help me make fairleads!

[codythecatt]

Please!

I needed to whack off a lot of the fairleads (I guess that is what they are called: the things ropes are run through) on my model and need to replace them. Period photographs show them as round ... Revell shows them as rectangular on the model.

As one can see from this photo:



I reveal them here as a general mess. My efforts have not been very sucessful! A couple are okay but the rest look like they have been deposited out of a donkey's backside. As my first try I chopped up a collection of small paperclips since the wire is of the right diameter. Used a nail of the right width as a jig to wrap them around. But the paperclip steel is tooooo 'stiff' and often kinks and then can't be worked with.

(2nd row 4th clip is the best I've done)

I need something more malleable yet can withstand me working with it and then heating to insert it into the plastic.

Any good ideas?

And no ... buying a PE set for $100 is not an option!

I need a 'kitchen drawer' solution

[Russ2146]

Maybe annealing the spring steel paper clips would help. Heating them up really hot, say in a frying pan, and then cooling might soften them up some??

[codythecatt]

russ,

I'm not a metal worker but I'm pretty sure annealling is done to give 'strength' to 'brittle' metal.
I might burn the house down though when my teflon frying pans catch fire ... then the Admiral would keel-haul me!

But the idea has merit! Why not heat the wire to red hot before I wrap it around the nail (my jig)?

Hmmmmmm?


I still need more ideas! Arrrgh mates~!

[Russ2146]

No, its what you do to PE so it will hold the bend or curve you need.. You heat it up and then when you go to roll a curve into a railing around a platform, it will hold the curve.

[wefalck]

Annealing: to draw the temper out of ferrous metals, as it is called. Not sure, where the idea of using a frying pan (let alone a teflon one) comes from, but to make steel soft, you have to heat it to red-hot. For this you need a blow-lamp, torch or a gas-cooker. Let the wire cool down slowly. Afterwards you will also need to clean it from oxides.

Non-ferrous metals, such as brass or copper behave the opposite: if you heat them to a red glow and then let them cool down slowly, they will harden. To soften them, they need to be shocked in cold water.

Not sure, what part you are trying to manufacture, perhaps you can show a picture ? Presumably it is not a load-bearing part, so you can make it from copper-wire, which is much more malleable than steel. Copper-wire is available in a wide variety of diameters. There are drills to match, so you can insert the wire in neatly pre-drilled holes. Heat-sinking the parts into plastic is too imprecise and will trow-up a sort of 'burr' around the hole.

wefalck

[Pieter]

There's a nice tutorial on doing them in styrene at
http://www.h3.dion.ne.jp/~mokei/e-tips- ... leader.htm
Hope this helps.

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hey Cody!

Wefalck has it spot on--I use a lot of copper wire

it is readily available from electrical flex--different cable = different thicknesses of wire to work with

==> no need to buy from shop--spend money on drill bits instead.
Heating up and melting may cause damage to the model--so I would strongly advise against!

An alternative that is readily available (in the UK anyhow) is electrical Fuse wire

what scale are you working in--and what ship...?

HTH

JB

[codythecatt]

Thanks all for your replies.

After looking into this I am going to try finding some other wire material that will be more easily worked. Sooner, or later, I will find something. And I have given up on the idea of melting my vessel. Maybe Santa will bring me a 60 pc wire gauge drill bit set for Christmas!

Jim: it is my 1:144 Fletcher.

[codythecatt]

Got the fairleads done!

I was wandering through the yard when I saw a length of coated solid strand copper wire laying in the grass (new house ... not my fault). Stripped it, cut lengths, and it worked just great. It was a little stiffer than I would have liked but it didn't 'kink' at all.



And they look pretty sharp once some paint gets slapped on them!

Thanks one and all!

[Redwhiteandblue]

codythecatt i like your humour and them fairleads look fine just goes to show ask the question and someone always has a solution or can point you in the right direction on here.