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Hello, I driller the stud holes for a tune-o-matic style tailpiece too wide on my body of swamp ash. What is the best fix for this? Fill in and re-drill or something else. Thanks.

Yup, fill in with hardwood dowels and re-drill.

Actually, you need to drill them out even bigger and insert large dowels. Then redrill with the proper size bit and in the correct places. Sometimes if you leave just a little "meat" on the edge of the new hole the drill will wander, or the new dowel will chip out. Of course, it also means more to touch up. Good luck with this one, and better luck next time!

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This is my first build and I am a complete novice to wood work. That being said please tell me if this idea I had is just plain ridiculousness. Make a mixture of wood glue and swamp ash sawdust to fill the holes and then re-drill. Stupid idea? Just wrong? Thanks.

Try using brad point drills - less wandering - good luck!

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Yep, just wrong. Chris has it right. Follow his procedure. The brad point bit is also a good tip.

cecil

We all had to start somewhere. You will learn from your mistakes. Betcha won't do it agian

Not really rediculous--just won't repair the damage correctly

You are getting good advice here. Fill in the holes with some wood, preferably of the same type of your body. Dowels will work, but unless the bushings you are inserting have a lip big enough to cover your margin of error, you are going to see the error. If you had a plug cutter and could cut some plugs from the material you made your body from, you would come closer to conceling the muff up. Remember that dowels inserted will leave end grain showing. If you could cut some plugs from flat grained stock, that would be better. If you are painting the body, it does not matter.

I learned the hard way, too, and had to redrill a post hole or two in the early builds. Here's how I do it now: I use a very good set of dividers (a compass) and very, very carefully set it to EXACTLY half the spacing width of the bridge/tailpiece bushings (use the specs with the parts and a very accurate measuring tool--a common ruler is not good enough as you are often measuring down to 64ths). Mark your holes off the center line, and use a center punch to mark precice starter holes. Check your mesurements several times. Then, as was mentioned, use a good brad-point bit in a drill press. Very good bits are not cheap when bought by the set, so I have some bits I bought singulars that are used for nothing but drilling post holes, headstock holes for tuners, and holes for ferruls. Cheap bits have too much runout and are a frustration.

What I did last time I did a bridge like that,
I took a piece of 3/4" plywood,
layed it out,
drilled the plywood,
check the fit with the bridge,
and use that as a guide for the drillpress.
Pretty foolproof.

That's good thinking. Make the wood work for you.

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