Headstock overlay work

I focused on the new headstock overlay in the past couple of days. The first thing I did was trim all the ebony waste around the headstock to get it nice and flush with the headstock. It wasn't hard work but I did learn several things in the process:

1. Ebony is brittle. My plan was to use a coping saw to cut the ebony plate as close to the headstock as possible. I don't have any power tools other than a Dremel and a hand drill so I resort to various hand tools. I started sawing and very quickly felt that the ebony grain was pulling hard on the saw and I wasn't in full control of the saw. Small pieces of ebony started splitting off - probably because I was trying to change direction slightly with the saw. OK - Plan B. I switched to a fine back saw and cut off the most obvious large waste pieces with straight cuts. Still - I needed to get close to the headstock. I wish I had some half-round woodworking rasps but I don't. I took a chance and tried to use the Dremel tool with a sanding wheel. Surprise - it very easily and smoothly removed the remaining ebony until I was almost at the wood-line. The remainder of the way was smoothed with a combination of sandpaper wrapped around a dowel and a scraper. You can see the result in the first photo - nice and flush.
   
2. Need better fret saw blades. I think I may have been able to trim the wood with the fret saw if I had a narrower and finer fret saw blade. The Dremel trick worked ok but it generated a TON of ebony dust. I was wearing a mask but still, the cleanup was significant afterwords, especially considering that I'm working on my....dining-room table....
3. Good sandpaper makes a difference. Just around the holiday, Woodcraft had free shipping on everything. I used the opportunity to experiment with some new sand paper. I had been using generic paper from Home Depot or Lowes, or even Sears. I ordered an assortment of Norton 3X paper and got to try them this past weekend. I'm impressed! They cut so much better, don't clog up as much, last longer, and the backing paper does not fall apart after folding it multiple times in different directions. It's almost fabric-like although obviously not made of fabric. I'm sold.
4. Learn to improvise without a stationary sander. The end of the headstock was not square to the face plate. I supposed, if I had a stationary disk sander, I would slide the headstock up to it and square it in about 15 seconds. But I don't. I thought of using a block plane but the edge is only 1/2" and I was worried I would not be able to hold the plane securely. Here is what did work - I had some small machined squared pieces of wood that I used for block sanders and such. I glued some sandpaper to one of the blocks and stood it up on it's end, as it if was a disk sander. I clamped the headstock to the table and then started running the sanding block along the edge that needed treatment. It was very similar to a shooting board. And it worked very well.

Drilling holes for the tuners.

The IV kit comes with the tuner holes pre-drilled. This is fine except that now I've covered the holes with the new face plate and the holes needed to be re-opened. One odd thing is that the pre-drilled holes are tapered and not straight. It's unclear to me why this is the case. The holes are smaller in the back of the headstock and larger in the front. I decided to use the hand drill to start some holes in the ebony. I clamped the headstock with the ebony plate down on a piece of sacrificial wood so that I can drill through and minimize the tear-out. I was now paranoid about splitting the face plate after seeing how brittle it is. Also - since my drill bit would be passing in the pre-drilled holes, I was worried about my unsteady hand and the prospect of the drill jerking and putting a gouge in the wood. I took a plastic pen and cut off a piece of the tubing to use as a protective shield. You can see it in the second photo. This worked very well and the holed remained untouched. I used a narrow drill bit and managed to get through without breaking the ebony.

Enlarging the holes was more work than I had anticipated. I tried to use a larger drill bit but that was too much and I could hear the ebony crunching rather than giving in when the bit twisted in it. Maybe if I was running the drill at high speed and coming in gently, I would be able to do it better but not with my hand drill. I ended up clamping the headstock vertically in my vice and enlarging the holes slowly with narrow files and also with sandpaper wrapped around files. I'm half way done , as you can see in the last photo, but I completed one set of tuner holes and dry fit the bushings and the tuners.

I have a long way to go but I like it already.