Small Diameter Tubes

**Willja67** · #1 12-10-2009, 06:04 PM

Okay everyone up till now I haven't designed any really tiny fiddly stuff for my models, they've pretty much been a level or 2 below Halinsky detail wise, but now that is changing somewhat. I'm not quite ready to go nuts yet but with my military Super Corsair rework that I'm doing I am getting into some fiddly little stuff for the wing fold mechanism and i need to know what can actually be built.

So question is what is the smallest diameter tube anyone has seen in a kit that they actually were able to get formed correctly? I realize there will be a wide range of answers given the respective abilities of those who respond but please let me know.

Just so you know what I'm thinking I have some .05" dia tubes (just a little smaller than 1/16") designed for above mentioned wing fold mechanism and if it's not quite up to the Halinsky level of detail it's gonna be close. I've never designed or built this small before so I'd like some feedback from those that have.

Thanks

**shrike** · #2 12-10-2009, 06:19 PM

Part of it will depend on the length as well. If it's less than 1cm, a 1.25mm tube is almost trivial. Your builders will thank you for putting it on bond paper, but even on cardstock that's not too much of a stretch.
If it's a long (3cm or more) tube I'd definitely do it on a sheet to be printed on thinner paper.

**redhorse** · #3 12-10-2009, 07:05 PM

I just finished doing a number of 0.75mm tubes around 2.5 cm long out of card. Kind of a pain, but do-able.

**3Turner** · #4 12-10-2009, 07:18 PM

I tend to muck up small diameter tubes for landing gear....every once in awhile I get them right.

Zathros · #5 12-10-2009, 08:20 PM

I made a set of exhaust tubes for a little Ekranoplan model called ESKA on the "Z" forum. They were exhaust pipes and actually had a radius or about .200". I used enough glues to soften the paper and used a copper Tig welding rod as a mandrel. It was about .060" dia.. When it was semi dry I formed the radius and when hardened, i gently pulled out the rod and ended up with a .400" round little muffler header pipe onto which I mounted the muffler. A coating of crazy glue and little sanding and they looked pretty good. My friends were shocked they were paper tubes.

**Willja67** · #6 12-10-2009, 08:29 PM

One other reason i want to know is for the Ultrabolt I'm working on right now. I guess it worked real good for maintenance purposes but not having a hood over the back of the instrument panel makes it necessary to design and build all those teeny tiny little cylinders that are so unfortunately visible in this airplane. Doubles the difficulty of building the cockpit just right there. I guess your answers have told me that I can go ahead if I want and do it. Truth is I don't really want to do it as it adds a lot of difficulty to the designing aspect as well but I feel compelled to do it since I know that is how it was done on the real plane.

**Stev0** · #7 12-10-2009, 09:56 PM

What about rolling around a thick unyielding wire with a very thin paper so that you can roll it several times around?

**cdavenport** · #8 12-10-2009, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willja67

One other reason i want to know is for the Ultrabolt I'm working on right now. I guess it worked real good for maintenance purposes but not having a hood over the back of the instrument panel makes it necessary to design and build all those teeny tiny little cylinders that are so unfortunately visible in this airplane. Doubles the difficulty of building the cockpit just right there. I guess your answers have told me that I can go ahead if I want and do it. Truth is I don't really want to do it as it adds a lot of difficulty to the designing aspect as well but I feel compelled to do it since I know that is how it was done on the real plane.

By little cylinders, I presume you mean the back end of the flight instruments. In 1/32 scale I can't imagine those would be undoable.

But, here's a thought. Since many of those instruments were of the same diameter, a modeler could roll a longish tube on a mandrel and cut the cylinders to size easily enough.

**Gil** · #9 12-10-2009, 10:58 PM

Suffering attention deficit disorder? Me too. Finally found it here:

Sub 1 mm Paper Tubing

+Gil

**Willja67** · #10 12-10-2009, 11:17 PM

For the past week I've actually managed to stay fairly focused on the Ultrabolt project, course that's been done before by me we'll just see how long before the ADD kicks in.

Near as I can tell from looking at the Halinsky Jug there are 3 different sizes of instruments back there, but yes Major that might not be a bad idea to make several long tubes and slice of chunks.