Recommendations needed: WWII biplane cable stays fastening

I'm getting a bit confused by your terminology. When you say "stays" do you mean the interplane struts near the wingtips? Or do you mean the flying and landing wires?

Building up the struts and sanding them to shape is exactly how the originals were made : )

Your idea for loops tied to the spars is a good one. It approximates the way the original rigging supports were attached.

The S.E.5 used RAF wires, which were airfoil-shaped wires about twice or trhee times as wide as they were thick. See this picture:

were silver, not black. You can reproduce these by using styrene strip cut to the proper width and sprayed silver.

wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com:

Somebody, somewhere makes airfoil shaped stock. I know because I have some. But it's still packed from the move so not sure where it's from. I'm thinking the UK somewhere. He can try UK based hobby shops. Pretty sure that's where I got mine.

Slaters. Good for struts, too big for rigging.

Sorry for the terminology confusion - I even screwed up on which war! (It was from WWI not WWII)

Anyhow, I used stiff hobby wire and black thread to fasten eyes near the ends of the struts - it should work out OK - I'm not going for "high realism", but medium - certainly more than the kit provides in box. I did sand the struts (it's 3/32 think) and painted them a tan, so it'll be enough. (I'm just trying to get it done, it's been

The biggest challenge is gluing the whole thing together - two wings and struts so it's aligned and square, etc.

Thanks for the feedback! Sean

You can use the side view on the plans to make a jig to hold the wings at the right angle and distance apart so that when you glue them you can be sure that they're going to dry correctly. A couple of pieces of stiff cardboard or foamcore is all you need.

I've just had a look for the aerofoil strut extrusions in my stock drawer, and discovered that they were made by Contrail (Gordon Sutcliffe) and Contrail no longer exists. There doesn't seem to be a replacement available - I will have to hold on to my stocks carefully.

Wonder wire is a ceramic wire material. It is very rigid and is great for rigging. One of our club members and FSM reviewers loves the stuff for 1:48 scale rigging. He did confirm last night that it is too small for 1:32 aircraft. You can bend it but it is breakable. Only one source I know of for it and I've been told when you call to place your order, let the phone ring until someone picks up. I can't seem to find their phone number in my notes.

Precsion Enterprises Limited PO Box 97 Springfield, VT 05156

The cost is $7.95 for a 10 foot coiled length. Postage is $2.50 for one or up to 5 packages. They accept checks, Visa and MasterCard.

Wonder wire is 6 mills in diameter. Works great for rigging 1/48 aircraft - converts to 0.288 diameter on the 1/48 scale aircraft. Also tolerable for

1/350 ships.

T2

Second. I keep a stock of Wonder wire on hand for rigging, antenna leads, etc. and it's great stuff. Sags realistically on long runs, but is generally stiff enough for rigging WWI types.

Tom wrote the following on 3/4/2012 9:45 PM (ET):

I used 005." (5 mil) 3 pound test fly-fishing tippet plastic line for the 1/350 ship model I built. Available anywhere fishing stuff is sold, including WalMart, where I got mine.

A "realistic sag" is exactly what you don't want when you're doing flying wires. They're tightened as much as possible for a reason.

That's not what I meant - I said "long runs"...like the wire antennae on my 1/48 PBY, which are 8 inches or more. For inter-plane rigging Wonder Wire works wonders.

Of course something else one can use are non-wound electric guitar strings. I use them for all sort of stuff too. And you can readily choose your size from about .007" up, though .007s and .008s are a bit tricky to find. Wound strings can be used to make great scale springs too.

Excet in this case we're talking about the Guillows Se.5A, which has flying wires easily that long and longer. It may be good for small kits, but not in this application.

I've actually used it for mast guy wires on a 1/700 WW2 cruiser. Rather over scale but doesn't look too bad. Tough to tie anything at that scale. I do like Angel Hair (buy it at craft stores around Christmas) for halyards in 1/700. Rig with white glue.

T2

Non-wound guitar stings then...very handy. And if you'd like them flattened to a somewhat airfoil shape you can anneal them and run them to an oval shape using a roller - like a hunk of steel round on a hard plate surface. You can also choose a more or less mailable material - steel vs nickel content - to make them a bit easier to roll flat. Roll just the length of the run and leave some of the ends round.

Anchor plates at the strut ends can then be made from metal stock and the round portion of the end fed through the holes and the wires drawn tight - swedge the ends with a hunk of metal tubing ala the real thing, solder if you wish. Presto.