BradHall wrote: Geeze Freeman, your photos look like something I would do. Thanks for the advice. I may end up taking Ken's advice and go with individual tuners. I think I can solve the blowout problem by drilling the shaft holes before I cut the slots.
I just built two slot head parlors and used Waverlies on them - they are by far the smoothest tuners I've used but a bit out of your budget. The individual Grovers seem like a good compromise, but on some of my guitars I want the vintage look so I've used the Golden Era plate tuners.
The reason I do it in this order is that I use a scarf joined headstock and its so much easier to thickness the headstock and drill (or route) the slots before gluing it onto the neck stick.
You can either make the ends of the slots half rounded (like mine) or drill small holes and make them square - once I glue the head plate on I just run around inside the slots with a router and a follower bit. Obviously you can drill or route them later, particularly if you made a template, but this has worked for me.
Also, when I did my slot head 12 string and wanted to use the 6 on a plate tuners I made a drilling jig to get the hole spacing perfect.
The flat plated sits on the side of the headstock, the bar stock goes on top and is clamped to it. I've got a set collar on the drill bit to set the depth. Use a brad point bit.
Restringing this puppy takes a little longer than usual LOL.
One last thought about slotheads - when you ramp the end of the slots towards the tuners thing about the way the string will run (and which side you will wind it towards). You don't want the strings to hit the sides of the slots if you can avoid it.
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