Making Hand Rungs in 1/500

[ultron]

Hey gang!

So, I'm planning my 1/500 Yamato kit build out & I've seen a lot of folks adding their own replacement hand rungs on the ship. Does anyone have an already existing formula to make these & if so what wire dia. should I use? Or are there maybe p.e. sets with hand rungs that I've not seen? I kindof have an idea about how to go about making them but I wanted to see if one of you kind gentlemen had already done it & how.

Any help at all or even a point in the right direction would be mondo, hugely, awesomely, enthusiastically, spasmodically appreciated

[Stu Pidasso]

I'd say start here, and get what you need.

[Bellerophon]

Gary, if you're thinking of individual rungs (that is, each rung is anchored in the surface so there are no side rails) then it might look something like this.

This is something well within your capabilities. Drill two columns of precisely spaced through-holes, about a scale 16"-18" apart, at about 12"-16" equal intervals, so like about 1/32" wide and spaced every .025 or .030. Obviously you size the holes to allow for the wire to make the rungs. 30-gauge wire is about .010, which is a scale 5", but that may be fine enough for the scale. Easy to find fine wire in discarded earbuds and such. Really, rungs are about 1" in diameter, but it'll look fine if you don't use .002 wire on account of the scale being small. Except for machinists, who can tell if wire diameter is .010 or .002 at a glance?

Feed the wire into the holes, form the rungs, back them out about .010, and superglue from the other side. Handle with care!!!

[ultron]

Hey Ed! I knew i could count on you to give me the answer I was looking for! Thanks so much! I had thought about the wire & thru-holes but wasn't sure If I should make a jig of sorts to "pre-make" the rungs & put them thru afterwards or if there was a better, simpler method as I've never made them for a kit before. But, your way is far mor simple than what I had planned!

Gary, if you're thinking of individual rungs (that is, each rung is anchored in the surface so there are no side rails) then it might look something like this.

Thats a great pic!

And that

This is something well within your capabilities. Drill two columns of precisely spaced through-holes, about a scale 16"-18" apart, at about 12"-16" equal intervals, so like about 1/32" wide and spaced every .025 or .030. Obviously you size the holes to allow for the wire to make the rungs. 30-gauge wire is about .010, which is a scale 5", but that may be fine enough for the scale. Easy to find fine wire in discarded earbuds and such. Really, rungs are about 1" in diameter, but it'll look fine if you don't use .002 wire on account of the scale being small. Except for machinists, who can tell if wire diameter is .010 or .002 at a glance?

Feed the wire into the holes, form the rungs, back them out about .010, and superglue from the other side. Handle with care!!!

Is exactly what i was looking for!

[SpaceRanger1]

There's also these tools, if you desire to make them in advance:

http://umm-usa.com/onlinestore/product_ ... ts_id=2979

http://www.micromark.com/grab-iron-bend ... ,9768.html

[Bellerophon]

The way I described should let you make very uniform rungs, especially if you make jigs and fixtures (you know that without me telling you, Gary!), but boy, will it be a lot of work! I hope people appreciate it when they see it!

Incidentally, I was just thinking about something similar when you mentioned this. I have a game-scale Klingon ship I scratchbuilt, which has the tubes on the sides of the boom (the ones labeled as "B. R. tubes" in the instructions to the AMT battlecruiser). I added the tubes by pre-bending some fine wire and attaching it with CA. Doing it that way was frustrating to say the least, so I thought up a way to do it better.