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Overkill, perhaps, but easy to make and nice to use. SBC

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Furthermore, I had one slip and dent a headstock finish while installing bushings. Never again. Definitely pays for itself for removing bushings, though!

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

With me and nitro it seems that little lifts when prepping the bushing holes are pretty common. Here's yet another way to apply butyl c to the edge and affords good control.
Get a small syringe with a 25G or preferably smaller needle. Raise a small bead on the bevel and touch it to the edge of the lift.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

What do you think about countersinking first then ream? Seems like reaming would be less dangerous. Or if you don't have a reamer, maybe just re-drill?

Where do you get butyl cellosolve?

Todd, you should write a book!

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Pat

A one inch long length of 1/4" dowel(wood or steel, no matter) chucked into your drill press. Then, with the drill press not running(d'uh!), press them home!

I just drill the holes at 1/4", and use the SM cutter for the bushings. I'll just touch each hole with a tapered stone in a Dremel to give it a bit of a chamfer, and this chamfer prevents the finish from splitting. I have one that's been chucked in the same Dremel since the late 90's and has never been removed! I use it to put a light chamfer on every hole(end pin, strap button, etc...) in a completed instrument.

K.I.S.S.

The cellosolve tip is worth its weight in gold! I figured it out by accident - I only wish I knew of it years earlier!

Most who have written on lutherie ought to have as much acknowledgement! So, there are "how to build a guitar" books, "how to make a good sounding guitar" books. I'm thinking of a good compilation of tips and tricks for efficient building, tooling, jig making etc. that is well organized and easy to navigate. However, I'm sure the "making a better guitar" market is dwarfed by the tiny "I think I might want to make a guitar" market, so maybe an online thing or OLF thing with evolution/ alternate builder angles potential. Plus you could have a cross ref that indicates if things are applicable to mando, uke, archtop etc.

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Pat

I like it! Good tip about the tapered stone too!

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Pat

Sounds like some good experience being passed on here.

I am getting ready to drill for some open tuner bushings in rosewood. Stew Mc recommended their #2062 reamer tool which drills a 0.340" hole for the bushing. The bushing is .344" which is .004" larger. than the hole From Todd's experience this could be a problem with rosewood. What would be a good method to inlarge the hole another .002" to get within the margin of safety with rosewood? Maybe sandpaper on a 1/4" dowel? Or anohter reamer of sorts?

By the way, the Waverly tuner has .348" bushings and Stew Mc recommends the same #2062 reamer with .340" hole making it .008" undersized. This yields an even bigger problem for rosewood. Is Stew Mc missing something here in their recommendations? Or do they expect one to know that more enlarging is needed?

Ed