HKG-SEC: Have Hardware, Will Ferrule

Once I build the neck for this guitar, I will have to attach it to the body. Normally, the N4 uses a neck plate, although it’s not your standard neck plate.

They are curved and use 5 screws instead of 4.

I could buy one of these, but they’re about US$20 plus an extra, oh, %60 of that in shipping. Ouch.

I have a better idea.

Neck ferrules.

Because I already have them, so I don’t have to spend any money.

And I need to use up these parts that have been gathering dust.

So I started with the body I bought. Let’s take a look:

The holes are already drilled, which is good and bad. It’s good because I can be sure they are in the right places and I don’t have to go through a lot of measurement and layout.

It’s bad because it means I have to do a little extra work when drilling for the ferrules.

The most important thing with ferrules is to be sure that the ferrule’s countersink is centered on the screw hole.

That’s not a euphemism.

In other words, the ferrule is recessed into the guitar so its flush (or countersunk) while the smaller hole in the middle (for the screw) goes all the way through. Usually you drill the smaller hole, then the countersink without moving the guitar off the drill press.

But these already had the smaller  hole drilled. What to do?

Easy, actually. Take a drill bit the same size as the hole and put it in the drill press.

Then put the guitar on the drill press, and position the guitar using the drill bit as a guide.

I put the drill bit into the first hole to line it up, then clamped the body to the table so it wouldn’t move. Then I replaced the drill bit with a Forstner bit to countersink the ferrule.

I set the height of the table (that the guitar is clamped to) so that the drill bit’s lowest point/deepest cut would make the ferrule sit flush/level with the wood.

You can see here that the ferrule is in place, centered and flush. So the process works.

Then I did that four more times.

A little sanding to smooth over the sharp edges was necessary, but it was easy enough to do.

Here we see the ferrules in place and some neck screws to give you an idea of what it will look like.

These are chrome, and the rest of the hardware is black, but A) it’s the back of the guitar, and B) I already had these and didn’t want to spend another US$15 just so that I could have matching hardware on a side of the guitar no one would see.

So that’s another small step towards completion of this latest project.