Pre-drilled neck

[Steve Luke]

For my forthcoming project I intend to buy a pre-made bolt-on neck.

This seems easy enough if the neck is not pre-drilled and you can put your own holes wherever you want. but how do I go about this if I buy a neck with the holes pre-drilled?

In particular, I'm thinking of Warmoth's bargain basement necks - they all seem to all come pre-drilled presumably because they are designed to match up with the holes in their own bodies. Fine if you buy both from Warmoth, but I want to design and make my own body. How can I drill the neck pocket to make sure tehy line up with the pre-drilled holes?

Many thanks

[guitar_ed]

Hi Steve,

My suggestion would be to fill the holes in the neck, then drill new holes through the body and into the neck.

Guitar Ed

[VanKirk]

I've seen a post here about it before and someone (sorry, forgot who) mentioned to measure approximately where the neck holes will be then drill the body holes a bit oversized. Your neck plate or ferrules will still hold the neck in the pocket just fine but you'll have a little more room to get the screws through the body and into the neck.

Always make sure when putting screws in the neck that you've measured everything so that the screw doesn't go through the fretboard or into the truss rod.

[davros]

I asked the same question before,

Lookie Here

The replies may be of help to you

[Steve Luke]

Excellent, thanks for all the advice.

Incedentally, I was interested in teh post that suggested I fill the holes in the neck and startr again from scratch - what would you recommend I use to fill the holes?

[Reaper]

Excellent, thanks for all the advice.

Incedentally, I was interested in teh post that suggested I fill the holes in the neck and startr again from scratch - what would you recommend I use to fill the holes?

Dowels, I would think.

[Steve Luke]

Further to this thread I started a while ago, would it be possible to simply leave the existing holes in the neck where they are and work around them? Could I simply re-position the neck plate and make 4 new holes in the neck heel that are out of the way of the existing holes?

Thanks again

[unclej]

if you leave the holes open you stand a chance of drilling the new ones so close to the old ones that you end up with a hole too big to hold the screw properly. filling the holes is easy. some here may cringe but a quick and easy fix is to force wood glue into the holes then insert a wooden toothpick into the hole, snap it off and then force the other end of the toothpick in and snap it off, then another until you can't force any more in. when the glue dries sand flush and you have a fairly well filled hole.

you can also pick up small dowell rods at your local hardware store that will fill the hole nicely.

[ZoSo_Spencer]

That tooth-pick suggestions pretty good - never thought of that one

you could always just use that stuff (danm forgot the name)... just go into a hardware store and tell them that you need something to fill in holes and strong enough to be redrilled into. i used this stuff on like 2 of my guitars, i used it to re-drill neck pocket holes and fix screw holes and bassically everything.

trust me theyll know what you are talking about if you go into a hardware store and ask for something like that..

lol - its not wood filler either

[Doc]

I did this not too long ago.

Put a piece of paper over the neck.

Rub it with a pencil so that you get a pattern of the holes and the outline of the neck.

Cut out your template.

Put the template in the pocket.

Mark and drill.

You should make the holes a scootch larger than the screws and you should be okay.

[frank falbo]

Here's my reply from the other linked thread. I still think (along with the paper method too) it's the best choice. What a waste of time it would be to fill and re-drill perfectly good holes. You don't want to make weak holes, and that's what you can get if you use a hardware store dowel only to re-drill close to it anyway.

It's real easy to make the body holes in reverse. You just take the neck, and put little dowel centers into the holes. Then you press the neck into place and it will leave 4 starter indentations. If you can't get dowel centers (I never bothered to get any myself) then you can put pickguard screws into the holes. They will self-center because they are conical shaped, and when you press the neck into the pocket, you'll get four X's. Then "X" marks the spot where you drill. I countersink the neck holes just a little to stop the threads from lifting the wood out when you install the screws. That can cause creaks, or a less than tight fit. But the countersink also centers the pickguard screw perfectly.

[Mickguard]

Well, there is an instance where filling the holes is a good option : if the neck was drilled for a longer (or shorter) pocket it may not be possible to match them.

That's what I had to do with my current project (partly because I changed my mind about which neck to use). The neck heel was a litle longer, which put the spacing of the holes farther apart.

I took dowels that matched the existing holes and filled with those, it was perfectly simple, cost next to nothing.

[frank falbo]

Oh certainly! I own several guitars with dowels in there. I just filled an RG last week so it would fit right. I'm just saying that if you're staring at a brand new neck, with new, clean holes, why fill them? If you don't have body holes yet, you shouldn't fill them just because you aren't sure how you're going to get them to line up.

[unclej]

if i did it the right way what would i do with all these toothpicks?

[whitey]

use a paper template,like stick it to the neck,fold over and cut,and poke out the holes,then place the paper in the neck pocket,and drill away

[frank falbo]

I liked it better when Doc said it.