looks great Malcolm !!. the next challenge is to replace the grille with something which actually lets sound out - one thing I really noticed was how much better it sounded with the grille OFF especially the inner row (which isn`t anywhere near the fingerboard) .
No problem with the D row sound getting out. Plenty of "apparent" volume imho (tuned to quite a wide tremolo). Certainly within a whisker of the volume of my pokerwork.
It is the G row, i.e. the inside row, the row nearest the finger board, which is lacking. So extending the
fretwork holes (fretwork implies something a little more artistic!!!) further towards the inner row pallets would certainly be worth a try surely.
Can't see the value in making a totally new grill without first modifying the existing one to see if it helps!