[WWI] Gluing Gorillas (in the mist)

[Hugh Beyts]

Hi Patrick and fellow riggers, 

I've used 'invisible' thread and super glue for rigging since I
graduated from fishing line and 24 hour epoxy. It works well in both
1:72 and 1:48 scale. 

This method will work with anything that will straighten under a small
amount of tension. It puts the glue exactly where it's required with no
messy excess. The trick is to drill blind holes into one surface
(normally the underside of the upper wing, 0.3" or smaller; I found some
0.2" drills recently but they will probably be more hassle. I haven't
tried 'em yet and latest project has no rigging.

Don't be ambitious by trying to complete the rigging in one loop; it's
not prototypical, not necessary and is making a simple process
unnecessarily complicated. Thread your wire up through the hole in the
lower wing. Dip the end into a tiny pool of superglue or dab on a bit
from the end of a tweezers held piece of fine wire. Insert the rigging
wire into blind hole and leave to dry. Clip two self closing tweezers to
the free end (allow about 3", 8cm extra) and pick the model up by
holding in a manner which minimises any stress on weak joints. If the
glued end doesn't fly out you are ready for stage two: put model down so
tweezers are lying flat on work bench, pull the wire back through into
the wing gap so there is about 1/2", 1cm slack, gently coat wire with
super glue over a range which you estimate will pull through and into
the lower wing. Put down your glue applicator, pick model up as before.
After a few minutes rest tweezers on bench, if the wire remains taught
it's glued, proceed with the corresponding wire on the opposite wing (to
reduce uneven stress) or do both with a second set of tweezers at the
same time.  Trim off loose ends with a sharp (new) blade. Retouch paint
if necessary. 

If two or more wires exit the same hole pull slack on one only and apply
glue to it. Arrange excess lengths and tweezers so that the glued wire
tightens last. Otherwise one wire glues taught as the glue bites before
the others do which is a b----r. I think frictional heating is the
cause.

With a degree of careful building and experience you can rig almost all
wires with one end blind. Wire fed into an enclosed space such as a
fuselage can be fished out with a small fine wire hook inserted through
a suitable panel which can be placed later, or cockpit opening etc.
Rotating the hook a few times normally 'lands' the loose end fairly
quickly.

The beauty of this system is its ease and simplicity, lack of glue, glue
in right place, even tension, no need to fiddle with exact lengths etc.
also immense strength and functionality of rigging. I could go on but
suffice to say for me the pros massively out weigh the cons and I
positively enjoy the whole process. Double flying wires are a doddle and
all those acorns and javelins will end up in line, in the correct place
with no more effort than ensuring the holes are drilled the same
distance from the strut base.  I've read so many reviews/articles where
the writer begins the rigging section using such expressions as
'dreaded', 'best of a bad job' etc etc. Needless to say they are not
using the above method!

Turnbuckles are simply a blob of gel super glue, paint black from the
entry point to blob, use a simple paper gauge to measure all blobs the
same distance along the wire. 

The thread comes in either clear or smoke. Which gives the most
realistic result depends a bit on scale and also the colour scheme of
the model. If it looks wrong a simple thin wash of a suitable colour
will correct matters but be careful of creating a fine mist of spots on
your pristine linen!

Use 'knitting in elastic' for control wires: you can get it nice and
taught without over stressing the rigging horns, but generally it's too
elastic to impart enough strength to airframes.

Occasionaly it proves it's worth on particular areas such as off centre
diamonds which are an absolute precision nightmare with wire or
stretched sprue especially if they are paired and have a javelin between
them. By adapting the above method using k.i.e. you can do them almost
one handed and blind folded and it looks a treat too (when you take the
blindfold off).

Remember: happiness is taught rigging but taught rigging need not be
fraught rigging.

Hugh 

------------------------------

Message: 16
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 19:53:54 -0400
From: "Patrick Cook" <festercook at msn.com>
Subject: Re: [WWI] Gorilla glue?
To: "World War I Modeling Mailing List" <wwi at wwi-models.org>
Message-ID: <BAY106-DAV230B2E7FEA8672B76CD118DE3C0 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi Ernest - thanks for the 411 on the glue.

I use invisible sewing thread and super glue for my rigging.  The thread
is smoke colored, straight as an arrow, durable and thin.  The only down
side is cleaning up the super glue that invariably ends up gathering at
the exit point for the thread.

Once I tried to use a piece of thread to drop a small amount of glue
*into* the rigging hole only (to see if I could avoid getting glue onto
the surface of the model, just into the holes) . . . I tried
unsuccessfully TWENTY TIMES on a practice model.  All attempts left some
amount of glue on the surface of the model to be cleaned up.  And as
usual, the glue does not sand down at the same rate as the surrounding
plastic so you get hills and valleys when you are trying to get flat
areas.  Using super glue makes it very hard to get wings and other
surfaces plained down smooth and flat.

Oh well.