1/350 Rigging

[Jason d]

Hi, I have been using the Infini Model 110 denier medum lycra rigging on my 1/350 ship models but I find it isn't punchy enough and would like something slightly heavier. I have found it quite hard to figure out what I would need as the Infini stuff says it's 0.12mm thick but I have a feeling they mean 0.012 as I have some stuff that is 0.15mm thick and its huge in comparison. I am hoping someone has suggestions or where to get larger amounts of line (I like that you are getting 45 meters of the infini stuff) in Europe (Ireland) cheers.

[Timmy C]

If you need them stretchy, Modelkasten and Uschii both make rigging lines.

If you don't need them to be stretchy, fly-tying lines have a range of diameters that should be appropriate for 1/350.

[wefalck]

If it's multifilament stranded material, i.e. twisted like rope, its diameter is not very well defined. Its actual diamter depends on how much it was twisted when measured. This is why the thread and fabric industry came up with denier and similar weight and length-based measures.

1 denier is the weight in grams of 9000 metres of the thread in question. As the specific density of different fibre materials is different, for the same denier fibres of different materials will have different diameters. Lycra has a density of 1.21 to 1.35 g/cm^3, Nylon of 1.15 g/cm^3, polyester of 1.3 to 1.4 g/cm^3, and cotton of around 1.55 g/cm^3.

So, if my calculations are correct and assuming that it were a monofilament, a 110 denier Lycra thread should have a diameter of around 0.12 mm, while the diameter of the same 110 denier cotton fibre would have an approximate diameter of only 0.10 mm. In reality the effective thread diameters would be somewhat larger, as the thread is made up of three to four strands with airspace in the 'keeps'.

Established thread brands, such as Alterfil or Gütermann offer threads down to 2.5 tex = 23 den = 0.05 mm diameter.

I made myself an MS Excel spreadsheet for calculating the approximate diameters of various commercially available threads.

[wefalck]

Addendum - also of interest to represent wire-rigging could be these fishing lines: Shimano Kairiki VT PE 0,06mm Steel Gray. Check ebay etc. for sources.