All, What Does one use to simulate rope on steam locomotives, you know the section from the bell to the cab of the steam locomotive? Or are there some of us model railroaders that neglect this area. Tom
I don't model steam, but I would think using, say, .008" wire might be the way to go if the rope needs to droop between points. This way you can shape the wire to the desired droopiness...whereas thread seems like it wouldn't work as well.
In N scale, an 0.008" wire would be like a 1-1/4" hawser ringing the bell, and that is before it is thickened with paint. Scale on this item would require a trained spider that connects things on-demand with web material. Sometimes, I think no detail looks better than excessively large detail. At least, that is my story and I am sticking to it.
Just measured the one on my chinny-chin-chin at 0.005", which still comes out to 0.8", which is larger than the rope I use to anchor my 19,000 lb boat. And, my white hair would still need paint. Seriously, the bell cord would need to look substantially smaller than the grab irons to avoid looking strange. The model grabs are somewhat oversized, too, so that sort of buys some leeway in looking for a bell cord. But, whatever you use is likely to be so fragile that it won't look as good broken as it would look not there at all.
30 awg copper wire with an N-Scale diameter of 1.6 inches would be close. 30 awg wire was (is?) commonly used for wire-wrap connections on computer back-plane frames 40+/- years ago. I don't know how easy it would be to find with today's micro-miniaturized printed circuit technology, but worth a shot.
Excellent suggestion. 32 awg = 1.28" N-Scale. I didn't realize that 32 was a commonly available gauge.
Yes, for magnet wire, 32 gauge is VERY common. Plus they are not as fragile as other material in that size where they break if you look at them wrong!
Makes me want to shave my long haired male cat... his hair is super fine and just the right length!!! (Just kidding, Fat Man!!!)
