I decided to drill the holes in the end. I used a 2mm drill bit (1.5mm seemed too tight) for the holes. Using a screw to mark the holes worked a lot better than a pencil mark.
I’m going with Schaller M6 Nylons, which are lighter than the metal M6’s. Annoyingly I’m giving up on locking tuners (which I love) and for some reason they come with the larger pearl buttons. I could swap them for the smaller buttons later if it still bothers me. I wanted to try some tuners beyond the straight Schaller locking (or the Sperzels on my Parker / Strat). I noticed last week the new Gotch stealth tuners which look perfect for a small headstock – maybe next project if I can get used to non locking. The Schaller’s just fit.
The neck is now done, time to wait for it to get warm enough to finish. Now to get the body finished and ready for dyeing. I thinking of going back to the blue alchol dyes are I never got the colour in to the grain enough with the water ones for my satisfaction. Maybe I’ll work with them on another project. After looking at how much dust was in my garage (which can’t be good for me), it was time to invest in a dust extractor. I’ve got a Festool CTL Midi on order, which everyone on the net seems to rave about – hopefully it will clean up the place.