Drilling threaded screw holes in metal

Rocker

Rocker

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Hello folks,

Maybe someone out there can help me, but then again maybe I'm being too ambitious, having never drilled holes in metal or done anything similar to this before, that later could be the case.

So a bit of a background, basically I’m building my own guitar and customising it along the way. One of the customisations I want to make is to use a modded tailpiece as a wraparound bridge.

In order to do so I need to make adjustment screws on the tailpiece so that I can adjust the angle if I wish.

From the image bellow you can see what I want to achieve compare with the tailpiece I have. Basically I want to drill screw holes in the back of the tailpiece (circled in red) to have a small screw to allow me to turn which will adjust the angle.

What I want:
1.png


The tailpeice I have:
2.png



The image bellow hopefully demonstrates what I want to achieve:

3.png



The issue is that I can’t just drill any hole as I need the hole to be threaded to hold the screw in place so it can push the tailpiece back off the bolt when bolted into the body.

I was thinking a self-tapping metal screw maybe?

Hopefully this makes sense :confused:
 
You need the correct size drill bit & a Tap and Die set.

Although tbh, you need to precisely drill the part before you thread it using the tap set. You're better off finding a machine shop around your area and see if they'll do it for £10 or something.
 
It's a bugger, I had to do something similar to an old badass II bridge because the screws were siezed to **** and the ends rounded off.
I swear it was made of diamonds or something, absolutely solid bit, I don't mind drilling steel but this stuff took the biscuit.

You need to slowly drill using a press to get any accuracy, once you've got a pilot hole you need to tap them using the correct size tap and handle.
Then use the correct machine screws.

Self tappers are no good for this kind of thing.

You can pick up a cheap tap and die set for a few quid on ebay.
 
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As a couple of others have mentioned its not a difficult job you just need to know what your doing to get it spot on. For starters unless you own a pillar drill or a vice it might be worth taking TaKeN's advice and check to see if there's a local machine shop who would be willing to do it for you.
 
rivnut may not work on metal that thick, its really meant for sheet stuff.

Besides, it'd look fugly, tap & die will look much smarter. You can get little sets from machine mart, whilst they aren't the greatest quality it'll work for a one off job. If you look around on the net you should find a chart that tells you what size hole to drill for a given screw size.

I would suggest you use a pillar drill, even if its only a bench mounted one. It'd be pretty tough to ensure you drill the hole straight otherwise.
 
Simon said:
You need rivnuts.

Rivot the threaded bit in. Just test it works on a bit a scrap metal.
Click to expand...

Crafty said:
rivnut may not work on metal that thick, its really meant for sheet stuff.

Besides, it'd look fugly, tap & die will look much smarter. You can get little sets from machine mart, whilst they aren't the greatest quality it'll work for a one off job. If you look around on the net you should find a chart that tells you what size hole to drill for a given screw size.

I would suggest you use a pillar drill, even if its only a bench mounted one. It'd be pretty tough to ensure you drill the hole straight otherwise.
Click to expand...


What the fella needs is the part in question, drilled and tapped according to whatever thread is on the adjusting screws he wishes to screw into it hence altering the tension.

Offer remains open OP. This isnt something you will do yourself as you wouldn't have posted otherwise.
 
tap that !

but once youve bought drill bits , something to hold the workpiece , taps , tap handles , probably a pillar drill , you will 100% be better off either visiting a local machine shop with beer tokens (it would take them 2 minutes) or buying a part thats already like that

if your in no rush then maybe someone on here could help you
 
As others have said go to a local machine shop / engineers , theres a good chance they would do such a small job for free
 
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