Thin Wire Rod Instead of Thread for 1/32 Aircraft ???

Buy it at craft shops, where it is sold in several guages for constructing bead necklaces and bracelets - "beading wire". Or use the corona wires from laser printers, which are changed as part of regular maintenance.

thx for the info. I was thinking about taking a look at the brass tubing, etc section that my hobby store has, but I think the rods they have are too big for 1/32. Off to Michaels Art Supply !!!!

Craig

The wire has to be so fine that it is not very stiff. Thus you have a bit of a problem getting it pulled taut. It WILL sag if you do not hold it taut while the glue drys. I like to use nylon thread and pull it very taut while the glue is drying, or if I knot it making sure there is a lot of tension it before securing knot with a bit of glue. I often drill hole in wing so I can pull thread through and hang a weight on it while CA sets up. A slight dimple of paint (from toothpick) will then seal the hole and nib of thread (I cut the thread as close as possible to wing surface.

As an extension to the original question, were the flying and tension rigging wires actually cables? I've seen many biplanes, Stearmans in particular, that don't have cables for rigging. They're solid, almost airfoil shaped rods with threaded adjusters at the ends. Are these a modern answer to an old problem, or is that the way they actually were? I've tried making contact through the Stearman websites, but have yet to get an answer.

i still like sewing rigging together best. keep it tight as you go.

Metal guitar strings. A hobby shop I was at had tempered steel wire in all sorts of diameters down to extremely thin in around 3' to 4' lengths. It's difficult to cut with clippers, but you can cut it with a Dremel tool and a carbide cut-off wheel.

Pat

The problem with the beading wire is although it cuts easily, it also bends easily, which means getting a straight section to put on the model may be tough. The tempered steel wire on the other hand is straight to begin with, and springy to boot. I used it on my Soviet spacecraft models, because they tend to have antennas sticking out all over them like some sort of a flying HAM radio station that are easy to break when moving or cleaning them (the curved antennas on the Vostok and Voskhod that look like half of a paper clip are best made by using half of a paper clip). ;-)

Pat

Monofiliment fishing line has been used the same way. I recently built a Monogram Wright Flyer, and was amazed that they thought a kid could rig that thing using the insructions they gave...they have threads hanging all over it during the middle of construction, getting tangled and making a complete mess. Since I was out of CA, I assembled it with Testors liquid cement, and between the threads hanging all over the place and the wing struts and the other framework warping and popping out as the cement dried, it was a real return to the 1960s for me when I had built one for the first time. :-D

Pat

Disco58 wrote:

I think they did use airfoil-shaped bracing wires (or should one call them struts?) during the waning days of the biplane and rise of the monoplane. As to being wires or cables, I think both were used by different manufactures at different times. Although a wire of the appropriate thickness would probable be better described as a rod. Obviously, doing a airfoil-shaped cable would be a challenge. I dug out my "Jane's Fighting Aircraft Of World War One" reprint and had a look at what they used back then, and it looks like a combination of wires and cables. There's 1918 info here:

webpage has some info on replicating them: "VII. Aircraft Rigging Rigging models is always a tricky endeavour. You will get as many ideas on how to do it as there are modelers. Each has their own trick and technique; this section is to explain a few of the more "common" ones, as well as provide a source for some of the rigging material. There are a few ways to rig your models. One of the favorites is to drill holes all the way through the area where the rigging will be. Glue the rigging in one of the holes, wait for it to dry, then pull it through the other hole. Glue, again wait for it to dry, then cut off the excess. Finally, if the parts need it, fill the hole and continue. Another popular method is to use a pair of architectual dividers (found in any art or architect store) to measure the precise distance of where the rigging is to be. Cut your rigging source a little longer than what the dividers show, then through trial fitting, cut the rigging to the exact length needed.

1. Stretched Sprue. There are a lot of people who stretch sprue for rigging. Stretching sprue becomes an art. To start, you want to get the right color of sprue (most agree on a gray, or steel color), and you want to get a lot of it. It is wise to practice first. Start by holding the sprue above a lit candle, say two to three inches. When the sprue gets warm, and starts to sag, pull it

*gently* until you have the desired thickness. After pulling, be sure to keep the sprue away from the candle, otherwise the sprue will melt. Again, practice is important. There will come a time where you'll be able to pull the same thickness consistently.

