The SBD had a large wooden mast that was used to string the radio antenna from the front of the plane back to the vertical stab. Some restorations have this mast restored to a stained or natural wood finish, however in the field, they were actually painted to match the plane. I began by carving and sanding this mast to shape from a hardwood block. I drilled this block out to receive wooden dowel rod that extended a couple inches into the mast.

Next I made a small hardwood block that would be used as the main mounting block inside the fuse. I countersunk a recess in the block to receive a standard wheel collar. After scuffing up the wheel collar with sandpaper, I epoxied it securely into the mounting block. I also drilled a small recess into the dowel post so that the set screw would actually thread partially into the dowel rod itself.

I cut out a hole in the sheeting big enough to slide the mounting block into, and drilled out one of the internal ply formers to let the dowel rod extend down into. Next I epoxied the mounting block into position inside the fuse, and slid the mast down through the wheel collar. That allowed me to check the angles for trueness and make adjustments as the epoxy was setting. Once it was set and cured, I removed the mast and began sheeting/closing up most of the hole over the mounting block, except for a small access hole for the set screw.

When mounted and screwed tight, the antenna mast recesses about 1/32" to 1/16" below the fuse surface, and is very snug and strong. Actually, if the set screw ever did back out in flight, I think the snug wood to wood fit is tight enough that the mast would never back out 2" and fall off. Now all I have to do is hit the mast with some polyurethane, primer and paint it.