Drilling out grab iron holes

Yikes sounds like torture to me. Had to drill out a bunch of portholes on 1/700 battleship it took forever and was sick of it by the time i was done.

Well, I guess I’m one of the oddballs and prefer a good-quality (Starrett) pin vise to anything electrical for hand-drilling tiny holes. For me, a pin vise allows better control, better “feel” of the bit going into the material, and better security, as I know the tiny drill bits are held securly and won’t slip in the jaws. And good lighting and a good Optivisor is also a must.

Tom

I appreciate this thread and the good tips!

Been modeling a long time but I find that drilling holes for grab irons/rails on passenger cars is still a bit of a headache. That’s one of the reasons why I temporarily stopped metalizing my passenger car fleet. I prefer to install the hand rails BEFORE applying the basecoat color, Alclad2 metalizer, and clearcoat.

My wife surprised me with a nice Optivisor a while back, so I will try some of the options suggested here and will practice drilling on a couple of scrap freight cars that I have. Will definitely go with the #79 drill bits instead of the #80 for the hand rails.