Drilling out gun ports on aircraft

Drills and drilling

with Geoff Coughlin

It’s easy to ignore, or maybe even spot small touches like this, but take a close look at the photo above showing a Saab J-29 Tunnan…

Take a closer look at the gun ports under the nose – some interesting features here. Firstly, notice that they have depth and the ground crew have even inserted small FOD guards inside to prevent muck and rubbish getting into the gun barrels.

It’s really easy to just spend a few moments drilling out the barrels, just a couple of mm or so – enough to give the appearance of a proper gun trough.

In the following video you’ll see how I opened up the gun ports on a recent project, the HobbyBoss J-29 Tunnan in 1:48 scale.

---

Video Demo

---

What you need:

a set of mini drill bits (very cheap from a hobby / craft store)
a small hand-held pin vice drill (also very cheap and usually sold as part of a set)

This is how it all looked on my completed model.

Until next time…

Geoff C.