Does any 1 no where some wire from tomake some spars -around a bike spoke thickness max?

Almost all LHS's I've been to stock different thicknesses of what is called "Piano wire".

That is what I believe you are looking for.

Some even comes pre-threaded for you if you want that.

I really wish folks would say what they want to say without all the LOL's and the abbreviations and short terms. Not all of us understand all the shorthand lingo, ya know?

CGr.

thanks <font size="2" color="#00265e">opjose</font>  helped me alot as i didnt no what it was called [:-]

METOO

The english teachers that flunked me in high school must be rolling over in their graves now with the assult on the English language from "Texting". I've come to appriciate their concern over the years.

Don

Threaded push rod wire and piano wire are two entirely different things. Piano wire is hardened spring steel wire. It is all but impossible tomake a sharp 90 degree bend without the wire breaking, or heating to a red hot condition. The threaded push rod wire is a different story. It bends much easier. The threads are Rolledthreads so the body diameter of the wire is well below the thread diameter.Piano / Music wire comes in a variety of sizes from a few thousandth up to 1/4" or larger" The push rod wire is usually limited to 2x56 and 4x40 thread sizes or metric sizes of a near value. If you have a piece of wire and you don't know which type it is, and you are willing to damage your wire cutters to find out, just cut it. If the wire cutters still have a clean edge, it is the softer push rod wire. If there is a divot in the edge of the cutters, it is the piano wire.

Don

Somehow I read that OP as if it was plain English.

Or may be I have texted too much on my phone[8D][8D]

Ameyam

Campgems is right about the metallurgy being different. There is a simpler way to test though. Just bend it. Piano wire is spring tempered and can be bent a lot and will straighten right back out. You'll feel it give smooth resistance and you start to bend it then stiffen up as it reaches its maximum bend, after which it will take a permanent set if you keep going. Mild steel wire will give very little resistance and take a set with very little bending.

If you need the wire to do anything but be a place to screw on your clevis then you need the springy piano wire. It is much stiffer and nearly impossible to stretch. That's what makes it useful for piano strings; you can put a ton of tension on it and it will just hold it there without stretching, then it is springy enough to vibrate for decades without breaking.

English is not everyones first language here on RCU. being somewhat of a dim bulb I was able to understand the question, kinda. I bend piano wire all the time without any great problem. I use it once in a while for control rod and a Z-bend isn't that tough, about three times as hard as the soft control rods but I get it done. I do have a big vise with notches filed in it for different size wires. All of my cabane struts and landing gear are bent out of piano wire. There is always a good supply of the stuff in my shop. If heat is added it removes the temper and makes piano wire brittle, I learned that the first time I heated and bent a pair of landing gear. The spar part of the question did throw me for a minute.

Ameyam, I think it is more of a texting thing than plain Engilish in any english speaking country. I've worked with a number of people from India, England, Ireland, Scotland, Asutralia, New Zeland and even areas here in the US. We in the US have many different dilects and they all varry from the countrys Imentioned before. All speak "plain Engilish" but unique to their own areas. I'm from the Mid west of the US, Michigan. We were in Australia, out in the outback and stopped in a pub for lunch. One of the guys that I could just understand stated to my wife that "you must be from the midwest" We don't have an accent, or do we.

However, acents go away when you read the writen language. Texting is notPlain English in any countryor area of a country. At least for those of us over 50.

Don

G'day

I do not like to see "texting" language creeping in to daily use, but I am an old pedant and I guess I have to get used to it. English is not constant but is in a constant state of change.

But, I just wish people would READ what they have written before they post it. Then they might just fix some of the grammar and spelling mistakes which are obvious. The original post was more or less understandable but I have seen some on this site that were completely unintelligible.

It is difficult to ask a question when you don't now what the thing you are asking about is called.

As for The Australian Accent, some friends from the US visited us here in Oz a few years ago. They were from one of the mid western states. We had no problem at all understanding them but we were a complete mystery to them, at least at first. After they had been here for a couple of weeks they were starting to understand Oztralian.

