Peghead drilling FAIL
Here's the final R&D shot showing where the through holes really went. As expected from the top view, they're all over the place.
Still, I was feeling good. The drill guide seemed perfect. Things were lining up. The prototype had problems, but I understood them. I even told Scott I'm unstoppable.
The time for practicing and planning was over. I would only know for sure by drilling for real, so I did.
Three out of five holes came out passable (or at least close to passable--I'll find out soon). The two outside holes, however, are terrible. Just plain awful. Number one angles down too deep and to the left. Number five angles high and way left.
What happened? The drill guide was too small to reliably make a perfectly aligned hole, the guide hole for one and five got reamed out through practice holes and unsteady one-hand drilling, the peghead angle is off by half a degree from ideal, I drilled completely blind with a stop block on top to help keep the holes clean. Stuff like that.
No luthiers laid on the basement floor in the making of these errors or in reflecting upon them.
I'm pondering what to do. Any solution will involve significant rework or redesign. I will try to avoid the urge to do anything rash.
In the meantime, I was able to do some positive things. By reinserting the drill bit and eyeballing with a straightedge, I could estimate how deep the holes would exit at posts two and four. They're both a little deep (as I suspected after noticing the shorter than designed surface tunnels--you probably can't see the pencil lines, but they're both about 25% short) and to the right, but I was able to move the tuner back a bit and managed to drill the post holes for one tuner. It fits! The other holes were drilled in slot waste area to mine for the exact hole path. I also finished grinding out the tension hoop hole bevels with the diamond bit.
