How many of you use turnbuckles in rigging?

[compressor man]

On all of my past models I have simply fastened my rigging material directly to the attachment point. However I see so many models now that use tiny turnbuckles or at least a short piece of tubing to replicate one. I am wondering how many go to this extra effort and am I the only one left that has not begun using things like this?

Chris

[lcarroll]

What scale are you working in, Chris? I'm a 1:32 Guy and use them on all my builds. On the other hand I don't think they'd look good in 1:72 or smaller unless perhaps the ultra fine composite vs. metal type.
Cheers,
Lance

[compressor man]

What scale are you working in, Chris?

Oops forgot to write that essential fact, 1/32

[petrov27]

yep, I use turnbuckles for my rigging in 1/32 - I prefer the Gaspatch offerings.

[compressor man]

Where does one typically buy these GasPatch turnbuckles?
Chris

[Des]

I use turnbuckles in most of my builds but I make my own, they are quite easy to make, have a look here if you prefer to spend the extra time and effort to make your own turnbuckles.    http://www.ww1aircraftmodels.com/page8.html

Des.

[RAGIII]

I represent the MINORITY here as I do not use turnbuckles in 1/32nd scale. This is for a variety of reasons but the most important one is that I have found it very difficult to thread the lines through the tubing once, let alone twice like most require. I use structural rigging , ( the holes drilled go through the entire surface), running the lines through the wings and securing each end with super glue. I do occasionally use white glue and paint to simulate a buckle. I think Bo once mentioned that rigging done well, straight and tight, without turnbuckles is better than having buckles at odd angles... that is what my fear is, that to add a little nearly invisible detail, I will muck up the overall look.
RAGIII

[Ernie]

You can't argue with success, Rick.   I honestly never noticed the "lack" of
turnbuckles in any of your builds.  I guess the overall wonderfulness of the
model trumps most everything.  Also, you may be right about the "crooked"
turnbuckles drawing attention.  Whatever you are doing, keep doing it, my friend.

Cheers,
Ernie

[Pgtaylorart]

I'm noticing that for 1/32 scale, the smaller 1/48 scale Gaspatch turnbuckles look more true to scale. I like to see turnbuckles used at this scale, but they should be subtle. It's probably a bit harder, but I tend to err on the side of too small as opposed to oversized.

George

[Ron@redondo]

I have completed two wnw kits so far. I used .010 dia. SST wire on both of them for rigging, turnbuckles were a little white glue. I gave the bought turnbuckles a shot but just couldn't get the 72 year old eyes and fingers to co-operate.
The two kits were Pfalz DIIIA and Albatros DVA. Pfalz was fairly easy but Albatros caused alot of talking to myself. I think slope of top wing made it more difficult. I think I will try fishing line next time gluing to top wing first and drilling thru lower wing.

[Ssasho0]

I'm using turnbuckles on my 1:32 and 1:48 build. Recently using exclusively 1:48 Gaspatch ones as they are the most realisticly looking ones and relatively easy to work with. I have also their 1:32 turnbuckles, but using them only where the original a/c had bigger ones, like for example on the cabane strut of Fokker Eindecker series.
In the past I have used selfmade ones from 0,5mm brass tubing (too time consuming for my very precious modelling time), then Radu Brinzan's PE ones (hard to work with and 2D) and now the Gaspatch bucles. Their only downfall is the price, but with my rate of 2 models per year, I can actually afford it.
Regarding the rigging material itself, in the past I have used monofilament exclusively, but I found out, that sometimes it gets overtightened and can cause "banana disease" to the struts. So now I use it only to add structural strenght where I think it is needed. For example, the upper front lines of Fokker Eindecker in order to keep the right dihedral and to prevent wing sagging. Then I moved to EZ line, but I don't like it as it is too soft and threading it through a tiny hole or tube is very hard, way way harder than the mono, so I actually ened using bigger diameter tubing for EZ line, simply because of that. Another con of it is that it gets damaged from superglue, yes it got glued, but it happens that it got malformed or even melted if you put a bit more. Now I use modelcasten rigging line, which is stretchable, but not as much as EZ line and noticeably sturdier (not sure if that is the right word). Way easier to work with than EZ lien and round, while the EZ line is not round (this is not noticeable when pulled). It also comes in two diameters, which is very usefull as not all the lines in an a/c were the same diameter.

Best regards,
Sasho

[Dal Gavan]

G'day, Chris.

A method I tried involves sandwiching a .20" RB Motion nut between two short lengths of poly tube and then threading mono' through to an eyelet.  It's small enough to look reasonably in scale and isn't too hard to make.  I'm about to try it again on my Pup and Tripe, only using one piece of poly next to the eyelet and knitting-in elastic, to see if it vaguely resembles RFC shaped wire and terminals.

Cheers.

Dal.

   

PS  I hadn't trimmed the end of the mono when I took this photo'.

[ALBATROS1234]

mainly on 1/32 buils but sometimes on 1/48 never on 1/72

[ALBATROS1234]

you can do a hybrid to suggest turnbuckles which i did once. i drilled a hole into the top wing,glue the mono in at this point slipped 2 lengths of .5mm brass tube cut around 3mm. the bottom wing is drill all the way thru and i thread the mono thru the hole pull somewhat taught then apply a dot of ca and pull the glue down into the hole by pulling the line from below. next i positioned the 2 brass tube where buclkles show go and wick extra thin ca into the tube to hold in place. its simpler than actually glueing in the eyelets and threading back and forth thru the tube but looks the same basically.

[compressor man]

Thanks for all of the great advice guys. Albatros1234: your suggestion is exactly what I plan to try with my current build and I ordered some .5mm tubing yesterday for it. One of the reasons that I have not gone the turnbuckle route on my models is that they are so noticeable on one. "That doesnt make sense" you may say. But if you look at a photo of a full size plane you really dont see the turnbuckles jumping out at you. However they are very apparant on a model that has them. They tend to look out of scale to me and a little too noticeable. This is not at all a criticism on those who choose to use them on their models however. Just my opinion.
Chris