Question (Making Spark Plug Wires)

Try thick plastic fishing line spray painted black; it should flex well, and be easy to secure with superglue. If you want to do more involved folds on it, get hold some of the very thin insulated single strand copper wire used in phone system junction boxes. If you paint it, you probably want to use a acrylic paint, as a petroleum-based paint can affect the vinyl covering oddly and leave it permanently tacky.

Pat

Pat

Brilliant...thank you!

ZW

Zomby Woof wrote:

And if you ever want a kit you could have field day putting all the wiring and cables on, get one of those reissued Lindberg 1/8 scale dragsters when it comes out. I've built around ten or twelve car kits, around one hundred tank kits, and around five hundred aircraft kits since I was a kid; but that dragster is about the most fun I had building any model in my life. That thing is so big, that it just begs for superdetailing. You could stick a carefully detailed can of chewing tobacco down near the accelerator pedal, and have the writing on it be readable. Unfortunately, the reissue is going to have white body moldings on it, because modelers wanted one they could paint easily. You should have seen the candy-apple red and emerald green metal flake moldings for the two bodies on the original. Now _that's_ how you make a model. How, how am I going to simulate the tape that hold the drag chute release cable down to the frame? Well, first I'm going to get some white cloth medical tape, then I'm going to get a X-Acto knife, and start cutting it down to 1/8th its normal width. Or I could use electrical tape, and cut that down the same way. Hell, do I want to use medical tape or electrical tape on my dragster? Maybe I should chew some more tobacco and think about it. Yes, duct tape, that's the ticket. (spit) Did they have duct tape back in 1965? Hell, this is going to take some serious re-search here. And some serious beer drinkin' beer too. (spit)

Pat

"Zomby Woof" wrote in news:GVFGi.173210$fJ5.83241@pd7urf1no:

Sprue is indeed not very flexible.

I use thin lead wire use for fly fishing flies. which is very bendable. I also use all kinds of guages of copperwire found in small electro motors etc. If you have an old floppy/disk/hard drive, take it apart and you'll be amazed how much and how many different wires you can find in there.

HTH

You can find thin insulated wire in the gauge suitable for spark plug wire at most stores that carry such electronic supplies. Otherwise if you are going to run the wire through the spark plug looms, you might consider using thin soldier, it is flexible and will hold the shape you set it into, yet allow adjustments. Remember not all spark plug wires are black...many manufacturers use their 'own' colored wire.

What to use depends a lot on the scale! For smaller scales, any insulated wire is too big. For the smaller scales I use UNINSULATED fine electronics wire. If you are scrapping a piece of electronics- say an old tape player or something, rescue the transformer from it before you scrap it. Unwind the laminations. This wire is generally varnished, so you can spray it with flat black or whatever color you want and it will take paint okay.

In addition to the fine telephone wire, if you can find it at an electronics supply place there is a very fine insulated "wire wrap" wire that is good for 1:25. Remember, in 1:24/25 a wire would be only about 10 to 15 mil!

on 9/15/2007 2:14 AM Pat Flannery said the following:

Since WWII when it was invented for the US military.

on 9/15/2007 5:49 AM Bert-Jan said the following:

If you need stiff wire, i.e. for antennas and such, use guitar steel 'string'.

I had red spark plug wires on my modified '66 GTO.

Wrap wire, available at someplace like Radio Shack. Comes in lots of colors, and one spool (like a spool of thread) will probably last you for more models than you can count.

I've used solder before on models and it's very hand for doing wires and plumbing; but it might be hard to find it thin enough to look right in

1/24th scale.

Pat

A lot of hobby shops sell tempered spring steel wire in various gauges. If you need something thick that's fairly easy to bend, yet can take some weight when attached to the model, use aluminum electrical grounding wire.

Pat

... or you can take the easy way out and just buy what you need at

. Peteski

I think you mean 1.0mm and 1.5mm which equals .040" and approx .060". Cheers

No, I dont think so.

1 mm in 1/25 will be 25 mm in real so that would give you 1" thick sparkplug wires.