A Modding Idea

[Frank STENGEL]

Sorry if this has already been covered. As I was toying with my du Bousquet locomotive, I discovered I wanted/needed a lot of 3mm rigid hose and/or bar and that I was going to mod it by bending and stretching it... Seeing the price and rarity of these parts, I started looking for an alternative.

While poking around my tool collection I had an idea: rigid electric cable. As it turns 2,5mm² (including sheath) cable has just the right diametre (my callipers say 3,1mm) can be bent, comes in lovely colours (if one is colour blind that is) and is dirt cheap (around 0,005 €/stud)!

[legoboy3998]

I was just thinking about that earlier today. I use the "light sword" shafts for the railings om my locomotives, which works because my railings are all straight. However I have used the electrical wire to make a pair of mini hockey goals for my christmas display, worked well for that, so I would imagine it would work well for railings on locomotives also. You may be able to find slightly different shades of color by different manufacturers. You may look at large cables with many individual wires inside might offer a wide range of diffent colors.

Sal

WFB, WI

Edited April 21, 2012 by TheBrickster
Quote of entire topic removed

[Dan-147]

I feel the same. I couldn't bring myself to buy expensive 3mm rigid tubing, stuff it with a piece of wire, cut it up and bend it to the proper shape for my diesel-electric locomotives. Since I was making it non-purist by putting a wire in it anyways, I figured I might as well take a tubing that came that came with the wire already in it (electrical wiring). Here in North America, 14 AWG solid copper wiring is the best match. Black, red and white are readily available. Blue , green and yellow can be found but are less common.

I cut it over-length, bend it to the desired shape before cutting it slightly longer with wire-cutting plyers. I use a file to bring it to its final length because it doesn't squeeze the end and I get a nice, round square-cut end. For black wiring, I usually touch up the end with a black permanent marker to hide the copper shine.

When I get a chance, I'll post a picture of my loco.

Dan-147

[spzero]

the tubes for radio controled receivers are the right size tho hollow, flexible and very cheep about £1.00 each and come in loads of colours clip into lego holders perfectly

heres an example obv can be picked up form any good model shop and at about 30cm length very useful