Best Way To Drill Ground Wire Holes

[athelas3]

Hi - a quickie for you experienced builders!

I am close to starting my first guitar build (using a Les Paul body plan) - one question, tho...

I feel a bit nervous about hand drilling a hole for the ground wire between an underbody routed control cavity and the nearest bridge post hole, as it would seem this is easy to mess up if doing by hand.

So I was considering using a radial prill press (with the head set at about 45 degress) and clamping the guitar body to a purpose built jig table, that has a mechanism to raise one edge up from the bench and precisely angle it in relation to the bit. Anyone done this or am I over zealous? If not, whats the best alternative? If everyone normally uses a hand drill and a long bit - how do you guide the drilling to perfectly hit the bottom of the brige post hole??

[Quarter]

- how do you guide the drilling to perfectly hit the bottom of the brige post hole??

Go the other direction, drill from the post hole to the cavity, a much bigger target and easy enough to hit freehand.

[ihocky2]

- how do you guide the drilling to perfectly hit the bottom of the brige post hole??

Go the other direction, drill from the post hole to the cavity, a much bigger target and easy enough to hit freehand.

+1

[WezV]

or if nervous about drilling the long distance at an angle, go for the shorter route - from bridge post to bridge pickup cavity and run the wire that way

[athelas3]

Hi guys - thanks for your comments. I think I realise now that what I was trying to do was unnecassarily difficult. If you can drill from the post hole to the control cavity - yes that's much easier. But - methinks - because you have to drill at an angle from the top of the post hole through the body to the control cavity - surely this will trash the top of your nice perfectly drilled post hole??

[DC Ross]

Gotta be really careful going from the top down. There's much less of a chance of mishaps going from the cavity to the post hole (my preferred method).

[AprilEthereal777]

I invested in an extremely long drill bit in the early days and would drill through the jack hole, through the cc wall and shoot for the bridge or stopbar post hole.......I would just clamp the body to the bench, often draw a "sight" line and then just shoot freehand but with much checking at the beginning to make sure I was on target......almost impossible to correct it if you start off target....luckily, I never missed the target but I used to sweat and stress and my heart would race doing the job.

These days I build guitars and basses with tops so I pre-rout channels in the body, then glue the top on, rout the pups and bingo.....there's the wiring channel.

[Metalhead28]

Gotta be really careful going from the top down. There's much less of a chance of mishaps going from the cavity to the post hole (my preferred method).

Really? This seems counterintuitive to me in every possible way.

Go the other direction, drill from the post hole to the cavity, a much bigger target and easy enough to hit freehand.

+2

Hi guys - thanks for your comments. I think I realise now that what I was trying to do was unnecassarily difficult. If you can drill from the post hole to the control cavity - yes that's much easier. But - methinks - because you have to drill at an angle from the top of the post hole through the body to the control cavity - surely this will trash the top of your nice perfectly drilled post hole??

Lay a thin piece of scrap or something on the top, rest the bit on that and not the corner of your bridge post hole. This is all but impossible to screw up in my experience.

[DC Ross]

Gotta be really careful going from the top down. There's much less of a chance of mishaps going from the cavity to the post hole (my preferred method).

Really? This seems counterintuitive to me in every possible way.

Go the other direction, drill from the post hole to the cavity, a much bigger target and easy enough to hit freehand.

+2

Hi guys - thanks for your comments. I think I realise now that what I was trying to do was unnecassarily difficult. If you can drill from the post hole to the control cavity - yes that's much easier. But - methinks - because you have to drill at an angle from the top of the post hole through the body to the control cavity - surely this will trash the top of your nice perfectly drilled post hole??

Lay a thin piece of scrap or something on the top, rest the bit on that and not the corner of your bridge post hole. This is all but impossible to screw up in my experience.

It's a simple matter of geometry... Going from the post hole to the cavity (assuming a bit diameter of .25", a post hole diameter of .5", body thickness of 1.75" and a distance of 1" from post to cavity):

Not much room for error.

And going from the cavity to the post hole:

Nothing difficult about lining up the bit & drilling to the bridge post hole...

No steep angle to drill at -- especially if your bridge is far from your cavity. No worries about nicking the top or tearout on the cavity side, either.

Meh. Whatever works.