Drilling balsa - Great Godfrey!

Oh Yeah???

The brass tubing does a beautiful job if you use a little care when drilling.

There are several reasons something like this can happen. One would be that your bit might not be sharp enough. Another might be that you used too much pressure while drilling or that you used too slow of a drill speed.

If you're drilling something like this with a bit, you should have a block or sheet of harder material both in front and in back of the stack of ribs.

It doesn't take much, in fact I've used plain old masking tape in the past, which worked fine, but it was somewhat thicker ribs. Cheers, jc

Take a piece of 3/8" brass tubing, serrate one end with a Dremel cutoff disc, and sharpen somewhat on the inside another Dremel bit. You can drill a half dozen or so before you will have to knock out the plugs.

Cheers -- \_________Lyman Slack________/ \_______Flying Gators R/C___/ \_____AMA 6430 LM____ / \___Gainesville FL_____/ Visit my Web Site at

The best thing I have found for this is the rasp bit from the tool you use to cut sheet rock with,a high speed rasp bit or flute bit you can use with your Dremel tool, I think even Dremel has them in there line. Keep a steady hand or use the Dremel Router Attachment to hold the bit steady.

FF and all -

Thanks for responding to my question - I've had many good suggestions and intend to do the sharpened brass tube when I get back to the drilling - since I have some tube on hand.

Cheers -

LeeH Hack to shape, bash to fit, paint to match...