Hello crafty guitar enthusiasts! This is a quick Instructable that should only take a hour or so to complete. The inspiration for this project came from a gift I bought from a Chinese street market for a friend. Though the wooden Buddha head I found is unique it can be easily substituted for any other similar sized wooden object. The tools required are basic and should be on hand for many or can be easily acquired. So kick back relax keep your hands and feet in the vehicle and enjoy the ride.

Supplies

See step one

Step 1: Supply List

Wooden figure
Guitar volume knob
Super glue
Electrical tape
Drill
Drill bits appropriate to the size of your guitar knob
Palm sander
Sharp knife
Nail polish remover

Step 2: Sanding TIme

Fun with power tools! The idea here is to take an old (new) guitar knob and sand the top of it off in order to release the plastic piece that holds the knob onto the volume potentiometer. To accomplish this I held the volume knob with the tip of my fingers and brought it to the palm sander that I held in the other hand. If you have a bench vise I would highly recommend using it instead of your fingers especially if you don't have suitable hand strength to compete with the vibrations of the palm sander. Once enough of the plastic has been removed you'll be able to push the center through and free it from the rest of the knob. Once free take the knife and clean the edges of the center piece to make it easier to work with in the final step.

Step 3: Drill Time

Time to implant our newly recovered plastic insert into our wooden figure.Before we can actually drill a hole though, we should probably know where the center of our figure is. I used a bottle opener to make a perpendicular cross. You should use a ruler so as to make the first line at the widest part of the circle(the diameter) then find the midpoint of that line and voila you know where to drill a center hole. Knowing the hard grain of the wood I am working with, I decided to drill a pilot hole before stepping up to the final diameter bit. To not implant our plastic insert too far into the figure, I placed the insert next to the bit and put an electrical tape flag indicating its length. Now when I drill the hole, the flag will indicate when I've drilled just enough. Rinse and repeat the flag process on the final bit. Keep in mind you'll want the final hole to be just slightly larger than the insert to allow ample glue to adhere to both the wood and plastic surfaces.

Step 4: Glue

The final step of this project has come upon us. Depending on how close you where able to match the drill bit diameter to your insert diameter you should only need a few drops of super glue to make a lasting bond. If your hole is larger and there is an obvious gap between the wood and plastic go ahead and increase the amount of glue you use. The catch is the glue takes longer to dry the more you use. Also Super Glue is a pretty volatile substance, so I would recommend a fan in close proximity to this step to help disperse the fumes. Having a bottle of nail polish remover on hand will help with clean up at this point. If your like me, I get Super Glue everywhere so having the polish remover is a necessity. If you get an excess amount of glue on the bottom surface of your new volume knob, sand it down with the the palm sander so as not to scratch the surface of your guitar.

Step 5: Jam Out!

Now you have the skills to create your own custom knob. Spread the fun and teach a friend.

Live long and prosper,

Illuminola-