1. Real wire. Some individuals use real wire for rigging. Depending on your scale, you want to choose a thickness that looks like it's about to scale. Note that just because a certain "brand" is listed under a specific scale does *not* mean that "brand" can only be used on that scale. Here are some ideas, plus their sources: a. 1/72nd scale: i. .006" Detail Associates Brass "Rod", product number xxxx This is used in conjunction with a product called "Blacken It" (unless you want to keep the rigging a bronze color), and both are found in the model rairoad section of your hobby shop. ii. .004" Carbon Steel Wire This is availble through Sopwith Hobbies, P.O. Box 560442, Miami, FL, USA, 33256-0442 (email is snipped-for-privacy@worldnet.att.net). It comes in a pack of three strands of 55" each strand for (as of 24 Oct

96) US$5.95 per pack. Add US$3.00 for postage and handling. b. 1/48th scale: .006" Ceramic "wire", product number xxxx This appears to be available only through Precision Enterprise, Inc. A pack containing x number of inches is US$5.95. Add US$3.00 for postage on two packs." I must admit, I can't understand how the ceramic stuff would work. Here, de Havilland pilots are warned to check their streamlined stainless steel bracing wires: Pat

Consider also stranded copper wire from zip/lanp cord. Strip the insulation off of a piece and you have a "years supply" of wire for lots of applications. It mikes out to .010 and makes excellent rigging eyes for

1/120 sailing ships and details for 1/72 aircraft. Used in conjunction with "Blacken It", it might be useful for 1/32 aircraft rigging. Resistance soldering? Just thoughts....

T2

Check out this link. This is the best stuff I have found for any kind of rigging

There could be a problem with that material with time: I rigged my 6' spaceship model with gold covered elastic thread and after a few years it became slack and needed to be replaced. It sure would be useful from the low-breakage point of view though; I knocked the antenna wire off of my Il-2 just a couple of weeks back. I had found this incredibly thin copper wire inside of a tiny electric motor and put that on it for the wire between the radio mast and tail...unfortunately it was so thin as to be almost invisible, and I went to dust off the model and forgot the line was on it.

Pat

As a follow up to that, can you rig a ship model with it? Unless you got the tension on all the rigging even, wouldn't it be pulling the masts and yardarms all over the place?

Pat

This reminded me of a website where a model "imploded" due to using elastic rigging! It was a freak accident, but the photos show what can happen.

You build one of those Tauro A7Vs in 1/35 scale sometime by using Testor's liquid cement... and put all the springs in the suspension system; first time a hot day comes around, that SOB's going to fly straight up and hit the ceiling. :-D That was the single oddest feature I've ever seen put in a model kit. It's like the thing has a built-in self-destruct system, that you get to assemble yourself, like the do-it-yourself electric motors on the old Lindberg kits. Perfectly, brilliantly, Italian - like hooking a piece of detcord between the gas tank of a Lamborghini Diablo and its muffler. :-D

Pat

You might be able to use:

0.005" is pretty small visually. It shoudl also be stiff enough for what you're looking for.

Peteski

Pat Flannery wrote:

I just looked at those photos again...do you know that happened there? I mentioned the in a posting a few weeks back... it you start securing styrene or resin under any sort of stress together with CA, it starts fracturing the molecular structure of the plastic apart; the harder the Styrene or resin the worse it gets, hard enough plastic and it starts sending out cracks from any glue point that causes it to shatter like glass. The reason that the rigging line had come free in the first place was that it had fractured the resin it was attached to by the chemical effect it had on the plastic. It's like the way a crack spreads in a windshield; once it starts there's no stopping it as it radiates out from the original point of molecular failure. The model didn't rip itself apart under stress; it was basically shattering from the moment that the CA was applied in slow motion. He didn't even need to touch it; given another day or two it would all have fallen apart entirely on its own. I built a model of one of Larry Niven's "Kzinti", and as a armature to build it over used a 12" G.I. Joe figure with all the joint secured via CA to get the pose I wanted, then built "Sculpy" up over the whole thing and stuck it into the oven to cure. The Sculpy fractured at every point where it had come in contact with the dried CA at the joints of the armature during heat curing. That was a bitch to fix, but that's still my all-time favorite scratchbuilt model of my entire career (and indeed favorite model of my entire career), because that's the only time something came out _way_ better than I ever envisioned it when I first came up with the idea. I sat back, took one look at it when it was finished, and thought "Did I actually just make that? How the hell did I pull something like that off?" :-)

Pat

Depends on era. Most WW1 were stranded wire cable. Between wars, starting in twenties they went to airfoil-shaped forged or drawn "wire", single piece.