Boring out teeny tiny holes?

Digger1 · Post by **Digger1** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 7:54 pm

Treid a pin-vise, too unpredictable, too unweildy. I bought a few drill bits for my dremmel yesterday at Home Depot. I don't have the drill-press add-on so I don't have enough control over the high speeds of the dremmel to bore the holes needed for the Klingon BOP guns.

Anyone offer any suggestions on how to drill a small hole into a thin rod of plastic?

karim · Post by **karim** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 8:00 pm

unless you have a machine lathe and turn it at a really low speed, a pin vise is your best bet.

Shinnentai · Post by **Shinnentai** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 8:11 pm

Heated metal wire maybe (like a piece of steel guitar string)? The plastic would mushroom a little around the hole opening, but that's not hard to fix.

Chacal · Post by **Chacal** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 8:15 pm

Or you could go that extra mile and replace the gun barrels with tubing (if you can find hypodermic needles of the right diameter). That's the usual procedure for aircraft modelers to do the wing-mounted cannons of WWII planes.

Mr. Badwrench · Post by **Mr. Badwrench** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 11:08 pm

I second Chacal's suggestion. Most hobby shops and train shops carry a good selection of brass and aluminum tubing, all the way down to .062 .o.d. Replacing gun barrels is a breeze with this stuff, and it always looks better than the ones that come with the kit. Drilling out the kit's gun barrels is a mess, and getting the hole on center is mostly a matter of luck, even with a drill press. (And note, even if a drilled hole is off center by only .003, you can see it from halfway across the room. The human eye is very good at seeing when circles are not concentric). Replacing the barrels with tubing is just too easy not to do it.

My .02 quatluus.

Shinnentai · Post by **Shinnentai** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 1:14 am

On second thought, yah, go with the tubing.

It's not just the holes. A lot of these molded plastic rod-type details seem to have out-of-round issues. Fiddlybits of that sort seem to suffer a lot from even subtle mold misalignments.

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:42 am

Or try SmallParts.com for even smaller tubing.

But, if you're set on drilling them out, use the smallest bit you've got an work your way out from there. You may need to get an adapter for using truely small bits (like No. 82's). THe other trick, if you're using a powered drill and not a pin-vise, is work slow. Problem is most Dremels can't go slow enough, but the 9.6 volt Dremel cordless works wonders.

big-dog · Post by **big-dog** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 2:25 am

You can some frickin tiny tubes in brass and aluminum, but be aware the wall thickness aint necessarrily perfect all the way around, so your barrel may not be perfectly centered after all.