Slatted twin wires

[Dal Gavan]

G'day.

What I'd like to do is have this as an open thread, where everyone will be able to contribute ideas that did, or didn't, work for them.  When building my 1/32 Roden Nieuport 28 I had to deal with representing the slatted and wrapped twin flying wires, which were a feature of some French aircraft. 

The method I used was to rig the lines normally, then lay 0.25mm thick X 1mm wide styrene strips along the twin flying wires.  The strips were cut to 55mm long, and allow a little of the lines to show, where they fasten to the wings or turnbuckles.



This is a method that looks reasonable at a couple of feet, but could be done better.  It is very difficult to get the mono to lay evenly along the strip.  And the mono itself is thick enough to be plainly visible, unlike the real thing. 



To get to this stage, however, I had to do some experimenting using a tensioned, twin run of 0.125mm monofilament. 





The results of the experiments, which hopefully will prove useful, are:

1.  Tamiya Extra Thin doesn't seem to effect 0.125mm monofilament (ie "Invisible Thread), so

2.  1mm X 0.25mm strip styrene softens and "grips" mono, if you lay it along the rigging lines.  BUT..

3.  You only get the one chance and if it slips, you either ignore it (see below) or re-do that run.

4.  A little bit of spit placed in the centre of the slat makes it much, much easier to position the slat on the rigging.

I've since experimented with a couple of other ways of doing the slatted wires, thanks to suggestions on the build log, though I didn't take photo's of my efforts.  I'll repeat the experiments and take some photo's to post here.  Hopefully there will be plenty of other people that will post their methods/ideas/experiments as well.  And who knows, someone may be able to make some "failed" ideas work.

Cheers.

Dal.

[Rob Hart]

I'll be needing to do this in 1/48 in the near future. I am toying with running a bead of white glue or thin ca (or even paint) the length of the gap between the two wires. It won't have the flat appearance of the battan, but may be passable in the smaller scale. I also recall someone using thin strips of cigarette rolling paper.

[ALBATROS1234]

here is a build of an ansaldo balilla where the guy does this type rigging . he illustrates step by step his process. just scroll down and blow up the pictures, its 3/4 down the page and laid out in a row of pics.

http://www.pme.org.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=117&Itemid=42&lang=english

[ALBATROS1234]

i dont know from experience but to me this sounds like it would invite disaster, i would be afraid i would drip glue or knock/drop the damn thing or get annoyed trying to work in btw the fixed wings. if you do it as above then you end up with the strip with 2 mono ends dangling, then just rigg as usual to 2 eyelets on each end. maybe i'm wrong but thats what seems easier to me, but to each his own path.

[lcarroll]

   I agree with you, "Alb." The Ansaldo in the linked article looks as real as it could get, and it seems simpler and less prone to disaster to fabricate the pairs with the spacers done and then install the resulting component. That's some very nice work there!
Cheers,
Lance

[coyotemagic]

Scott, I don't know if you recall, but I did something similar to my Balilla back on the 'drome, only I used fine stainless steel wire instead of monofilament.  I painted a thin strip of styrene, and some micro tape grey, put strips of tape across the styrene strip, then place the assembly on the bench, sticky side up.  Then I painted the wire steel color, laid it on the tape next to the styrene strip, wrapped the tape around the whole thing and sealed it with CA.  It was stiff and easy to place between the cleats. 

Cheers,
Bud

[ALBATROS1234]

well i sure remember that build bud but i cant say i recall exactly how you did the rigging but i am definately of the assemble first install later rather than trying to pair 2 lines after they are installed but it may be easier for some that way.

[IFF1418]

Hello Bud,

Did you take some pictures of the way you proceded for your  method. Maybe this should be clearing things out for me. Thank you Bud!

Kind regards
Patrick

[Dal Gavan]

G'day.

Sorry for the delay in replying, but I've been up at the farm, house-and-horse sitting.  While I was up there I continued experimenting with the slats, using a few of the ideas mentioned here.  The internet up there is near-useless wireless, with mid-1990's speeds for downloads (being near the edge of the signal footprint and lots of trees tend to do that), but uploading is near impossible.

If I was smart, I'd have taken my camera with me.

