Wiring advice

I found some speaker wire around the house and it looks perfect. Thank you for all of the advice everybody. I will be posting progress pics soon hopefully

I have a spool or two of VERY fine wire for tying flies.  If you are looking along that route, ask for "(Round) French Tinsel."  No idea what the gauge is, but it is used for decorative ribbing on trout flies.

If you have speaker wire, if you strip it and unwind it, the separate pieces of wire will probably be good to go.  I would say give a short length a shot before you go spending money.  I use speaker wire for most of my modelling applications.

Groot

I use .020 wire.  Take 3 pieces and twist it until it looks right.  CA it in place.  Good thing about .020 wire is that it's small enough, and bends well enough.  

You might want to try some fine solder as well...it's available in many sizes, and it's maybe more forgiving in some circumstances compared to wire.

Use your eyes!  You'll be able to see what looks right.  Just remember, the wire you attach to the back of an instrument is representing a bundle that could contain anywhere from 2 to 10 wires.  Modern aircraft have canon plugs with dozens if not hundreds of wires in bundles.  Most military aircraft wiring is white in color with the individual wires identified by number printed onto the wire.

Ray

I go by the "that looks about right" based off of pics. It is handy to know the size of the wire if you have to drill holes to run it through bulkheads, ribs etc so you don't have a sloppy hole. Insulation on the wire makes it useful for hoses and pipes plus it may not have to be painted.  I agree with Don S. about gutting electronics--all sorts of wire and bits.

I found Michaels Craft stores to have the thinnest wire I can find. In general in 1:48 you will need the thinnest you can find.  Thread can also be used for interior wiring.  You need something down in the "few mils" range.  That would be probably high thirties wire gauge if I remember right.  The thinnest thread I have found is five mil, available mail order from firms that provide fly fishing supplies (used for making flys).  Thin wire used to be available from a number of electronics supply places but do-it-yourself electronics is a fading hobby and it is getting hard to find- few people wind their own transformers these days.  I have pulled small transformers and coils from junk electronics I have discarded/recycled. I unwind the wire from those to have a supply of fine wire.  I know of a few modelers who use human hair.

Have you got any old computer cables laying around?  They have some real fine insulated and bare wires in them.

" Did that make sense?"

Yea I have a ton of research books on the 262 so that is great advice. That is where I got the ideas for wiring the gun bay and wheel wells. 

I have a ton of speaker wire in my house from the people who owned it before us that I could maybe strip and use, thats a good idea.

Something else you could try, and I hope I can explain this so it makes sense, is study some pics of the actual wiring in the plane if you can find any. Surely, there are some on the internet somewhere. Compare the wiring to some other object in the plane and see how it relates in size. Now try to find some wire that relates proportionally to that same object on the model. Did that make sense?

First, I would look around the house for things such as electrical/speaker wire, or wire from small electronics you can strip and use. Otherwise, go to radio shack and ask for magnet wire. I have sizes around .013, .018, and .025". You can also check online model shops such as sprue Brothers or umm-usa for fine round wire. For brake lines in 1/48, I wanna say I usually use .015" wire, but I'd have to measure to be sure. Using too large a diameter looks far worse than using something alittle on the smaller side.