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er Supply 4
Step 3—Drilling the Neck Mounting Holes in the Neck
Now, line the neck back up to the box, in position where it will be mounted, and make a mark through each
the holes you just drilled onto the flat part of the neck heel. The scratch awl or a small nail is very handy for
this. The result of the first mark is shown in
Figure 6
.
With all three holes marked on the neck heel, once again use the 1/8” drill but to pre-drill the heel for the
mounting screws. Be very careful at this point not to drill too deep - wrapping some painter’s tape around the
drill bit as a visual depth stop is a good idea.
Keep in mind that the two longer 2” neck mounting screws will go into the upper two holes, and the shorter 1
5/8” screw will go into the lower hole.
It can make things easier if you drill the first mounting
hole into the neck, and then insert a single screw to hold
the neck in place, and then mark the other two holes.
This will keep the neck from moving/shifting, and it is
very important that all of these holes line up properly—
you don’t want your neck to be crooked.
Now mark and drill the two remaining holes. When fin-
ished, your box and neck should be fully drilled with the
three neck-mounting holes. Do a “dry fit” of the neck to
make sure everything looks good.
This is a good time to remove the painter’s tape (if you
used any) from the box surface.
Figure 8
shows what
the neck should look like when all 3 holes have been
drilled.
You can now test-mount your neck to the box using the 3
neck mounting screws. Remember that the two longer
ones go on top, the shorter one on bottom. Make sure
everything is lined up and looking good. A “stubby” Phil-
lips screwdriver is best for this.
Remember that you want the neck’s flat upper surface to
be as parallel as possible with the surface of the box.
Figure 3
Figure 5
Figure 4