The father of the family was particularly taken by Cricket. I was watching a match on TV. He asked how long the game would take. I said it was a One Day game and would end late at night. He was amazed that a game could last so long. He told me that baseball games were all over in a couple of hours. I pointed out that this was a short game. Real cricket, Test Cricket, lasts up to five days. This totally floored him. He was even more floored when I pointed out that sometimes after a five day game, the result is a draw. This he simply could not understand.

One man's normal is another man's weird.

Mike in Oz

Thanx I now know what OZ is.....I kept thinking Kansas......I went to Perth back in 81 on one of my last flights as a crew chief out of Okinawa......Great place friendly people....Loved it

Good God. So did I ... and I never, ever, text.

Funny, mods in other sections of the forum usually are the ones that will step in and erase all the "off topic" posts and remind everyone to stay on topic. Here in the beginners section they start it by talking about what they had for breakfast or criticizing someone's posting style!

Sorry for being a pain guys.
I am a compleate beginer and i have a sopwith pup prodject that imtrying to do while i find a trainer plane to learn to fly with
Just put some pics in the oringnalpost that i made up the top
Thas what i have to try and make but havent got a clue where to star t[&amp;:]And sorry for the bad pictures.

G'day

I think, from your photos, you are trying to make what are called STRUTS. These are the (usually wooden) pieces which go between the wings of a biplane. Am I right?

If that is the case, you can use any soft wire (bike spoke would probably be OK) that you can bend to the shape you want.

There are two common types of wire found in hobby shops. This has previously been mentioned. They are called piano wire and I call the second type, pushrod wire. Piano wire is very hard and springy. It is hard to bend and tends to spring back to its original shape. It is used for things like undercarriages where strength and spring characteristics are needed. The push rod wire is much softer, easier to bend and does not spring back if you bend it too much. It is often threaded on one end so it can be fitted with a clevis which is the fitting you use to connect to an elevator or rudder or aileron horn (the horn is the (usually) plastic fitting which is on the movable surfaces so that the servo can make them move.)

A SPAR is usually the long structure inside a wing, usually at about the thickest part of the wing, which gives the wing its strength.

To make struts I would use the softer wire as you need to bend the ends so you can connect them to the wings. There are many ways of doing this. One plane I built (Cirrus Moth) used balsa struts which were made with a piece of soft wire sandwiched between two pieces of balsa. The ends of the wire had hooks on them which hooked into little loops which poked out of the top and bottom of the wing.

The struts on the Tiger Moth I have are made of harder wood and do not have any wire fittings but have flat metal fittings which hold them to the top and bottom wing. I could take some photos if you want.

I hope some of this makes some sense to you. I am sure people here will be pleased to help if they can.

Cheers

Mike in Oz

You are not being a pain. You are just fine. You re-worded your post and now it makes more sense as to what you may looking for. It's just that at times, some of us just can't figure out what some folks are looking for when they write here.

But, I think you are looking for wires for the control rods that go from the servo to the control surface, or at least the ends of those rods. Is that correct? The "spar" is in the wing and is what gives it strength. It runs along the entire length of the wing from tip to tip.

Sometimes, those rods are made of wood and have a short length of wire on each end. One end goes to the servo and has an L or a Z bend on the end. That's a bend in the shape of an L or in the shape of a Z. On the other end, is one that has a wire that is threaded and has a "clevis" on the end of that. The clevis connects to one of the holes on the control horn on the control surface (rudder, elevator, aileron) and the rod threads on to that. It is threaded so you can easily make adjustments to the length to set it up properly.

Then again, Mike has another possible solution to your question... struts. Now that I look at the picture a bit better, it could be struts too. But, you have the benefit of both possible solutions.

CGr.

