Well.... I thought I would try to turn disaster into an opportunity and thought long and hard about whether to try to build a cage aerial array in 700 scale.
Jim kindly sent me a couple of links with examples of how others have done it and both looked really good, but there were no real explanation on the technique used and besides... I had seen this as a bit of a challenge and over the past couple of days came up with all sorts of different jigs and methods... each one even more complicated than the last. In the end I decided to try a fairly simple method, although I was not too sure how it would turn out... but then I thought, if I try and fail, at least I have managed to disprove the theory and it may help me come up with a better idea...
Anyway... Here goes
First, I was pretty sure what I was going to use for the lines... 0.002 mono fishing line. It is reasonably strong (breaks at 10 ounces, with a little bit of stretch before it goes 'ping')... But, what to use for the rings? I spent the day wandering round various shops, particularly jewellers, looking for some small (less than 2mm O/S diameter), light rings. In the end I gave up and drove home thinking about looking for some small plastic ptfe washers from an online component company, when I had a brainwave. One of my other hobbies is carp fishing... and I am pretty serious about it, tie my own rigs and so on, when I thought about rig rings... These are used when making a mechanically complicated hair rig with a sliding hair... they may well do. So, a quick about turn and down to my local carp fishing specialist for a chat and a cup of tea and a look to see what was available. Sure enough... I found some and they looked eminently suitable for what I had in mind.
You get 25 in a packet... (more of which later!!) So, along with my 0.05mm (0.002") mono line I had what I needed.
HMS Tiger, in the beginning of 1915, had a cage aerial array which was made up of four cages, each with eight spacers, either side of the topmast, two per side, front and back... Messing around with my model, measuring bits and pieces with dividers and checking against my drawings I worked out that each cage would be about 2" long, so, with eight spacers, I could put one every 0.25" and get it more or less accurate and in scale. The spacers are 2mm diameter so at 700 scale that equates to around 1.4m across... which is obviously way too big, they were probably about half that, but if the technique worked, they would still look fine and be perfect for 350 scale!!
So, I made up a little jig with the lengths dran in, a guide to the spacig was maked out and I then hammered in two very shiny new brass nails, which proved to be a good idea (more luck than judgement) because later I found I could slide the line up and down the nails quite easily to get everything in position.
Next step was to colour the line with a black permanent market and wind it round one of the nails a couple of times and secure it with superglue to stop it moving. I then moved over to the other nail, would it round again a couple of times, pulled it as tight as I dare and then glued that in place too. That left me with two parrallel lines of 0.002" mono which would form the bottom two lines of the cage...
Then came the (very) tricky part. I picked up a 2mm rig ring and dipped it into a pool of superglue and then placed it on the two lines. This was quite difficult to do as my magnifying lamp is now broken (see earlier post) and I had to manipulate the thing so it was propped up on my desk in the right place... which meant curling my arms around it in order to place the rings properly. With a decent, unbroken, lamp, I think you would find this pretty easy. As it happens, I found that some would go on very quickly and easily and others would 'tack' to the line and then be impossible to move without risking breaking the line...
Eventually (about an hour!) I got all the rig rings in place. Not perfect, but good enough for a practice run.
Next step was to do the the top two lines... I did te same as before, although this time I left the looped line unglued but pulled as tight as I could and slid it down until it touched the top of the rings. Gluing the rings to the line now was considerably easier because they were already in place and fixed. A dab of superglue on each rings where the line touched was all that was needed...
Ok... so I now had four lines of the cage in place and everything was looking good... I was going to leave it there as the examples Jim B had copied me also only used four lines in order to get the effect of the cage, without having to do the whole thing... But, emboldened by the fact that the second pair of lines was pretty easy, and the fact that each pair where central on the rig rings with a big gap between the top and bottom pairs I decided to add the final pair (cages have six lines) on either side. So, using the same method I wound round another pair of lines on my jig and spent a while making sure they were level and central, and, again glued the rings where the lines touched... Again about 15 mins work. (Use fresh superglue though... I used what was already out and it was beginning to get tacky, so I ended up with some lumps... not noticeable at all with the naked eye, but you can see them in the final photo as a sort of roughness to the edges of the rings).
So, looking pretty good, a six line cage array more or less done.
I then tied some of the same line around each end and tightened it like a drawstring to form the ends... and then glued them once fully tightened. Bit scary this bit as they needed some force and I wasnt sure how much stess the fine line could take... but I got away with it
So, there we have it... a cage aerial, almost to scale if you can forgive the rings being too big... But it looks tiny and very, very fine in real life. Next time I will feed a line for the single attachment wire through each end before I pull the drawstring, as I had to tie another line on and spend a while making sure the knot eited the right way so it was reasonably central. But you live and learn. The rings are not perfectly upright, which has irritated me somewhat, but then it strted out as a trial and I ended up with something that is more or less useable.... but anyone with more skill and a better light and eyes could do this pretty easily I think.
Shame they are all not as neat and upright as the one on the left... The one on the right shows signs of the superglue getting tacky and not flowing properly... Laziness on my part, although in my defence this started out as a trial of the method and I wasnt sure it was going to work, or split apart when I tightened them up...
I have another three of these to do and if I can make them a bit neater than this one I will make a fifth one and use the four of them... I need 32 rings in total, 40 if I scrap this one, so I dont have enough to finish the job this evening... I may do one more now and then get some more rings tomorrow and do the other two. Its not that hard, but it IS bloody time consuming and frustrating, but the results are worth it I think. Certainly would work in 350 and be in scale... They look delicate enough to use on my Tiger at 700 scale and just about get away with it... The photo is miles bigger than the actual thing and exaggerates the faults, so I think it would probably do. (I can hear Jim sighing deeply at my cavalier attitude...lol!).
Bill
NOTE: Since posting this I have decided not to use the aerials as described. They were far too big and heavy to look right in 700 scale. The links Jim provided show two modellers who have both produced a much more effective cage aerial in 700 scale... although the method described does work and is apparantly how many modellers produce this type of aerial array in 350 scale. At 700 scale it seems that something 'that gives the impression of' is much, much, more effective than trying to model something of this fineness accurately. Still... I learnt a lot and often trying things for yourself is the only way... 
