I am replacing the body on my home made jazz, and as I am using an SX body (which should arrive today), there is a good chance the holes will not lineup. The neck is a replacement Fender 62 reissue so I would prefer to do my filling and re-drilling on the body.

The questions...

What kind of filler should I use if I have to fill and drill?

Do I have to thin it to get it to fill the holes completely?

Thanks a ton.

I would drill and glue in dowell to fill the holes. If your using an existing neck, cut nails slightly longer than the depth of the holes in your neck so the points of the nails just stick out so when you set the neck in the pocket the nails will mark where you have to drill the body. Does that make any sence.:)

Doweling makes sense, but the holes are not evenly rounded on the body, I tried enlarging them unevenly with a smaller size drill bit. (don't ask, it was a stupid idea on my part) and even if I dowel the, what kind of glue/filler would I use around the dowel.

Or should I make the holes much bigger and then dowel them?

Any other Idea's on a durable filler?

As a clarification, the neck already has holes, so I will use the nail trick to mark the new position.

cover the outside (back of the body) of the holes with tape and then fill the holes with 2 part epoxy

cover the outside (back of the body) of the holes with tape and then fill the holes with 2 part epoxy

If the new holes overlap or touch the epoxy, will it be possible to drill neatly through the epoxy. Are there epoxys that cure hard as wood?

Go with the dowel method. When the wood expands, so will the dowels, the epoxy will not.

The holes are irregular, what do I use to secure the dowels?
Superglue?
epoxy?
filler?

Just use the epoxy. If you use dowells then you will have the end grain exposed
Epoxy will drill fine

Thanks for the replies everyone, if I had'nt messed with the holes, I might use dowells, but the Epoxy method seems right for my situation.

Any suggestions as to what brand/type of epoxy to use?

I've used epoxy for alot of art projects, but never for instruements, and I never had to pick an epoxy to drill through?

Use slow cure epoxy not the 5 minute stuff.
Any good brand will be fine

Use slow cure epoxy not the 5 minute stuff.
Any good brand will be fine

Thanks. Will do.