38 gauge wire

What country are you in?

electrontubestore.com/index.php. Canada

That site has some interesting stuff aside from wire!

Take apart old junk radios/tvs, etc.  Unwind coils and transformers, especially IF transformers.  Lots of enameled/bare wire in those.

thanks for your help guy's , sharkbait i'm in austrlia

Used to be able to buy spools of coil wire. Great stuff.

Don Stauffer

Take apart old junk radios/tvs, etc.  Unwind coils and transformers, especially IF transformers.  Lots of enameled/bare wire in those.

GMorrison

Used to be able to buy spools of coil wire. Great stuff.

Am just now thinking of all the electronics hobbyist stores that used to exist in the 1960s and 1970s.................sigh.

In the 2010's! I was just out shopping and thought..."oh I need an LED for a project".

Nearest 'Shack 15 miles away and I live in a huge metro area.

GMorrison

In the 2010's! I was just out shopping and thought..."oh I need an LED for a project".

Nearest 'Shack 15 miles away and I live in a huge metro area.

I tried what you said don ., an old heater ., the cable has 18 strands of copper wire in each cable , I'm sure the gauge is close to what I want , thank's for the tip ,the price was right too. lol

Guess we're lucky, there are 5 Radio Shack's in the Grand Rapids metro area.

There are a number of online electronics supply houses that offer pretty good service.  I use Jameco a lot.  But, the offering of magnet wiring is sparse in most of those. Most radios and such have much fewer coils- digital filters and digital phase lock loops replace analog type filters.  And home building by hams has dropped off a lot- most hams just buy the stuff.  So, not much demand for fine wire.

At one time, it was possible to buy a number of electronics kits ranging from volt meters to colour TVs.

Another possible source: at almost any store that sells CDs you can pick up a pair of "ear buds" for practically nothing. The wires on those things are highly flexible, and if you strip off the insulation you can separate the strands into extremely fine individual wires. (They may in fact be too fine for your purposes.)

Bluejacket (www.bluejacketinc.com) sells some very nice, flexible copper wire that's .005" in diameter. That's only .001" away from 38 gauge.

Sprue-ce Goose, are you talking about the old Heathkit line? They were great fun.

jtilley

Sprue-ce Goose, are you talking about the old Heathkit line? They were great fun.

That's it ! 

Try this place.

www.fusionbeads.com/WIRE

EJ

Good point. I also have gotten some very fine wire from beading section of craft stores. It is expensive on a per foot basis, but then few models take very many feet.  Also, more of a selection of color.  Silver looks like stainless wire for fuel and oil lines, gold/brass is good for older subjects that used a lot of brass tubing.  They also have some colored stock that takes paint very well.

If you clamped one end of that Bluejacket .005 wire in a vise and gave the other end a yank, I'll bet the wire would stretch in length and shrink in diameter by at least .001."

By the way - just how do you intend to use this wire on the model? I'm wondering whether brass wire is really the best thing for the purpose.

Dynaco made really good solid state kits.

GMorrison

Dynaco made really good solid state kits.

Then the politically correct LED light went on................... 

I do remember the popularity of tube based amps in high end equipment. 

I never had the cash for those systems or time to dust 'em  , but specs were supposed to be very good.

I just dis-assembled an old Pentium 4 based desk top and saved anything that might me salvaged for metal.

Next opportunity, I will try stripping the wire out of the old IDE drive cables and see if it can be used for ship models or aircraft wires.

jtilley , on another site a guy called blue ensign did an incredible job on a French 74 ., fully rigged at that scale !!., he used  the wire for the lanyards, between the deadeye's.,also through the stirrup's on the yard's , and anywhere where he thought twine wouldn't be strong enough .

steve5

jtilley , on another site a guy called blue ensign did an incredible job on a French 74 ., fully rigged at that scale !!., he used  the wire for the lanyards, between the deadeye's.,also through the stirrup's on the yard's , and anywhere where he thought twine wouldn't be strong enough .

I have also used wire for stirrups. I can bend it to the shape I want- that is hard to do with thread.  In fact, any loose line with no tension is a candidate for wire, to me.  I use it on model cars for electrical wire- even in 1:24 some needs to be very fine.  For planes, in addition to wiring, fine wire works for tubing in smaller scales. I have a fine silver wire from a craft store that is good for stainless steel tubing for smaller aircraft scales, around landing gear and wheel well.

I'm afraid my favorite wire source won't do anybody else any good. About 35 years ago a friend gave me a spool of nickel-chromium wire that he'd picked up at a military surplus store. I have no idea what it was used for originally, but it's about .002" in diameter. It has a really nice texture - stiff enough to "sag" realistically, but soft enough to be tied in a clove hitch.

I used that stuff for the ratlines, and a few of the smallest standing rigging lines, on my model of the frigate Hancock lo those many years ago. ( http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/155391.aspx?sort=ASC&pi240=1 ) The footropes and stirrups of that model are fine brass wire, soldered.

That spool of wire has plenty left on it 35 years later (I have no idea how much), but I have no idea where a person could buy more.

Donald McNarry, the famous and incredibly prolific British ship modeler, made all his rigging of wire. The largest scale in which he normally worked was 1/16" = 1' (i.e., 1/192); many of his models are on 1/32" = 1'  and 1/64"=1'. Here's a link: http://www.donaldmcnarryshipmodels.com .

Whenever I look at a McNarry model I feel like giving up. Among other attributes, the man must have had amazing closeup vision.

Steve5, could you post a link to that article about the Superbe? I'm sure lots of us would like to see it.

are you a member of the victory ,  web site ,  if so , look for Maurice's French 74., it is a work of art., other than that I'm not sure how to go about it

that last post was meant for jtilley ., sorry about that

In addition to the electronics kits mentioned, there was Eico, Knight kit, and I believe Realistic (Tandy/Radio Shack) had a few kits also.

Don Stauffer

In addition to the electronics kits mentioned, there was Eico, Knight kit, and I believe Realistic (Tandy/Radio Shack) had a few kits also.

Knight kit I recall....................sold by Allied Electronics