Final Assembly
We were finally ready to assemble all of the parts into a functioning guitar! The first step was to drill the holes for the tuners. Unfortunately, we did not have a 3/16" Forester bit, which would have been prefered, so we had to settle on a spade bit, which was a bit unnerving, as they have a tendency to splinter the wood. Fortunately, it was a brand new one, and at that size, they are just ground to a tapered point, so they cut in to the wood gradually. We heavily taped both sides of the headstock with maksing tape, and used the drill press so we could drill slowly and evenly. As it turned out, it worked fine - this project has made us appreciate how nicely mahogany takes to being shaped and drilled!
Drilling the headstock - top
The ferrels drove nicely into the holes using a hammer and a block of scrap oak.
Mounting the tuner ferrels
Tuner ferrels mounted
We then mounted the tuners, taking care to keep them square, and centered in their holes.
Tuners - top
Tuners - bottom
Next, we attached the bridge and tail piece. First we fed a piece of wire through the hole running from the bridge riser down to the control cavity, and placed the bare end under the tail piece before screwing the tail piece to the riser. Measuring carefully from the nut, we then attached the bridge to the riser at the 23-1/2" mark. Next, we soldered the ground wire running from the tail piece, to the case of one of the controls, to ground it, and then attached the pickguard to the body. The output jack was fed through the hole in the side, attached to its plate, and the plate screwed to the body.
Pickguard, bridge and tail pieced attached
The twins, ready for strings!
Time to string them up!
With strings
With strings
The twins, ready to be played