Well, I took my cheap-o Norther Tools drill press and totally modded it for guitar work. I took a caliper with the outer pipe diameter fixed in place and walked around Lowes for about an hour trying to figure our what pipe would work for making the the work space deeper. The 1" gas line was perfect. The outer rim of the couplers were right at 1 7/8". I made a base and platform with ply and took 4 carriage bolts with 3 washers and three bolts on each to make a adjustable leveling platform. The pipe for the height could be shorter so I will probably get a different one sometime.
How I did my string throughs: This was the thing that was bugging me the most and why I modded my little drill press in the first place.
Testing it out with a practice scrap, I secured the bridge to a scrap from making the body. Used the holes as guides, but only went through on the end holes. The middle four I went about 3/4 the way through.
Then I flipped the piece over and lined up the guide with 1" roofing nails in the outer holes. They were 1/8" diameter shank and held snug. (the other holes were from practice with a different method, only look at the two bottom holes outside the tracing.)
Finally, I used a guide and the holes to drill the outer hole for the lip of the ferrul. Then repeated for the press in body of the ferrul.
fin
