Howdy all. Anyone out there use hypodermic needles for barrels? I’ve seen it mentioned before but am unclear to what size they would be. I live in a rural area and a farm store carries a bunch for farm animal use. There are a bunch of gauges and am curious as to what gauge would serve what purpose. Maybe there’s a med head out there who could help. Thanks in advance.
I wanted to make a very smart answer, to tell you that The Small Shop EU ( for European Union, I think ) the site where you can find a line of PE benders ( no endorsement, my PE bender comes from a Norwegian company called Brynilsrud and sons ) so, the Small Shop EU had a line of tubes and a table to help chose the “caliber” of tubes according to real caliber and scale but their table gives the inner diameter not the outer one; I can do it myself with a pocket calculator but does someone in this honorable assembly knows what the outer diameters should be ?
Any answer highly welcome
Depends on the scale you are using and the type of use for it. I mostly do 1/48 scale A/C. So most of the time a 20 or 22 gauge needle will do fine. I also do 1/35 scale also and have used 19,18, and 16 gauge but these are rarity.
Being a “med head” your word not mine. I have easy access to al of them…
Best advice I can give you is. Get a bunch of different size gauges. Then if you want to substitute hold the original piece up to the needle to get a good guess on the size.
If this works the nose gun on this Cobra was made from both 20 and 22 gauge needles…
Hi,
I use hypodermic needles quite often for gun barrels. I get a batch of needles of various sizes (for humans!) at my local pharmacy shop. Concerning size I just choose the one wich looks right to me. Needles are pretty hard to cut, so I use a cutting disk in
a Dremel like motor tool. Be sure to wear eye protection as these things may fly
away!
HTH,
Christian
To figure out the size of tubing that you need? Divide the caliber by the scale you are using in inches i.e., .50 divided by 35 = .0142. This would be the INSIDE diameter of a 50 caliber machine gun barrel in 1/35 scale.
If you are wanting to do it in millimeters? You will have to convert to inches.
Go to this site and look for the closest inside diameter hypodermic tubing and you’ve got what you need.
http://www.smallparts.com/components/
I hope this ain’t too confusing. [%-)]
Thanks for all the help here!!! Med-head is meant to be a good term,I’ve got a buddy who’s a medic and he got me using it. I think I’ll just get a bunch of different ones and check it out. The package that they’re in ya can’t see the size so I’ll just get a bunch. Thanks again!!
When I was recently put on insulin this year, I thought, “Cool! Now I’ll have some needles to use for gun barrells like I’ve been reading about!” I soon found out that the current diabetic size needles are way too small for this use
But, I know a vet, so I asked him if he had a few extra needles in various sizes he could give me. He gave me one of his Sharps containers full of used needles. Kind of gross, but after several soakings in Hydrogen Peroxide, alchohol etc., most of the blood and stuff came off, and I now have an assortment of needles good for everything from .30 caliber in 1/72, to cannon barrels in 1/32. (I’d hate to be the horse that got a shot using those!)
A someone else mentioned, use a Dremel type tool with a cutting disc to cut them into sections. I found that stickng them down to a piece of masking tape before cutting them helps to prevent the fly away pieces. I also use a light touch of a grinding/polishing stone after cutting to get rid of the burrs and rough edges.
I don’t know what “guage” or size they are - I just sort thru them until I find the one that looks about right for the size I need.
i tried to go to the local CVS pharmacy here today and asked for Syringes and they looked at me like i had two heads,they said things like that come from doctors and are not sold on the shelf to the consumer
There is a post in this very forum posted about 2-3 months ago that lists a complete breakdown of needle size and gauge for every caliber MG and in each of the top 3 scales (35, 48, 72). Just go back a few pages, I can’t remember the title of the post but you’ll know it when you see it.