Official Luthiers Forum!

While drilling holes in a peghead for tuning machines, I drilled one hole too fast at the end. My drill press bit into the denser material when the bit broke through and sent an ebony splinter right down the grain of the head, splitting it.





Even though I had a supporting board under it and was holding on tight, it ripped it right out of my hand. I think I'll go buy a forstner bit for next time .

Sorry man, that is a tough one.

Yes, I use a forstner 3/8 inch for this.

ouch...
I have seen this happen before....thats how I learned to go slow!
But I think you can still glue it up and be ok. Just need to do a little on the headstock and maybe use a back veneer and you'll be good as new!

_________________
Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Glue up the headstock, replace the veneer, and always use forstner or brad point bits for any through-hole over 1/8".

Sucks, don't it?

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that has these kind of problems. Yup, it happend to me once too.

I agree witht he glue up and replacement of the veneer. Should be an invisible repair

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H

As I served my apprenticeship in the metalworking field we had it 'drilled' into us (sorry!) never to hold the workpiece on a drill press table by hand. Metal will always try to grab as you break through.This rubbed off in my woodworking. I almost always clamp the workpiece with 2 clamps, not just one, onto a piece of hardwood. Its a bit of a PITA sometimes but worth it. This way a properly sharpened twist drill will drill a perfectly clean hole.

I realise that most of you already know all this, but I'm still often surprised by what people don't know. Especially those who haven't served some sort of manual apprenticeship.

I was able to use a metal rod as a lever to open up the split to where I could get in with tweezers and an exacto knife to remove all the splinters inside the split. I then used the ebony splinters like puzzle pieces and glued them back in their original spots the best I could and filled the rest with epoxy and ebony dust after gluing up the split. Thankfully the repair is invisible: