Annealing music wire

Tim Wescott · 2011-11-17T19:26:27+00:00

I'm building model airplanes. Nearly everyone bends up their landing gear out of music wire (0.9% carbon, low alloy, hard drawn wire), and either holds the wheels on with these really ugly collars, or they epoxy on washers.The washers won't come off when you want them to, and do come off when you don't. I'm thinking up a few schemes to do a nicer job, some of which would go a lot nicer if the steel were drawn a lot more than it is. I don't want to go using my nice 5-44 die on hard steel, nor do I want to try drilling .050" holes.So: how to anneal, and how to just draw the temper a bit more? For annealing I expect that I can just clamp the thing in my vise (both to hold and to limit heat travel), get the end as hot as it'll get with a propane torch, and let it cool. To just draw it, should I do something like filing a spot shiny, then heating it to blue or purple, then letting it cool? Or is there a better way to do this by eyeball methods?Comments appreciated. I know how to make it work with rocks and sticks, I'd just like pointers on using hammers and screwdrivers for the job...

Nov 17, 2011 23 Replies

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RogerN 14 years ago

I have used music wire for model helicopter flybars and threaded the ends with a die. I just heated up the tips red hot with a propane torch and did my best to let it cool as slow as I could. I think a lot of the strength in the music wire is from the drawing work hardening stresses. Note that even after my method of annealing, the music wire still didn't thread real easily. You could try heating the end to cherry red and then placing the wire in a preheated oven to help it cool slowly, maybe even preheat the wire to help it cool more slowly.

RogerN

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whit3rd 14 years ago

How about making a brass axle, tapped as appropriate, drilling it down the center for the wire? You can soft-solder the wire into the brass, it'll hold its temper fine at soft-solder heat.

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alvinj 14 years ago

I believe the trouble you're having with it not getting soft enough isn't from the rate of cooling as much as not getting it hot enough to start with. 1200F will draw all the work hardening out of it and doesn't matter how quickly it cools from 1200F ...because it won't quench harden from there.

Not picking on you, Roger it's just your post was the best one to quote. :)

I've softened up just the tips of pieces like that by standing them up in watery-sand. Tough to get them hot enough that way tho.

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The higher the alloying and the softer you want it, the longer it takes at heat. In this case, try one minute and see how it goes? :)

Alvin in AZ

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