ASSEMBLING GUITAR: PRE-DRILLING AND SCREWING

When assembling your guitar kit's body, pre-drilling is a fundamental step that enhances flexibility and ensures secure component placement. Properly assembling the body and effectively screwing into wood are pivotal stages that require precision. This guide focuses on the pre-drilling process for your guitar body and provides insights into optimal screwing techniques.

Comments: Our kits intentionally lack pre-drilled holes—only the tune-o-matic bridge and body neck pocket are pre-drilled for simplicity. This allows for the use of different hardware or further customization of the positioning of elements like bridges and pickguards.

Why pre-drill the wood?

There are two main reasons. The first reason is to help you accurately position the components by preparing in advance where to screw and avoid mistakes. The second, very important reason is to avoid breaking the screws in the wood. This can be a significant issue if the screw breaks during the installation of a guitar part, as it can be difficult to extract. This can particularly happen when the wood is hard, such as our ash wood.

Pre-Drilling Guitar Wood Methodology

• Position your component (e.g., bridge, pickguard) onto the body.
• Lightly mark the screw locations using a pencil.
• Temporarily remove the component and utilize a hand drill to create holes at the marked spots. Ensure the drill is perpendicular to the wood surface. You can evaluate how much you need to drill by considering the screw length as well as the thickness of the part you need to screw. Then, mark this distance on your drill with tape to ensure sufficient drilling.
• Choose a drill bit diameter matching the body of the screw (excluding the thread). Ideally, the drill diameter should be the size of the pitch diameter and definitely not smaller than the minor diameter (see image below). For larger-diameter screws, start with a smaller bit and gradually increase to the desired size.

Comments: Pre-drilling is especially crucial for dense woods like mahogany or ash. This step prevents screw breakage and ensures a durable assembly.

Screw Insertion Techniques for Hardwood Guitar

Efficient screwing involves proper screw insertion and extraction techniques. Special attention is required when drilling, especially for hardwoods such as ash. In addition to pre-drilling the wood, which is absolutely necessary for hardwoods, you can follow these steps to reduce stress in the wood and ensure the screw won't break:

• When screwing, do it either by hand or with a drill. Using a drill will be more efficient, but make sure to set the rotational speed to a very low value, like 500 RPM.
• For very hard wood, you can use paraffin on your screw beforehand to reduce friction. Some suggest using oil, which will work, but the main problem is that it will mark your wood! Although it should be masked by the guitar part you are installing, we prefer paraffin.
• Make sure the size of your screwdriver matches the size of the screw head.