I made a jig for drilling on the drill press and figured out a way to attach my digital calipers. I first drilled all of the holes with a 1/16" bit to serve as a pilot hole, and carefully double checked my measurements with the caliper jig as I moved the piece along. Rather than "zeroing out" the calipers after each hole, I went with cumulative multiples of 6mm as I went down the row (9mm for the last 3 holes).
(On a test piece of wood that I had tried earlier, I zeroed out the calipers after every hole, and the minor variances added up along the way and threw the measurements way off.)
After I had all of the holes drilled to their proper size (5/32"/3.96mm for the first 17 and a "C"/6.14mm drill bit for the big three), I stood the piece on its side and cut it in half.
This left me with two identical trackerbar pieces, which I figured I might need if I really screwed the first one up somehow. As it turns out, the half that was originally on the bottom during my drilling, was pretty fouled up on the bottom side due to splintering from the drill bit. I could still use it in an emergency, but it would require a lot of sanding to make it sound.
Next, I set to work with my needle files and squared of the leading edge of the holes (after double and triple checking John Smith's instructional video to make sure I had them pointing the right way.)
Then I double and triple checked the video again and marked off the back of the piece so I wouldn't lose track of which holes widened in which direction.
To gouge out the back of the holes, I used a rotary cutting bit on a dremel tool and worked my way along very slowly and carefully.
I found that a rolled up scrap of 220 sandpaper made a good file for getting the little fuzzy bits out of the holes.
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