Need help/tips/pointers on threading railings

[Adam Baker]

I'm in need of help & pointers on how to rig the railings on a ship model I'm working on.

Working on a Flagship Models USS Winslow kit. The railings on the kit are done w/ photoetch stanchions which then have to be threaded, and its royally kicking my butt.

So far I've been attempting to thread them with stretched sprue, but thats not going especially well, but its going the best of what I've tried. I've also tried using very thin metal wire, and thin monofilament.

When threading the wire, I have to deal w/ kinks & such in the wire that don't want to straighten out, and it tends to pull on the PE stanchions, causing them to come loose from the hull (the stanchions are all down w/ CA, set into holes drilled in the model). The other issue is that the wire seems to be just at the size of the holes in the stanchions, so there's very little give when threading the wire, and when trying to turn corners, the wire pulls on the stanchions.

Monofilament seems ok, but the problem I'm having with that is that when making sharp corners, I cant get the monofilament to hold a sharp corner.

Like mentioned, the stretched sprue seems to work best, but b/c of its thin size, I'm having issues with it wanting to break.

Below are a couple images of what the stanchions look like on the kit.

[rightwinger26]

Have you tried using invisible threat like we use on rigging? You don't need to worry about having the proper tension or pulling too tight, all you have to do once you have it in place is to light a match and blow it out, the quickly run it under the thread and it will shrink and pull tight with just that little bit of brief heat, but it shouldnt shrink so much as to bend the railings.

[MoFo]

What diameter is your wire? What diameter are your stanchion eyes? What kind of bends are you trying to do? You mention 'turning corners'.

My first thought was to source a finer gauge line. Here's some .2mm (.008") brass rod that I've used recently and liked. They come in roughly 1' lengths, straight, so no worries with kinking. http://www.hlj.com/product/NGA56901/Sup If you can jump up to .3mm, you get more bang for your buck: http://www.hlj.com/product/NGA34924/Sup It's hard to get a sense of scale from your pics, but I suspect one of these two should work for you.

If you need *thinner*, Modelkasten do even finer metal wire. .1mm, .07mm, .06mm, .054mm and .04mm. (.004 down to .0016") Note that the naming is infuriatingly murky - 'Metal Rigging 0.3' is actually .1mm diameter, 'Metal Rigging .06' is .047mm. Because of course it is. http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljlist?SeriesID=2802 Anyway, unroll it carefully (setting it on a spindle will help) and you should be able to avoid kinks.

Both of those should manage straight lengths and hold a bend. You'll probably have to do the railing in a few sections though, rather than one contiguous length from the first stanchion to the last. If the geometry is really complicated (say, a bunch of 90' bends or something), you might want to bend the wire to shape *off* the model, thread on your stanchions then glue them into your locating holes. Might be easier than trying to do it while the stanchions are attached to the deck.

Another option is elastic line. (modelkasten do .2mm and .13mm diameter in the HLJ link above) It will thread easily around complex shapes, but it won't hold a bend.

Ultimately, you may need to use both.

You *can* get bends in nylon line (aka monofilament aka invisible thread, etc), but it's trickier and will take a lot of fiddly tweaking. Stretched sprue tends to be uneven in cross section and brittle. I'd go for the wire or elastic, personally.

[Rich in name only]

Good comments!

Also, in our club a number of folk are using very fine sewing thread with great results.

Recommend not trying to thread through a corner or other large angle.

Over time the stantion will bend if the tension on the "cable" is tight.

Better to end one length and start another.

Note that on a real ship this is what would be done, with turnbukles or other "end assembly".

You can easily duplicate that with something like rod or wire run through the stantion hole and then attach the "cable" to that using super glue, or tied off, or both, or what comes to mind.