Yet another newbie question...

I've been playing with a DGV. Let's say for my question here, I want a grid that is 10x10. I would like the font in each cell to be Arial 10 regular. Only one character will be in each cell (I'll use "M"). I would LIKE the cells to be 17 pixels by 17 pixels. But, if I manually force the column width to be 17, I get about half of my M and three dots "M...". I'm thinking this is a padding thing but as far as I can tell, everything is set to 0. See code and then more comments below:
Code:
    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        With DataGridView1
            .ColumnHeadersVisible = False
            .RowHeadersVisible = False
            .AllowUserToResizeColumns = False
            .AllowUserToResizeRows = False
            .ColumnCount = 10
            .RowCount = 10
            '.RowTemplate.Height = 17  'this doesn't seem to do anything
            .EditMode = DataGridViewEditMode.EditProgrammatically
            .AutoResizeColumns(DataGridViewAutoSizeColumnsMode.AllCells)
            .AutoResizeRows(DataGridViewAutoSizeRowsMode.AllCells)
            .DefaultCellStyle.Font = New Font("Arial", 10, FontStyle.Regular)
            .DefaultCellStyle.Alignment = DataGridViewContentAlignment.MiddleCenter
            .DefaultCellStyle.SelectionBackColor = Color.White
            .DefaultCellStyle.SelectionForeColor = Color.Black
        End With
        Dim iR, iC As Integer
        For iR = 0 To 9
            For iC = 0 To 9
                DataGridView1(iC, iR).Value = "M"
            Next
        Next
        Dim rowinstance As DataGridViewRow = DataGridView1.Rows(0)  'How do I reference all rows?
        rowinstance.Height = 17
        Dim colinstance As DataGridViewColumn = DataGridView1.Columns(0)   'How do I reference all columns?
        colinstance.Width = 17   'if I make this less than 20, it messes up the contents.

        MsgBox("Rows: " & DataGridView1.Rows(1).Height)
        MsgBox("Columns: " & DataGridView1.Columns(1).Width)
    End Sub
Question 1: How can I reclaim some of what seems to be lost space around the cell contents so I don't have to make them bigger than they need to be? I'd like them to be 17x17 with the single character centered within.
Question 2: Do I have to manually set the height and width of each row and column? I'm thinking the RowTemplate setting but can't seem to get it to work.

FYI: This is a new project with a DGV dragged onto the form. All changes have been made programatically.

Thanks!