Drilling Holes?

[radrobgray]

ive seen that alot of people drill the holes for pup, strap, and jack screws after paint. is there any reason for this? if i drill the holes before i paint will something horrable happen? the only bad thing i can think of is that the hole will absorb the finish and swell the wood round it, but im not sure.

[mikhailgtrski]

Water from wet sanding can get in there and swell the wood, causing problems with a nitro finish. Those are small diameter holes anyway - easy to drill after the fact - and their location isn't critical like bridge studs, which you normally would want to pre-drill.

Mike

[mammoth guitars]

Its best to drill as many of the holes as possible and as mik indicated the holes can swell or fill with finish and may need to be cleaned out or redrilled. When using lacquer it can be risky drilling holes after finish as it can crack. With urethane, cracking is not as much of a problem.

[radrobgray]

i will be using ktm-9 its a water based urethane, i think. should i drill em before or after?

[Mattia]

Whatever you feel more comfortable doing. I've done both, never had a real problem.

[Drak]

A trick I learned from Dan Erlewine is any exposed area that is not getting direct finish (like output jack holes, pot holes, strap holes, etc..) take a Q-tip and swap all the edges with some sort of finish to prevent wood swelling and finish cracking when you are wetsanding. Mostly I use lacquer on my Q-tip to seal these areas, but sometimes I'll use CA glue instead.

Addressing your note of the wood swelling with finish, that's not quite correct.

When you do your final wetsanding, any area that did not get any finish and is still in raw wood form will swell from the WATER and crack the finish around it. The wood swells, the finish doesn't, something has to give, and the finish you worked so hard on cracks on you from the water swelling it.

Sucks.

[Setch]

Not only can the finish crack, if it swells enough, you can sand right through it.... and sand throughs *suck*.

[The Fatalities]

just put rolls or paper in the holes to stop anything from getting in.

[Setch]

And what stops the water soaking into the paper, then into the wood? Bad idea.

What exactly is wrong with just drilling the holes afterwards?

[Batfink]

I drill mine after paint.

If your worried about cracking the finish just use a heated spike (bradawl sp?) to make your hole, pilot or otherwise, and then your finish won't crack - if it's cellulose just make sure it's fully dried, you don't want the bugger to burst into flames

Jem

[Mattia]

I tend to put masking tape over the finish wherever I'm going to drill through it, and use sharp, new brad point bits wherever possible. Works for me.

[Setch]

I usually use a 2mm twist drill to start any holes on finished surfaces, then step up in .05 incremments. Anything over 6mm I use a tapered reamer to enlarge.

No chips so far. I also tend to use a blunt countersink to roundover the edges of drilled holes, it makes them less prone to flaking or chipping when you put in the screws, pots or studs etc.

[MP63]

I have done both and had no problems.

If it has a finish, I start the screw holes with a 1/16" bit, with my fingers, then finish with a hand drill. One reason I like to drill all the holes first. is to assemble the complete guitar before finishing. I can catch any mistake I may have made, such as perfect bridge placement, neck alignment, etc. Sometimes you need to make adjustments that require shaving a little wood, and with a finish on, you're too late.

Everything I ever use, ends up making small cracks on the edges of the screw-hole paint, regardless. Especially when you screw in the pickguard screws. I use a big coutersink drill bit to smooth the rough edegs of the hole lip. That's where all the paint builds up on the hole. Also, it seems that the holes get filled with grain filler anyways.

I used mineral spirits to wet sand on advice from The Guitar Reranch, and it worked great. I used to use soapy water before and didn't have a problem.

I feel you can wait till the end, if it's just for pickguard placement, jack screws and the like. For big stuff, that's got to be before.

Hoped it helped.

[Drak]

If you're careful, you can hold the tip of a soldering iron right next to the hole to be drilled, it heats up and softens the lac before drilling so it doesn't crack, but you have to have a good sense of timing when enough is enough to soften it but not blister it, it doesn't take but a few seconds really.