A rigging odyssey: looking for a good solution for WWI/I aircraft.

Since the dawn of flight until the jet age, aircraft feature exposed pieces of wire, taught or slack, alone or in a profusion of places, acting as structure, structural reinforcement, or radio antennae, or all 3. Done well it adds accuracy and realism.

(1/48 Halberstadt D.II using EZ Line)

My journey has led me to try a number of different materials, but only one I'll recommend going forward.

Early on, you usually use what the kit provided or recommended. All thread ends up, to my eye, looking both oversized and fuzzy. It doesn't stand up to closer inspection.  As a result of my high school shop classes on electricity and electronics,  I've always had a box of wire and bits lying around. Antennae were wire, so why not use wire? But getting wire to scale would be a challenge. Eureka! Unwind wire from a transformer. Its very thin yet strong and ductile. Pull a few feet off the coil, chuck it in a vise, grab the loose end with a pliers, and give it a tug, it straightens out nicely! Cut to length, secure with the glue of your choice. 

(1/48 Albatros D.V with transformer wire rigging)

Drawbacks: it doesn't take paint well; but the biggest issue is the same ductility that made ot easily straightened also means if you bump it even slightly....it stretches. Permanently.  And you will bump it eventually. 

Fast forward a few years, I find myself preparing to rig a vintage Aurora 1/48 Gotha. Lots and lots of rigging,  flying wires, control cables. I have a roll of fine gauge fishing line.

Perhaps?

By pre drilling strut ends before assembly,  I arrange it so I can use single long pieces of line, "sewn" through strut after strut.

I used ACC cement for all attach points. Glue the loose end down, wait to dry. Run the free end through the next attach point, weigh down the free end with a hemostat, dangled over something to maintain constant tension, glue, let dry, repeat. Tedious, but effective.  Mostly.

Advantages: reasonably scale appearance, great structural strength. You can pick up this large model by the outboard wingtip, no sag!

Drawbacks: takes paint less well than copper wire. And the structure that was tight when I completed becomes seasonally loose in warmer weather.

The search continues. 

A nicely detailed 1/48 Halberstadt kit for a bargain price falls into my hands. Time to try something new...

I got a recommendation for a product called EZ Line, an elastic material available in several colors and diameters. My approach to installing was the same as the Gotha: pre-drill, but in this case, after the initial end was glued down tight,  it could be threaded through all remaining  holes / attach points, put under slight tension, and all attach points glued. 

Advantages: withstands touches, bumps, etc. and springs back, remaining tight and straight. Will take paint, although I recommend acrylics, as solvents can soften it unpredictably.

Drawbacks: provides no structural benefit.

How well does it work on smaller scales?

The subject here is a 1/72 Pfalz D.IIIa, portraying the craft of the fictitious Bruno Stachel of Blue Max fame.

The kit struts were too thin for drilling out, I would need to attach point by point. Also, due to the covering of all surfaces with decal, drilling through and gluing would be impossible to hide.

For a start point, a hole was drilled to create an attach point, but not all the way through. A self-closing tweezers was propped up allowing the EZ Line to just touch the attach point, and glue added by the point of a pin.

Caution: with no tension on the line, ACC can cause the loose end to curl. I started to pre-glue the tip and let dry before attaching to the wing.

We then move from point to point, using the tweezer and tension method one at a time. In cases where the last point was on a flat surface (no strut or fixture), similar to the above, pre glue, dry then using a weight, stretch the line a small amount, but leaving the free end at the attach point. When dry, and the tweezer removed, there should be enough tension to straighten and remain taught.

I recommend EZ Line for all your rigging needs!