Rob, white glue (or Kristal Kleer, which is what I tried) may work in 1/48, but it didn't dry consistently and the run looked very uneven.  Note that I had tweezers holding the mono under tension and it was very hot and dry (41°C on Sunday afternoon), which probably had some effect, though I got the same result down here, where it's more humid and cooler.  It would be worth a try, though.

Scott, that's a very nice build and a very useful link.  Thanks for that.  I tried that method using both white glue and Tamiya Extra Thin.  With both of them it looked pretty good, but the lines did peel away easily if I tugged gently.  With a bit of care this would probably work very nicely.

RB, I agree with Scott and Lance, after doing my N.28.  It's very fiddly getting the slat to sit in place on the mono- it would be extremely frustrating trying to sit it between two lines.  However you're probably less clumsy than I, so I'd be interested how you go, if you try it.

Bud, any chance of some more piccies of that model? 

I did something similar to what you describe, but used decal film and mono (see below*).  The mono, if it came free, sliced it easily and pulled off the styrene.  I have a feeling that trying to thread the mono through eyelets would see that happening all the time.  However, using tape would help keep the mono in place, as the mono wouldn't cut it as easily.  I've just built a jig to do the tests (four eyelets in styrene tube, mounted to a cutting board, as using tweezers to keep the lines tensioned wasn't working too well) and it will be interesting to see if the jig makes a difference.     

*  What I did was stretch the line and glue in the slat (1mm- going by my N.28 I'd need to trim it to ~ 0.8mm to use on a kit), using both white glue (messy, but hold the line pretty well) and Tamiya Extra Thin (a lot less messy, but the mono easily separates from the styrene slat).  I tried wrapping the slats as if bandaging them, using 2mm wide X 20mm lengths of decal film.  As well as the decal film tearing and pulling all the tricks "cheat line" decals tend to pull,  the film itself didn't sit evenly when it dried.  I didn't use any decal softener, having left that here, which may have made a difference.  Also, if you pulled on the line the mono easily cut the decal, except a couple of places where I'd wrapped it thickly. 

What I tried next was a 55mm by 5mm strip.  I slid the decal (on its backing paper) lengthwise under the mono-and-styrene slat, then wrapped it over.  This worked fairly well, trapping the mono against the edge of the slat.  It took a bit more effort to pull a line loose, but when it did it easily cut the decal.

At the mo' Bud's idea of wrapping the slat with (thin "kabuki"?) tape is looking very good.  I'll give that a go in the next couple of days.

Cheers.

Dal.     

[Dal Gavan]

Sorry, everyone, for the delay.  I've been waiting for my back and shoulder to settle down before fiddling about with the experiments I said I'd be doing.

Below you'll see photo's of three methods from which I could get a reasonable(ish) result.  Another three I tried I just couldn't get to work at all.  They were:

1.  Using a thin strip of decal to wrap the twin run of mono', by wrapping the mono' like it was being bandaged.  It near drove me crazy.  I had to use forceps to anchor one end of the decal film to the mono', to be able to start.  If the decal film didn't tear immediately then it would tear not too long thereafter.  Nor would it wrap evenly.  In the end I gave up on that idea.  No photo's, as I was too cranky to bother. 

2.  Similar to the above, but laying the decal along the mono' and attempting to fold the film over.  I used Experts-Choice white decal film (and it's lovely stuff- for doing decals).  Getting an even fold is near impossible, unless you use decal solvent (I was using Micro Sol) to shrink the decals.  However, that just causes the decal to split as the mono' cuts it like a knife.  Once again, I gave up on this method once my systolic blood pressure reached four figures.

3.  Drilling 0.15mm holes in the end of 0.25mm thick styrene strip and gluing the mono in the holes with thin Cyanoacrylate.  Don't bother.  It's very fiddly and frustrating and it can get the blood pressure higher than method 2, above, in half the time.  However, if by some fluke (or by having a well-equipped work bench) you do get all four holes drilled in the strip, the mono' glued in and leave it all to dry over night (it's really important to let the CA dry properly), this gives a really strong bond and the mono' won't strip out at normal rigging tensions.  Then you face another three or more slats to do.......

