Don’t know if you guys know of this, but I thought I’d share.
I went with my wife to the craft store tonight and found a great source for tin wire. If you go to the beading section, they have spools of wire from 18 to 34 gauge. They come in different colors but not all colors were avaliable in all sizes.
I haven’t used it yet, but it should work great for wire looms, hoses etc!
I use common old house fuse wire, which you can get from any DIY shop for a few pennies. It’s also useful if a fuse goes in the house [;)]
I picked a few spools of diifrent sized wire at Michael’s … a craft /art supply place. They came silver ad gold coloered. I found the if you roll short lengths beteween 2 sheets of very fine snad paper the have a bit of “tooth” to paint easier
For some reeaalllly fine wire ( as in human hair size ) get an electrical transformer designed for solid-state electronics boards. Break the plastic end-caps off and remove the insulation rap and viola-- a spool of superfine copper wire that will be excellent scale for wiring instrument panels, engine compartments, frame wire looms, etc. To make wire looms, lay lengths of this wire bunched together; put a spot of superglue on it to hold them together. Then decide where each branch circuit leaves the " loom" and bend one of the individual wires out there. When you have all branches done for that “loom”, lightly cover the rest of the piece with super glue. Paint the piece with whatever color you need, then install ; making final adjustments.
Check out for old modules at your nearest service station or garage. Open them up and you can fined a copper coil inside cut tip and you have a good supply for years. Can be used as copper tone or to paint just pass it through a piece of sand paper to remove varnish and clean with a cleaner. To paint just add a drop of paint on a suface and run the wire through.
Sources for fine wire:
Anything electronic, tear apart those old radios, VCR’s, tape recorders. You’d be amazed at what is inside these things for the kitbasher/scratchbuilders.
A word of caution for those ready to dig into TV’s and old computers: Cathode ray tubes contain mercury and a variety of bio-hazardous material.
I got some very nice, fine, silver-colored wire from the pull-chain switch of a ceiling fan. [:)] I’m using it now to rig control wires on my Martin MB-2.
Regards,