New tool idea - hole punch

[Brian Evans]

I was drilling 1/4" holes for fret board dots and the depth stop slipped so one hole was a little deep. I needed to find a little shim to put under the dot. For some reason I thought of my Roper Whitney style hole punch from when I was doing a lot of sheet metal fabrication on race cars. I dug it out, put the 1/4" die in, and proceeded to punch out absolutely perfectly round, dead on size pieces of plastic and maple. Surprised the heck out of me for some reason, but now I can make fret board dots out of different stuff. Haven't tried MOP or abalone yet, may be too brittle. https://www.roperwhitney.com/our-produc ... and-punch/ Mine is a knock-off, and has around 8 or 10 different die sets.

[Bob Francis]

Great idea!

[Ed Minch]

Use the same drill bit you drilled the holes with, and turn it upside down in your drill press so the shank is pointed down. Use it to punch out little dots from a piece of plastic binding. It helps to touch the shank end of the bit to a grinder at a slight angle to sharpen the edges and to help it more "shear" the dot out of the blank. Great way to make colored dots to order.

[David King]

The abrasive nature of shell I think would dull your dies in short order and probably result in a little pile of shell dust. They do make abrasive coated hole saws in many sizes that should work well with pearl and abalone in a drill press.

[John Cross]

Another idea Ive used once or twice was to use a hole punch to make the fingerboard dots out of old picks. Need a tortise shell dot? Raid your old picks. I used a faux abalone pick once too when I didn't have the real thing. I can't remember which guitar it is on and I don't think I could tell you now without really close inspection (maybe not even then). There are lots of celluloid colours to choose from that have potential to look cool.

[Brian Evans]

John, to be honest I used an old pick as my shim! International House of Guitars, NOLA, from back in the day.