How do you drill the mast holes in a solid-hull ship model?

For the mast holes, you could jig up the hull so it's perpendicular side-wise and inclined to the mast angle, and drill the holes using drill-press (assuming you have access to one).

A second possibility is to recognize that a drill will tend to follow a smaller hole, and a small hole is easier to drill and align -- make one template with short "legs" that will sit on the deck and has a center-line drawn on it; make a second "triangle" for the angle between the mast and the deck (not the base). Use these to drill the "Pilot hole" for the mast, and then drill it out to size using successively larger drills.

A third possibility recognizes that the real ship did not have a "tight" hole for the mast to go through - they made the hole over-size and then used wedges between the sides of the hole and the mast to move the mast into position. You can do the same thing by drilling a small hole and making a "stub peg" on the bottom of the mast, and then enlarging the upper portion of the hole so that the mast is a "rattling" fit to it. The peg will then locate the bottom of the mast, and wedges can be used to bring the mast - at the deck level - to the correct position.

The "mast coat" will hide these. The bowsprit is a different problem. Much depends on whether the bowsprit heel is "buried" in the hull, or rests on the deck. If the latter, simply drill a small hole and enlarge it with a rat-tail file. If the former, you might want to consider either drilling a series of increasingly larger holes as in method 2 for the mast, or making the final hole undersize, and then trimming the heel of the bowsprit to fit.
{John O. Kopf}

In model building though, you usually can't get at the part of the mast below the deck to insure that it's held by more than just the deck, so the usual plank on bulkhead builders method is to put a solid block between the bulkheads where the mast goes through and rely on a pretty snug fit between the hole drilled through the deck and block to hold the mast. Given I'm too chicken to do it "the real way", absolutely the best method I've come up with for dealing with the setting of the masts is as follows:

1. Build a wooden box with open tops and ends that is about as long as the hull and at least as high as the widest part of the ship's sides are when sitting on her keel. The unassembled bottom should be a couple inches wider than the widest part of the hull since the sides will be mounted on top of the bottom.
2. Tack some battens on the bottom of the box to receive the keel, one batten on each side of the keel, snug enough together so the keel fits between them, but can't walk around on you.
3. Put the ship into the slot for the keel, then glue the sides of the box on so that they sandwich the hull in, and in an attitude that is plumb to an imaginary vertical line drawn through the center of the deck and keel. A round bubble level like is used for leveling kitchen appliances, bridged up on a couple of pieces of strake stock set equal distance from the center line of the deck helps if your eye isn't good enough. Also slide a block of wood under one end of the box to help center the bubble fore and aft if the drag of the keel keeps the bubble too far off center. I put the sides on dry, then tack them with super glue when I have them where I want them.
4. If too little of the sides of the hull touch the sides of the box to stabilize it, put some wedges in between the hull and the box sides, out toward the stem and stern. The whole point is to get the hull stabilized and plumb, port to starboard. Once in the box, the hull shouldn't move at all.
5. Buy a drill press. I kid you not. A passable drill press can be bought from one of the chain "Builders Square" type of store for less money than a decent (and not so) ship kit costs, and certainly cheaper than a fully scratch built hull calculated at minimum wage. And you can do lots of other stuff besides setting masts, like small turnings, with it if you have enough imagination and some sharp wood carvers chisels.
6. Use a soft pencil with a good point to mark a cross where the center of each mast should be on deck and an awl to dimple the deck at the mast hole centers. Check your references, Davis is good, because masts are not usually evenly spaced, and if you set them up like pickets in a fence, the end result may not be worth the effort. If the plans are good, I trace the deck and mark the mast positions on a piece of mylar, then cut it out so it fits inside the bulwarks. Makes it easy to transfer the center point of the masts with an awl.
7. Also check your plans for the amount of rake each mast will have relative to a straight line drawn to the average fore and aft line of the deck (your base line). Typically, the rake increases as you move aft, and starting with a slight exaggeration to the rake is usually a good idea since the stays will draw them forward if you follow the usual sequence of setting the standing rigging from the bow working aft. A protractor based on the deck base line of the plans at the base of the mast and read on the center line of the mast will give you the right reading. I've gotten reasonably good results, at 1:36 and 1:50 scale, by adding one degree to the measurement I took off the plans. If you really want to get picky, the rake should probably be measured from the waterline, particularly if you're working from a table, rather than plans, but I've gotten by with a somewhat arbitrary base line.
8. Set the boxed hull on the drill press table and tilt the table until the deck is level, fore and aft. The bubble level helps here too, but make sure you put it on the deck at a place where your base line and the deck are parallel. Record the measurement on the protractor of the drill press at this point. This is your base angle for the masts. Note: If you took your angles from the waterline, you have to adjust for the difference in angle between the waterline and the base line.
9. Add the rake of the foremast to your base angle and adjust the tilt of the table accordingly. Make sure the adjustment moves the bow in the right direction for the rake you're trying to get in the mast.
10. Clamp a fence to the table top so that when the box is pushed against it, the drill bit hits the center line of the deck and the center line is square across the table. If you're off on this, the resulting angle of the hole will also be off.
11. Using a drill bit approximately 1/3 the diameter of the final hole, and with the drill press set at a slow speed, drill the center of the foremast hole. Before you touch the drill bit to the deck, turn the drill on and look at how the bit is turning. If there's any wobble at all to the drill, reset or replace it.
12. Stick a dowel into the hole and see how it looks. This is your last chance before you blow the whole exercise. Make sure you check both perspectives, fore and aft rake when viewed from the side, and plumb when viewed from the bow and stern. If the bow/stern perspective is off, there's something wrong with the set of the hull in the box, your fence isn't square to the table, or there's something seriously wrong with your drill press.
13. Work the size of the hole up to the final size with a drill 2/3 then 3/3 the final size. If the first or second hole shows some splintering of the deck planks, buy a new drill bit and/or tape a square of masking tape over the hole before you move up to the next sized drill. A shredded deck doesn't add a whole lot to the finished product.
14. Move on to the next mast hole, keeping in mind that your measurements of the angle of rake is relative to the base line, not the last place you had the drill press table set to.

Also, any legend that has a better method, or is willing to let the rest of us in on how this might be done without investing in a drill press, go for it.

Also 2, are the tables published by Davis on rake of mast really relative to water line or have I missed something in my reading?
{Jack Silvia}

Hope this is useful for other modelers.
{Timothy M Sullivan}

Back?