Hi Campgems
As others have already pointed out to you, piano wire is very easy to bend if it is done the right way. I never use heat, since that would soften the wire. The secret is to bend the wire so that the INSIDE BEND RADIUS is no smaller than the wire diameter. Think about this long enough to fully understand it. I bend 5/32" diameter music wire on my shop vice. I always wear leather gloves. On the sharp corner of the vice that I am going to bend the wire over, I grind a groove that has a rounder bottom of about 5/32" radius that the wire will fit into, and thus end up with an INSIDE BEND RADIUS of about 5/32". I have never broken a wire once I started to use the rounded groove on my vice. I also bend the front gear with the 4-5 spring coils in it. I use a special home made tool for this job. Tower Hobbies sells a tool for about $30.00 that is perfect for the front gear.

The photo looked like a cabane strut to me but between my fuzzy eyes and the fuzzy photo I wouldn't swear to it. I hate these lined trifocals. I used 2-56 control rod/wire for N-Struts on an Aeromaster so I could adjust the incidence, I did a nice job of soldering and getting them yo shape and size. They worked great until I would take plane up and really tear up the sky. When I would land there was always a broken wire. I would snap it clean off. Piano wire was better and didn't break but I had to borrow one of the dies to cut the correct threads for the clevises we use. They aren't a normal 2-56.
How i learned about not using heat to bend my LG wires. I scratch built a nice little 40 size Fokker D-VII and bent all my LG wires with heat, what a nice job I did, perfect bends and almost no effort at all. I was so pleased with my work I made up an extra set of gear. On the roll out for my first take off one of the axels snapped off before I got it off the ground?? I installed my extra set, all went well until the landing and both axels broke off and the wheels went ther own way.It was then my advanced instructor mentioned to me that the wire needed to be bent cold and told me the trick obout notching the grooves in my vise for different size wires.

Thanks for all the replys
Piano wire must be the stuff as the other strut wire is hard to bend just noing what size i need to order now!
And have added more photos of the 1 strut on the plane so hopfullyyou can work it out more clearly.</p>

Thanks for all the replys!
Pino wire must be the stuff as the other strut wire is hard to bend just noing what size i need to order now
And have added more photosof the 1 strut on the plane so you can see more clearly.</p>

Yup.. that's a strut, alright.. Now you know. Fabricating this stuff is fairly easy. Two good pairs of pliers, one to hold the wire and one to bend it... and off you go.

CGr.

<font size="2" color="#00265e">CGRetired</font>  Thanks helped me out alot.
Also 1 more thing what engine would you recomend to use as i boguht a os max 10 but think its a bit to big as the exhuast  doesnt fit on with the engine fitted - if you got some good recomendaitions would be great?

G'day

Can you tell us a bit more about the model. Wingspan, weight, what it is covered with, where you got the plan or is it a kit or an ARF. It sounds rather small if an OS 10 is too big. If this is the case then an electric motor is probably a better idea.

I have a small (about half a metre wingspan) Fokker D7 which flies on a small electric motor. They are far easier to get along with than small glow motors. As a kid I learned to hate the OS Pet which is a similar size to the one you are talking about. A small diesel may be OK but there are problems there too. These days, I always use small electric motors (brushless type) for small models. Just switch it on and go.

Small models like I suspect you have can fly quite well but they are not all that good in windy weather as they tend to get tossed around a lot and can be hard to take off from uneven ground. They also tend to fall over on their face on landing. My D7 does all of these things. I flew it last weekend and it took three tries to get it off the ground and on landing it nosed over (as usual).

If you have the budget, larger models which use 40 size glow motors are better as trainers.

Is there an RC club near you? Your best bet is to find one and go there, have a look, introduce yourself and ask some questions.

Cheers

Mike in Oz

You can also buy special "strut" hardwood that is haped into a slight airfoil. It is available in different thicknesses to mimic struts used on many biplanes.

Balsa suppliers should have it in stock.

Often the hardwood is reinforced or backed by a wire strut as in your plane.

Check it out here: [link=https://www.balsausa.com/store/category.php?id_category=31]Click me for Strut wood.[/link]

Note the above is a HTTPS link so you'll have to answer NO to only show secure content....