I buy planks of walnut at a craft store in town, it is 24" x 3" x 1/8", the perfect thickness for scales which is great without machinery to saw it down to size.

And I use a tool from the welding aisle at the hardware store. It looks like a thick aluminum pen and comes with 14 bits or so in varying sizes. But you can pick up a 2 pack of 1/16" drill bits and those work in it. Just be careful about making the hole straight.

Hope that helps, feel free to PM me with any questions you may have on the process I use in my apartment. I don't have an anvil, I just use the hardened steel center of the wire cutters to do the pinning. I used to use a file handle, but my roommate gave the file back to the guy he had borrowed it from.