Today I kicked off a new amp build project by making a turret board from scratch for a Rob Robinette–style 6V6 Soldano SLO “Nakid” build. A super generous Patreon supporter sent me the parts, and even though the kit came with an eyelet board, I’m not doing that. I despise eyelet boards—too much flexing, bending, and moisture nonsense—so I used the eyelet board as a drilling template and transferred the pattern onto proper turret board material. I walk through marking the hole locations (scratching them in works way better than Sharpie), drilling everything on a drill press, and then swaging turrets with a staking kit. Along the way I deal with the real-world problem nobody tells you about: if your top die is too short and your turrets are close together, the drill chuck smashes into neighboring turrets and you’re dead in the water. Necessity is the mother of invention, so I switched to a “free-ballin’ it” method—floating the top tool instead of chucking it—and it actually worked great, just slower and trickier to line up. Big takeaway: turret boards are worth the effort, but be mindful that swaging on a nice drill press can be rough on the spindle. Use old gear if you can, take your time, and put your bifocals on.