This was probably the longest and most frustrating part about this endeavor. When I first tried to insert the tuner bushings and found the holes in the headstock were not even close to the right size I called Warmoth and kindly asked if I had purchased the right tuners. They said yes and noted that "you may have to sand each hole a little bit and then you should be able to seat the tuner bushings by hand." Was I in for a surprise? Now I know this is my first time doing this and I was probably over cautious with all the taping but this task took days to complete.

I tested my sense of ingenuity in finding ways to clamp and align the tuners. I also was on the extreme end of frustration when, after properly drilling screw holes for the tuner machine mounting screws, I had not one but two screws break off at the head. Mind you I was extra careful knowing that the neck is maple and it is a hardwood and the length of the screws is nearly the width of the headstock. So I carefully marked a drill bit for depth and drilled my holes. I used soap to lubricate each screw. I started each screw by hand; et the torque on my cordless screwdriver to about one-third; drove the screws approximately two-thirds of the way in with the cordless screwdriver and attempted to finish them by hand. I though it was prudent to hand tighten the screws to prevent damaging the screw heads or slipping with the cordless drill only to have two screws just snap off at the head while hand tightening them.

Now I had to drill out the screws. A screw extractor wouldn't work because there was no head left on the screw. I didn't own a drill press - I was screwed. Well a lot of patience allowed me to drill out enough of each screw and fill the void with wooden dowels and toothpicks and glue. The tuners would cover the repaired holes.

But now I had another problem- try to find two nickel plated screws that match the size of the ones that came with the tuners. I found screws available at Guitar Parts Resource - an online guitar parts dealer. The irony here is that the shipping cost was $5.95 and the cost of the 16 screws was $2.99!