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Permalink Reply by Titch the Clown on April 1, 2016 at 11:07pm

I always leave the bridge loose but make a mark where it is supposed to go. Glue is acceptable if it starts wandering.

The only things to worry about with tuner placement is:

if there is what I call knuckle room the first tuner on the hand side has to be at least around an inch and a half from the nut.

There has to be enough space so they do not hit eachother

The round part on the tuner should be down. As the strings pull the shaft down they lever the round gear up into the screw gear.

There should be down force between the tuners and the nut, either in the form of head angle (I use 15°) or a string tree or (more rarely) a tunnel arrangement.

Keeping the tuners kind of lined up with how the strings are on the neck is advantageous but even I have been known to break that rule.

Apart from those gudelines put them where you think they look good

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Permalink Reply by Titch the Clown on April 2, 2016 at 12:10pm

Two more important things 

The headstock thickness must match the tuners. I tend to just stick the tuner on the side and draw my thickness line so my string holes are uncovered. Not all tuners are the same length.

The through hole for the tuner shaft has to be far enough in for strength/not having the backing plate show and far enough out so you can turn the knob. 10 to 14 mm usually does it for me. (3/8 to 1/2 inch) or thereabouts. It can vary with the tuners too.

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Permalink Reply by Frank Carr on April 2, 2016 at 1:20am

For the bridge, I usually glue it to the box or neck/body. This helps tuning stability and durability. In some cases, such as when using a pre-made bridge or a piece of cabinet hardware, I screw it to the body.

I create my own templates with PhotoShop for my builds (my day job is a web designer/programmer). Here's a Fender style one I did recently for a 2 string build.

I either tilt the neck back using a scarf joint, anywhere from about 11° to 45°, or I use a string tree. For string trees I've used screw eyes, wide flat screws and real string trees from the eBay slow boat from China.

Placement can be a bit tricky because it depends on the footprint of the back of the tuner. Some, like more expensive sealed tuners and the C.B. Gitty economy  tuners, have a smaller footprint than typical inexpensive classical guitar type tuners you might get from other sources. I've had a couple of cases where my design didn't work for the tuners I had on hand but worked OK with different tuners. As always, measure twice, drill once.

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Permalink Reply by Bluesheart on April 2, 2016 at 2:04am

Titch and Frank pretty much have you covered . I would suggest not gluing the bridge (or any other major component) at least until you have been able to "drive" it for a while. One thing I do for tuner placement is just lay the tuners on the headstock to figure out where they need/I want them to be and lightly mark with pencil. Then I take the tuners apart and use the plates to mark where the holes need to go, and remember that if the headstock is not sanded yet, the edges may get closer to the tuner plates , so allow a little extra space for sanding. ( I do the marking on the back of the headstock so I do not have to remember to "reverse" things, and do keep that gear/shaft placement in mind)

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Permalink Reply by Michael Fred Johnson on April 2, 2016 at 2:55am

I don't glue the bridge if using a tail piece to anchor the strings.

I use a 10mm string spacing which makes the centre distance for drilling the tuner holes nearest the nut 26mm (20mm + the diameter of the tuner spindle). The third hole is offset 3mm from the centre line,either left or right to suit the tuner used.This keeps the strings in line.

With this headstock shape it doesn't matter which hand your third tuner is.

In the side view you can see a spacer under the fingerboard to increase the break angle over the nut.Using contrasting timbers adds a bit of interest. 

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