So what did work? 

Making a new, simpler, jig helped a bit.  All it was was four sewing pins, heads cut off, hammered into a compressed bamboo cutting board (DON'T TELL MICHELLE, for gawd's sake!) so they gave 1mm clearance between two runs of 0.125mm mono'.

4.  Then I tried white glue (doesn't work- the glue kept beading up rather than filling the gap) and Kristal Klear (KK).  KK didn't work too badly.  It also tries to bead up, but you can smooth it out a little as it dries:



You've probably guessed, though, that anything that uneven isn't likely to dry smoothly.  You're right:




On one attempt I got a better finish.  Now that run was only half as long and the humidity was right up.  Whether those factors had an effect, though, I have no idea.

5.  Next I tried a thin strip of cardboard, cut from a business card.  This worked fairly well, though I had to nick the corners, so that the card would sit between the mono'.  Also be aware that you'll be holding your breath after the first attempt, when your breath causes the card to drop out of the wires.  The trick here is to remember to stop and breathe again, in between subsequent attempts.

 


This worked fairly well.  Once I'd got it sitting in place I coated the line and card with diluted white glue.  The diluted glue, however, gets absorbed by the cardboard and makes it warp, as you can see above.

6.  Lastly, I tried 1mm wide X 0.25mm thick styrene strips.  Rather than laying it on top of the mono', as I did with my N.28, I nicked the corners lightly and laid the slat between the mono'.  The nicks again helped prevent the slat from popping out of place with every breath.  I had run Tamiya Extra Thin polystyrene glue down the lines first, before slipping the slat in, and they helped hold it.  Once in place, I very gently brushed some more glue along the outside of the mono', and left it to dry.





The one weak point with methods 5 & 6 is that the mono' easily strips off the card/slat, if it's pulled away from the slat at all.* 

Over the last few weeks I've tried a couple of other things, such as using 1mm tape to wrap the mono', etc.  They didn't work for me, but they could do for you.

Anyway, I hope someone can use some of these techniques and make them work.  You can then tell us all your secrets! 

Cheers.

Dal.

* As I was typing this I had the idea of running some KK along the edges of the mono, after the Tamiya glue dries.  That may give it some lateral strength.  I'll try that tomorrow- the last experiment is still sitting on the board.     

[lcarroll]

   Here's the results of my efforts on this technique on the same Model, Roden's 1:32 Scale Nieuprot 28C-1. I elected to trial and, when successful, use decal to wrap the Twin Wires as follows:
   First a rough Jig was constructed and I used the same mono as installed on the model to try the technique, 0.14mm Fishing Line Monofilament.



The decal material chosen was Wingnut Wings After Market Lozenge.





   Basically, strips of decal roughly double the width of the wire space were cut and, once layed onto the wires with the aid of water and then Microsol and a soft brush, were soaked in Microsol until they curled around and wrapped the wires on their own. The brush helped along the process when required. All that's required is a little patience as, once the Microsol softens the decal to the point where it starts to curl, the decal completes the process on it's own. only a minimum of help might be required to complete or tidy up the "wrap" with the Microsol soaked brush. Here's the result with a coat of Tamiya Acrylic and the final product on the Model.







   and that's it......................simple with the exception of the time required to position the decal when wet. It will be interesting to see how the results stand the test of time!?
 Cheers,
Lance

[ALBATROS1234]

looks great to my eye.my only concern would be if the decal wouldnt eventually crack or something. all you can do is pop it up on the shelf and see. inovative process lance.

[lcarroll]

    I'll keep my eyes on it and if there's any tragedies I'll "fess up"! I would think movement might cause problems but sitting in the display case it will hopefully last as long as the model.
Cheers,
Lance

[Berman]

 Possibly a combination of Dal's idea of using a micro styrene strip and later securing with Lance's method of covering with a length of decal. Just wondering if first running the monofilament a couple of times, which has quite a slick surface, through a folded piece of fine abrasive such 600 or 1,000 grit would help improve cement adhesion between the styrene and the monofilament.

[RAGIII]

Just for clarification, Did you apply the decals to the wire and then install on the aircraft?
RAGIII