> I recommend not trying to follow the exact shape
> as the plastic part for the internals[...]
Good advice in general, but in this case I don't see how they'd have that option, as the long poles need to mount the display and a circuit board. See [1] and subsequently [2], and [3] which shows the rear of the GameBoy (where those screws go).
I think a better solution in this case is to either just forgo wood for those particular areas, e.g. you could use plastic or metal parts that the screws would go into, and glue or otherwise securely mount those to the wood.
Or similarly, use wood for the poles, but don't drill holes in them, and use some alternate mechanism to hold the body together. They're already using magnets for the battery cover, and could presumably use a large amount of magnets to hold the two pieces of the body itself together.
Finally, I don't think looking at antique wooden electronics is going to be useful. When electronic consumer products were made out of wood the electrical components were much bigger, so they didn't need to deal with these sorts of problems. Most of those only used wood as the "box", see e.g. [4].
The holes could be tapped before shaving down the wood, and then screws with less thick threads could be used. That would prevent splitting and still provide a secure connection.
There's better and worse ways to do this, but in the end wood is just inherently unsuitable for things of this size.
Any screw needs to "grab" onto the side of the hole it's drilled into, when that screw is going through a cylinder that looks to me 1-3mm in diameter it'll only take so much force before it'll snap.
And that's assuming that you get lucky with the material, you might run into a knot in the wood, in which case it would just fall apart without any force being applied to it.
I've made small woodworking projects by hand with clearances like this. You just need to understand the grain and type of wood and be careful. Once it's assembled it'll be strong enough for general use.
I think a better solution in this case is to either just forgo wood for those particular areas, e.g. you could use plastic or metal parts that the screws would go into, and glue or otherwise securely mount those to the wood.
Or similarly, use wood for the poles, but don't drill holes in them, and use some alternate mechanism to hold the body together. They're already using magnets for the battery cover, and could presumably use a large amount of magnets to hold the two pieces of the body itself together.
Finally, I don't think looking at antique wooden electronics is going to be useful. When electronic consumer products were made out of wood the electrical components were much bigger, so they didn't need to deal with these sorts of problems. Most of those only used wood as the "box", see e.g. [4].
1. https://there.oughta.be/assets/images/2023-11-03/asm4.jpg
2. https://there.oughta.be/assets/images/2023-11-03/asm5.jpg
3. https://there.oughta.be/assets/images/2023-11-03/batteries.j...
4. https://halestrom.net/darksleep/blog/001_jena5020radio/