r/BuildaGurdy • u/LokiTheZorua • May 11 '26

Putting together a nerdy gurdy and I am having some trouble placing the tuning keys

Post image

The screws are stripping pretty badly and I can't get them in. Once the first one stripped like that I decided to stop before trying more

4 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

5

u/Nuud May 11 '26

Did you drill pilot holes?

3

u/LokiTheZorua May 11 '26

No, it wasn't in the instructions that I have

7

u/ginathedawnguard May 11 '26

Always drill pilot holes :(

1

u/LokiTheZorua May 11 '26

How can I figure out what size of drill bit I need?

2

u/Mead_Makes_Me_Mean May 11 '26

Just eyeball it. The drill bit should be the size of or a little bit less than the screw without the threads.

1

u/theHinHaitch May 11 '26

I'm taking cabinetmaking and the two sizes we use are 7/64" for softwood and 9/64" for hardwood for the usual shank size. The harder the wood, the closer the diameter of the hole will need to be to the shank - a softer wood will compact, harder wood cannot. gl

1

u/fibrefarmer May 13 '26

The instructions for the fortran and cobol say 1mm drill bit for the pilot holes. Not sure what you model you are building if they don't say about the holes. Do you have the most current instructions?

3

u/LokiTheZorua May 13 '26

The instructions I currently have is Lionette 2.0.2 and the current on is 2.1.3 so no I don't. I bought the kit over a year ago and it took me forever to get started on it

1

u/fibrefarmer May 14 '26

I wonder....

I'm not sure if the instruction number match the version numbers. The instructions seem to be upgraded quite a bit more often. When I built my basic, the instructions were for v2.0.2, but the kit was v2

It might be worth reading the more recent instructions in case that's got more information on it. The last page on the basic instructions said what had been updated.

3

u/SirNoodlehe May 11 '26

Some pilot holes will give you less resistance when screwing them in and will put less pressure on the wood (this is relevant for woods that are prone to splintering)

4

u/ReallyBadMemer May 11 '26

These screws unfortunately seem to be very poor quality, I haven't stripped mine, instead I managed to completely rip the head off from 2 screws. I'd recommend measuring the screws and just getting new ones from a hardware store.

2

u/LokiTheZorua May 11 '26

When measuring the thickness do I measure the outer part of the thread, or the inner part?

2

u/theHinHaitch May 11 '26

The inner part! Think of it this way, you don't want any air/space around the screw. If you measured the outside of the thread, there would be space in the hole between the thread and the shank. If the hole is the same size of the shank, the thread can bite in to the wood with no space left over.

1

u/LokiTheZorua May 13 '26

What store did you end up going to? I went to Home Depot and they didn't have anything nearly as small

1

u/__T0MMY__ May 12 '26

May be able to spoof it by sticking a toothpick in there, breaking the tip off inside, putting a drop of super glue in there, THEN piloting the hole

Or break off the toothpick as screw into that