I got the drill press up and running, and spent quite a bit of time drilling scrap wood trying to learn how to properly operate the thing. I know it seems easy "pull lever, drill thing" but there really is a learning curve in getting the part lined up exactly where it's really going to drill, making sure that both the part and the drill are level while drilling, making sure you don't slip when drilling and not notice, how fast you pull the lever, etc. Also, I took a detour to build myself a little adjustable platform to support the body while in the press.
I could not get the holes correctly lined up in the neck. I got really, really fucking good at making dowels to fill my fuckups, I can say that. It's a long fucking story, so let me skip to the end: I ended up needing (due to my own fuckups) to fill the holes in both the body and the neck, and redo the whole procedure of getting the neck screw holes in place. After making mahogany dowels to fill all of the holes, I am so damn thankful I asked to have scraps from the body sent back which proved invaluable for this, I placed the neck plate onto the back of the body, got it level with the neck pocket, traced it, and re-drilled the body.
After this was done, and it took me so fucking long because I kept not checking and rechecking then checking again before actually turning on the press, then only drilling a tiny pilot hole and rechecking, etc, I traced out the center line of the neck, and the center line of the body, and fit the neck tight so that the centers were correct, then pushed a drill bit into the body hole to make a dent in the neck where the hole needed to be.
Then back to the meticulous check, clamp, recheck the level, etc to drill out the 4 holes in the neck.
I swear I don't know if I'm cut out for this kind of work. It takes me forever to just drill 4 fucking holes.
The neck is now tight in the pocket and everything lines up correct. Posting pic in a sec.
While I had been waiting for glue to dry with those dowels and such, I did spend some time with the neck doing the finish sanding on it. The difference with this oil finish is that, normally I'd just sand things to about 220 grit or so, so the primer had something to grip onto, and the real high-grit sanding came after the clear coat was down. Since there is no layers of paint here, I have to do my high-grit finish sanding now before applying the oil. So, the neck is now nice and smooth, polished up to 600 grit.
I also have been testing out the oil process on the test squares, to see what approaches work. It was those that actually made me realize I needed to sand up to 600 grit, the oil doesn't build a thick coat like paint does. Testing how long between coats, best way to keep dust and bits of cat fur and brush hairs out of the finish, etc. Testing dry time between applying a coat, then what grit to sand it with, if any, before the next coat. It seems that the very first coat I will want to light sand 600 grit over it, to push some of the dust into the grain. The next few coats even out the sanding so it's fine. After that, just very, very light layers about every day, with periodic very light brushing over the course of the day to smooth out the oil layer and remove the dust/hair that always finds it's way to it. I might look at making some kind of tent or something to put over the guitar while it's drying, to maybe help keep that down. However, it does seem to be dry to the touch every day, as long as the layers are correctly thin. It's just going to take many of them.
Now that the body is properly drilled out for all holes, pickguard and all, I can get back to the finish sanding on that. It's about 60% of the way already, so it won't be that far to go.
I'll edit this post in a bit with some pics.
EDIT: Some pics. I screwed everything together to make sure all of my drilled holes were correct, and also to "break them in" before I apply oil into them and seal them up. Again, I still need to do the finish sanding on the body so those marks and shit are going to be gone in a bit.
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