On 11/17/2011 12:26 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
I'm building model airplanes. Nearly everyone bends up their landing
gear out of music wire (0.9% carbon, low alloy, hard drawn wire), and
either holds the wheels on with these really ugly collars, or they epoxy
on washers.

The washers won't come off when you want them to, and do come off when
you don't. I'm thinking up a few schemes to do a nicer job, some of
which would go a lot nicer if the steel were drawn a lot more than it
is. I don't want to go using my nice 5-44 die on hard steel, nor do I
want to try drilling .050" holes.

So: how to anneal, and how to just draw the temper a bit more? For
annealing I expect that I can just clamp the thing in my vise (both to
hold and to limit heat travel), get the end as hot as it'll get with a
propane torch, and let it cool. To just draw it, should I do something
like filing a spot shiny, then heating it to blue or purple, then letting
it cool? Or is there a better way to do this by eyeball methods?

Comments appreciated. I know how to make it work with rocks and sticks,
I'd just like pointers on using hammers and screwdrivers for the job...


I have found that filing a flat on the music wire will make it hold the
collars much better. A little blue locktite finishes that job. Most of
my music wiare landing gear has been 1/8" or 5/32" wire. Wheel pants go
a long way to hiding ugly hardware.

BobH