Official Luthiers Forum!

Fixing mistakes is an art in itself. No? I drilled the holes for my slothead headstock and for whatever reason, they were about 1/16" off center. I thought about leaving it for a bit as my tuners would still be OK but about level with the top of the headstock rather than centered. I decided to bite the bullet and plug the holes with mahogany dowels. Planed my drilling jig to the correct thickness with my shoulder plane to fix it up and will redrill in the morning and feel much better about it.

Probably would have been OK - unless you drilled the other side offset in the opposite direction, which would have looked odd. But anyway, now you will feel happier, and others will probably be none the wiser.

I've done it only I put the jig on backwards

Plugged the holes and used a dark stain on the neck. Can see the plugs if you look for them, headstock was also about 0.090" too thin for the Rubners. If it was for a commission I would have had to make a new neck. Fortunately it was a guitar I made for me to play for some Christmas performances and it worked out just fine.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

A few swipes with the shoulder plane and all should be good. Will re-drill tomorrow. Thanks for the reinforcement Mark and Steve.

You could have re-centered the tuners by thinning the backside of the peghead so the tuner plates were flush to the back as well as the top, or added a thicker head plate, but what you did will keep it closer to your original intentions.

Yep, doing the right thing is best in the long run. The error bugs you until it's fixed, but if it's not it will bug you forever. My two cents.

_________________
formerly known around here as burbank
_________________

http://www.patfosterguitars.com

One thing I would do differently is to use a plug cutter to cut plugs from offcuts, rather than using dowels. That way you can align the grain and the plugs almost disappear.

I definitely considered using a dowel maker plate that I have Dan but decided that the tuners would cover it on the outside and the 1/16" of material left on the inside after drilling would be very hard to notice. I haven't seen a plug cutter that will make 1 1/8" plugs/dowels.