Evening All,
As posted earlier I have now finished this project - I think that I counted about 178 wires in all, but I do not guarantee the accuracy as I may have missed a couple or three! Rigging the control surfaces was interesting but I think that I managed to solve the problem, but my solution would only work with wire, not thread. The method I used was as follows:
For the wing control surfaces I first made small marks on the wings where the wires were to be attached with the point of a pair of dividers. This enabled me to get accurate spacing and positioning. I cut the central wire first and glued this in place, with one end on the wing post. Then I cut one of the wires which would lie next to the central one and put a drop of superglue on each end. Lay one end of the wire in the mark on the wing surface first and then careful attach the other end to the central wire. Repeat this for the third wire on the other side of the central wire. Now add one of the outer wires to one side of the central wire and finally the other outer wire. In all cases the wires have to be measured very accurately and superglue must be put on to the ends of the wires. It is also important to attach one end to the wing first as this allows the wire to be moved easily into place. Here is a close up image of one of the top wing control surfaces - hopefully it will help to clarify my description above.
Hopefully you can see that the wires are attached so that they lie alongside each other - in close up it may not look too neat but it is actually similar to the real thing. From a normal viewing distance it looks convincing as I hope other images will show.
For the tail surfaces there is a rather different problem as 8 wires have to be attached to one single wire which in turn is attached to the rudder post. I started by measuring carefully the lengths of the two innermost control wires and then glued these to the tail surface. I then glued the other ends together to make a V. I then cut the connecting wire which runs from the rudder post to the V - this is approx 5mm long. I glued one end of the single wire to the rudder post and the other to the apex of the V using superglue and after about 30-45 seconds I had a structure which I could attach the remaining wires to, using the same procedure as for the wings above, thus:
(The line near the middle of the image is the edge of the rudder - it is shadow caused by the light).
I also left all of the bracing wires from the spar extensions until the end as otherwise these are easily damaged. A few are also wire to wire attachments but they are relatively easy to get right - just take care with the dividers to get an accurate measurement. Finally I added the propellor because it too would only get in the way. So here it is. I will post more images in the completed models section together with a little history on the type.
Thank you again to all who have contributed with your positive and encouraging remarks, and thanks for looking.
