The trick on wire is to use only straight stuff - I now get mine from Clover House as the Detail Associates is so hard to find.
Only use pieces from the boom to the crane body, don't get fancy and try to continuously wrap-string it. I did 'hooks' to half-wrap around a pulley and back to the crane body. Start from the inside (the hoist line) and work out. After you get the first line secured on with ACC, put a weight on it to hold it down tight and do the rest of the lines one piece at a time working out.
I bent two of the boom lines in a sharp "U" shape on the outside of the boom pulleys and drilled the body pulley assembly #80 so that one side of the line just slid in, the 'U" fit on the pulley, and the other side just laid on the spool with a mild hook on it. ACC'd that in place. So all my lines were probably 5 individual pieces of wire, plus another for the hook down from the boom. I wrapped the spool with brown thread to look a little better before I glued the wire to it.
I did thread on an old Stewart crane, never looked quite right. Did the wire trick on a Railway Express Burro crane and it went great, this is only the second one I've tried this way.
They are painted Floquil roof brown.
