Firecracker antennas

[Philip H]

"The Railwire - where wire size matters."

[atsf3751]

Since I am retired from the telephone industry I have a lot of phone wire around the house. The multi colored wire (white/blue, blue/white for example) is 24AWG. You can find 22AWG and 26AWG but 24 is the most common. Plus it is solid and not stranded.

What I do is cut a small piece and cut off some insulation and glue it in. A little paint and you will never know where it came from.

[nkalanaga]

Another thing the insulation is good for is insulators for DC overhead wire systems.  The MILW used a lot of relatively small insulators, in guy wires, span wires, etc, and a short piece of "phone wire" insulation threaded on the wire makes a good insulator.  It won't actually insulate anything, of course, but it looks good.

AC systems tended to use higher voltages, and usually used the larger ribbed insulators.  You're on your own for those!

[Showme]

And, while on the subject of uses for solid insulated wire, I have used  the smaller gauges for replacement mufflers and pipes for trucks. Strip a little insulation off both ends, paint it silver, bend to fit, glue on. Works real well for the Con-Cor trucks that usually have the top pipe section broken off and missing.

Bob

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Well, here's what I ended up doing. I had some of the regular telephone wire (the flexible stuff), and as Pete said I would, I discovered the stranded wire inside.

I didn't let that slow me down though. I just used some ACC to solidify it a bit.

Here's how it turned out. It's not perfect, but it'll do for me.

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[nkalanaga]

Ed:  If you used matte medium instead of ACC, I wonder if it would be "rubbery" enough to bend, then spring back, if bumped?  I've never tried to use the flexible phone wire for anything...

Bob:  Never thought of insulated wire for mufflers and exhaust pipes, but it sounds good.  For the CC/Herpa trucks, I usually make my replacements from 1/16 inch aluminum tubing, with a piece of nickel plated paper clip for the stack.  No painting needed, and it will never bend.  I have a lifetime supply of paper clips from my last job.  If the muffler portion isn't broken, I'll drill a hole in the top, and use just the paper clip.

Copper wire would be easier to shape, though, especially for more complicated exhaust systems.

[atsf3751]

Flexible (stranded) phone wire is what you find in mounting cords and handset cords. The wire run in the wall and to terminals is not stranded.

[Lemosteam]

@Ed Kapuscinski , instead of glue you could hit the wire with a tiny bit of flux and solder,  this would solidify the multi-strand wire and keep it bendable at the same time.

[Missaberoad]

Looks good Ed! Begging to be tied on to a string of open autoracks! 

[coosvalley]

Did you, or are you going to, blank out the center windows like you did on your NW-2?..If you don't want to plate over them, then maybe just paint them black, since they're sorta hidden by the box you added anyway...

[nkalanaga]

Some of the "stranded" wire I've found in handsets actually had threads, like sewing thread, in the strands.  That stuff is virtually useless for anything, as it can't be easily spliced, much less soldered.  Soaking it in ACC might make it usable for an antenna, though, and it would certainly be tough to break.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Did you, or are you going to, blank out the center windows like you did on your NW-2?..If you don't want to plate over them, then maybe just paint them black, since they're sorta hidden by the box you added anyway...

I couldn't tell if the fireman's side window was blanked out, so I left it. I did paint over the remaining engineer's side one though.

Here's another pic.

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[sirenwerks]

The silver window trim on the RS1 really pops out at me. Not sure of either prototype, but it seems you either need to do the same to the S2 or tone down the RS1's trim.

[coosvalley]

Haha, don't highlight the frames on the S2, because then you can see the weird window issue!..It's harder to notice on dark painted S2's. Also, your prototype S2 does not seem to have any silver window frame anyway!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

The silver window trim on the RS1 really pops out at me. Not sure of either prototype, but it seems you either need to do the same to the S2 or tone down the RS1's trim.

Yeah, but that's how they were.