is why I don't like using power drills to make holes larger. IF I have to do that, which I try to avoid like the plague, I will use my hand crank drill and go slow. I also firmly clamp whatever I'm drilling so that I don't have to worry about it moving around on me. It cuts down a lot on the jamming. They still usually end up out of round and off center but I'm not so likely to tear up something.

[brian mastro]

I was backing it with a piece of wood but the headstock traveled up the drill but when it snagged so any advantage of a backing board were lost. the hand drill idea actually appeals to me, there isn't that much drilling to do that you can't do it manually.

the guitar is done now btw 11:19pm Oct 1st 2012 I just put strings on it and the action and intonation are horrible as expected, time to look into how to do a set up!

[Mark McLean]

Hey Brian.  Finished the first build - congratulations!!

It is funny how it is always around midnight when you reach that great milestone, and there is nobody around to celebrate with.  But enjoy the achievement. 

Mark

[Chris Rochow]

In addition to using a punch for pinpoint accuracy. Have you then tried using the bit in REVERSE? This is a great way to prevent the bit from "walking" off the mark. Just run the bit in revese a few seconds..then switch to fwd direction.

[brian mastro]

this was mentioned earlier, the press and my hand drill do not go in reverse, I have an 18v that I have not used for drilling just as a screwgun I could attempt this with however.