Friday, May 22nd, 2015:
Checked with Randall today, to see if he wanted to try his hand at drilling the holes for the second bolt in the neck tenon; he said no, that he'd like me to do it. I totally understand --- this kind of thing can be a pretty nerve-wracking thing, especially for a new builder.
But, having done this successfully yesterday, I felt pretty comfortable with it today.
I figured I'd show more of the actual process I used this time --- yesterday I was so involved with just figuring out how to go about doing it, that I neglected to take any photos of the actual process.
So, below you can see how I drilled the hole for the barrel nut. I laid the tenon on a block of wood (to both support the tenon and prevent chip-out) and clamped it solidly onto my drill press table; I also placed a couple of shims underneath the neck shaft, so the whole thing would be solidly supported on the table. Then I used the 25/64" brad point drill bit to drill the hole through the side of the tenon. The center of the hole is 5/16" from the inside edge of the tenon. (I love my brad point drill bits!!! Once you punch a pilot hole, the brad point ensures that your drilled hole will end up exactly where you wanted it.)
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Here's the result:
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Next, I marked and punched a pilot hole for the bolt hole.
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Here is the dowel-centering jig in action (almost). I have placed the neck shaft vertically in my vise, with some padded jaws. Then I placed the 5/16" brad point drill bit into the jig and poked it through the bottom, so I could set the brad point into that pilot hole I had punched in the end of the tenon; that would tell me where to position the jig to sit on top of the cheeks of the heel. Then I turned the handle (it's on the other side of the jig) to squeeze the two sides of the jig together against the tenon's sides. This centers the hole perfectly.
The tape you see is to mark where I should stop drilling; I am drilling 3/4" down into the tenon.
After this was all set up, I removed the drill bit, inserted it into my portable drill, and drilled the hole.
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