"Pin Wire Mast Welding" Topic
6 Posts
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HMS Exeter | 30 Dec 2020 10:09 p.m. PST |
It has long been understood that installing steel or brass wire pins for masts is a simple and durable way to improve the appearance of naval gaming models. Anyone who has ever lifted a GHQ model with white metal masts can attest to the bendy peril therein. What has never been practically possible is attaching cross spars. To this day trying to do durable metal kingpists remains a fantasy. True, you can solder, but this is gloopy, messy and structurally iffy. I just saw an ad for open flame flux core welding. Has anyone ever tried this? Did it work? I've often thought electric welding might work, assuming the pinwire didn't just smoke to nothing. The seeker seeks… |
Thresher01 | 30 Dec 2020 10:38 p.m. PST |
I'd try nylon brush and toothbrush bristles. Superglue should work, and they'll be more robust since they can bend a bit when bumped, but should flex back afterwards. |
d88mm1940 | 31 Dec 2020 11:08 a.m. PST |
My friend uses a really thin 'chicken' wire. He simply cuts out a 'T' and glues it in place. He used to try and solder and gave up upon discovering this new idea. |
Dennis | 31 Dec 2020 4:24 p.m. PST |
So long as you only want one spar on your mast, or if you can find some with the right spacing, what you need is hardware cloth-although sometimes referred to as "chicken wire," the better term to use in a search is hardware cloth. A search for "chicken wire" will often return links to hexagonal poultry netting chicken wire the hexagonal aspect of which makes it unusable as a mast with a spar. Some examples of hardware cloth, and links to hexagonal poultry netting chicken wire toward the top of the page, are found on Amazon here: link Hardware cloth comes in various gauges and spacing between the vertical and horizontal wire and so you can probably find some that will serve your needs. Inasmuch as it is welded at the joins it should be more than strong enough for your purpose, although I have found the welds in smaller sized wire can be somewhat weak or incompletely welded-but the cost for our purpose is so small that a few bad welds don't really matter. Also, you might need to cut off some of the superfluous horizontal cross sections of wire if they are spaced too close for your use and grind the vertical wire smooth where you cut off the extra wire sections-still it provides a very robust alternative to glueing crosspieces. I've also used smaller sizes as railing on 1/600 ironclads as well as for masts. Finally, while hardware cloth is very cheap in small quantities, you generally have to buy a few yards of it from most sellers which drives up the overall cost a bit. If you're in the US I'd be happy to mail you a few samples; you can reach me at dsenfield at aol dot com. |
HMS Exeter | 31 Dec 2020 7:30 p.m. PST |
I shall have to look into this. If it looks promising I won't much mind having to buy a surfeit. |
hindsTMP | 01 Jan 2021 8:47 a.m. PST |
@HMS Exeter True, you can solder, but this is gloopy, messy and structurally iffy. Not a correct statement if you use proper technique. Your description suggests you have adhesion issues, usually due to dirty surfaces and/or incorrect amount of heat. A good solder joint will be essentially invisible after painting and will be strong enough so that soft metals such as brass will bend before the joint breaks, even when using electrical solders. I will hopefully be making some stands for my experimental 1/6000 aircraft project in the near future. As in the image below these will have a very small diameter wire end-soldered to another wire in order to obtain the desired "Y" shape. I will try to post an image of the joint when I do this. Instead of conventional lead/tin electrical solder, I am proposing to use silver/tin solder, which has the additional advantage of not containing lead: hnflux.com/page5.html. It does require special flux, however, unlike normal rosin-core electrical solder.
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