Where to buy a single piece of straight wire?

To straighten thin wire. Fix one end in the vice. Put the other end in a drill chuck and pull as hard as you can. Briefly start the drill. Don't try this on wire so thick that you can't resist the torque.

This also hardens the wire and makes it stiffer.

I use ski poles.

And I loved my Coyotes..until someone decided they liked em more than me.....shrug

They look good and they are definitely good for adding upper body exercise. I used a pair of trekking poles until they were destroyed, now the aluminum is being used. Every once in awhile, a carbide tip got caught in a sidewalk crack. If I didn't release the stick instantly, the tip was damaged. Eventually the end was destroyed.

The push stick isn't for exercise, it's for fun and for getting from here to there. Street skating is outrageous fun. Manual pushing is not part of the fun. Basically, pushing sucks when you're not trying to get exercise.

My big front wheel skates are better than Coyotes for rough terrain. Big wheels are great, but you only need a big wheel in front. The only thing that big trailing wheels do is raise your center of balance, that's not good. Yesterday when I took my most recent GoTail (inline skating push stick) out for a test run, somebody stuck their head out the car window and started asking me about the big front wheels on my skates. I get comments on them more than anything else so far.

Hardens it, yes. Makes it stiffer, no.

Hi, Go to hobby shop and get a piece of piano wire.

I've used real piano wire from a music store to make my own Bowden cables before in a pinch.

you say "like a guitar string" you know those are cheap too right?

nate

my thought too but a bike brake cable is going to be very limp. But if the OP can make that work that seems more OEM-like...

nate

As long as the ferules are clamped to the proper points and the cable is adjusted the flex in the rest of the cables length won't matter.

So-called 'piano wire' is hard, but if you get some, and uncoil a length, then stretch it (this requires a vise grip on each end), it gets straight.

Or, hammer one end smaller, then draw through a die (it will take some lube).

If you buy it at a hobby shop, you can get straight lengths, somewhere around 3 feet. It's very straight.

You would be hard pressed to stretch a piece of music wire over .010 by hand. It's pretty tough to draw too.

Some time back, an RCMer from the golden years wrote this about this very subject.

We routinely straighten music wire of all diameters at work. We use it for hinge pins on aircraft. Our music wire comes in large rolls. The way we do it, is to take a piece of tubing and bend it in sort of a relaxed z shape as below.

---------\ \ \-------------

Clamp this in a vise. Cut the wire to length, and insert one end into an air or electric drill. Insert the other end into the opening of the bent tube, and turn on drill, and force wire through the bent tube. Once its through a bit on the other end, then place the ch=uck on this end, and then just run drill and pull the wire through the bent tube.. Push it back and forth a few times, and when it comes out it will be straight. A little oil may make it easier. We have straightened music wire up to .185 this way. foxeye

It works pretty well.

Paul K. Dickman

Why not just go to an automotive store and buy a universal choke cable. They are made to add a manual choke to any of the old carburetor cars, when the automatic choke becomes troublesome. I've used them myself. They are just a complete cable with a knob on one end and a mounting bracket to mount under your dash. If the auto parts stores dont have them anymore, try a tractor parts store. Many tractors used manual chokes and may still do.

That's interesting IMO.

FWIW... I usually adjust the torque setting, so it's usually not a problem. Like when doing stuff that requires little torque, I put the drill on the lowest torque setting, as a safety measure.

(snip)

Well... yes, that is correct if you use the technical definition of "stiffer". In the vernacular when applied to wire, "stiffer" usually means harder to put a permanent bend in it.

Right. But the vernacular can mean either. A lot of people believe that one equals the other -- that a wire that better resists bending also better resists springing.

It's a misconception that one person or another on this NG has to correct for someone every couple of months or so; not to be wise guys, but to help metalworking hobbyists understand a physical property of metal that often is misunderstood.

You can purchase straight wire at Fred's Heterosexual Wire company. ^_^

freds-nogaywire.com

TDD

local weld shop. Get a stick of bare brazing or welding rod.