Mounting hole size

[frank1985]

Greetings folks, I'm progressing well with my first Tele build Tele build ...I have my tele neck clamped inside the pocket, and am preparing to drill the mounting holes. Can anyone advise on what size drill bit (metric) I should be using? The screws I'm using are M4: approximately 3mm thick (inner diameter); 4mm with the thread. Should I go with the minor diameter or something a tad smaller?

[frank1985]

Forgot to mention that do I have everything lined.up already with the two E strings attached. 

[henrim]

If you have M4 screws, they are machine screws (bolts) that need to go into a threaded nut, not directly to wood. If on the other hand you actually have pointy wood screws that have 4 mm diameter shank, they need pilot hole on the receiving part. Depending on how hard the wood is the pilot hole should generally be 2,5 mm to 3 mm. If the neck is maple I think I would go with 3 mm. To the body I would drill holes with some clearance. 4,2 to 4,5 mm.

Edited October 11, 2023 by henrim

[frank1985]

Thank you  Can I ask why the body holes need that bit of clearance?

[henrim]

20 minutes ago, frank1985 said:

Thank you  Can I ask why the body holes need that bit of clearance?

That’s how all screw mounting works. The threads shouldn’t ever bite on both pieces. If they do the mount may not tighten well together as it gets bridged. The idea is to pull and clamp the two pieces together and that only works if the screw is allowed to freely pass the first piece.