I’ve nearly finished building Airfix’s 1/48 Albion 3-Point Fueller. This was a truck to refuel RAF aircraft during the first two years of World War 2 in 1939-1940. It is best remembered as used on RAF airfields during the Battle of Britain. Airfix only supplies parts that allow the modeler to display the fuel hoses in their closed position. I would like to model one of the hoses hanging down and held by a ground crewman inserting fuel into an aircraft. I cannot use what’s in the box to do this, they are styrene plastic and I can’t change their shape to do what I want. Ideally I need something made of soft, bendable plastic or rubber to achieve my aim. I’ve looked for aftermarket stuff for the Albion 3-Point Fueller but can’t find anything for the fuel hoses. Can anybody recommend something please? I’m sure other modelers have done already what I’m aiming to do. Thank you.
It’s obviously not soft plastic or rubber…but if you can find a suitable diameter, I’ve had good luck using solder for such applications. You can easily shape it to suit, without having it ‘fight back’ trying to return to its original shape.
Gregb makes a good suggestion. Another thing to try:
If you want to edit the subject title, go back to your original post, select the edit button, and the subject line will be there to change. Or, just don’t worry about it.
Your “bowser” is a great subject, I’d love to see what you are doing.
I agree with all of the above suggestions. I also keep some bare copper wire (easy to bend) in several sizes.
Also, for the aircraft itself, I found at Michaels a silver colored thread that works well for the armored fuel lines for detailing the engine itself. I often look down the various craft isles at Michaels looking for ideas for modeling and have often found great materials, including bare wire in very fine gauges. The latter is in the beading isle.
Depends on the required diameter, but fish and tackle shops carry various size spools of soft lead free wire. Example sizes .015″, .020″, .025″, .030″, .035″
Lead wire is available for fly tying purposes. Sizes range from 0.010" - 0.025". It is available an many fly fishing shops or tackle shops that cater to fly fishers. Check BassPro, Cabelas, Orvis, or Walmart (online).
Even if this size range won’t suit your current needs, lead wire is a valuable tool for wiring and brake lines.
If you prefer real rubber, I recently learned that it’s available in a variety of diameters for tying fly fishing flies. The brand I saw at Sportsman’s Warehouse is Washi, and it comes in black and other colors. On display it looks like a wide band, but it separates into rounds. Washi also makes hollow tubing, useful for scale spark plug boots and other fittings, but I didn’t see it at SW. These products, and lead wire spools are all available online from stores that sell fly fishing supplies.
If GM meant to take a piece of insulated wire, slide off the insulation, and use that, I’ll second it, because that’s what came to my mind when I read your post.
Also, you’ll find fine hoses among the supplies sold for automobile modelers, especially from Japanese companies like Tamiya.
As for wire, that fine lead-free wire looks a lot like beading wire, available at arts & craft stores. I have a spool of fine beading wire to use for airplane rigging. Wire solder would work, too. It’s pliable enough to shape, but also holds its shape well.
Try un-waxed, cotton, upholstery thread, it comes in various colors and sizes; and soak in slightly thinned white glue. Then you can form it into the shape or position you need. After drying, it will take paint if necessary. You can make the nozzle from fine, hollow-core solder if you are looking a detail to that level.
For something in a slightly larger scale, Small round shoe lacing works well.
Thanks guys, I’m impressed with the kindness of guys who’ve replied. Thank you so much. You know what? You’ve left me with a problem now: you’ve suggested a number of choices, all of them sounding relevant, that I’m spoilt for choice. Damn, it going to take me some time to check these out. But, no seriously, I’m in a good situation, and I look forward to going after these.
I’d like to put photos up on FSM but the last time I tried, nearly a year ago now, I found it really difficult to do so. So that put me off. I don’t know whether uploading photos to FSM has been made more easy since then? It’s a pity we can’t load them straight from our picture file on our computers. Instead do we still have to go through a photo hosting site like Flikr? I have no problems loading onto Flikr but the problems arose when trying to copy them from Flikr to FSM.
I’ve used Flickr as my main photo-store since Photobucket introduced their new extortionist-seeming business model a few years back.
Apparently there are several ways to post photos from Flickr into forums; and there are undoubtedly some good tutorials all over the place that will probably explain them much more succinctly than I could. While I’ll admit the one linking procedure I found doesn’t exactly seem intuitive…once I figured it out, it’s become second nature and is really pretty simple.
I won’t muck up this thread with the explanation, but if you can’t find a tutorial that does it better, I’ll be happy to go through it with you. Just PM me, and we’ll hash it out.
Down below this Tools, Techniques and Reference Materials is the Group called Forum Help and Testing. In that group is a forum, Forum Technical Assistance. The problems with posting images is a frequent topic there. Look through previous threads on the problem, or post your own query.
Thanks Don. When I get the time I’ll have another go at trying to copy photos from Flikr to FSM. I’m glad to hear that Flikr is still a good site for doing this as that’s where my photos are.
