Custom Handrails

Soft drawn and coiled wire is going to drive you nuts.  Hard drawn or even  music wire guitar / piano wants to stay straight . It is hardened , so for tight bends you have to anneal it by heating near red hot and cooling -but only the area that's bent.

You might ( I mean might) be able to harden your soft wire by putting one end in a vice and pulling it with vice grips...unfortunately, this activity will reduce the wire's size.   

J J Davies, thanks for the tips.  Do you by chance have a good source for the solid hard drawn wire?  Would some place like a Ham radio shop maybe have it? 

BAMBAM

You need to buy brass rod...from your local hobby shop! It is straight until you bend it.

Use steel TIG welding rod. 

• It goes all the way down to 1/32. 
• I use 3/32 for railing. 
• It is copper coated so it solders nicely.
• Buy it by the pound
• Any welding store has it or buy online

David and Big Jim, Thanks

I hadn't thought of those. 

David, Do i need to anneal the 3/32 rod like the hard drawn wire at all before bending?

You can get 0.033 and other sizes of straight brass wire from Clover House.  3/32 is pretty large; I tend to use the 0.028" wire.

Not hard to bend using needle nose pliers and/or flat pliers.

MWB, So you are using roughly a 20-22 AWG stiff wire?   I just measured the stanchions and the 3/32 will definitely not work, way to big for them.  I'm using the Des Plaines Hobbies, RS 2/3 Side Railing Stanchions, Part #: OSA920.   I kept the old railings to model after and was just curious if the rail would slide into the new stanchions, yeah, no joy.  HA   So, I have to find some semi hard brass or copper rod 0.025 to 0.028 in order to make it work.  The stanchions in the picture below aren't trimmed up yet, but gives everyone a visual.

BAMBAMMorris posted:

MWB, So you are using roughly a 20-22 AWG stiff wire?   I just measured the stanchions and the 3/32 will definitely not work, way to big for them.  I'm using the Des Plaines Hobbies, RS 2/3 Side Railing Stanchions, Part #: OSA920.   I kept the old railings to model after and was just curious if the rail would slide into the new stanchions, yeah, no joy.  HA   So, I have to find some semi hard brass or copper rod 0.025 to 0.028 in order to make it work.  The stanchions in the picture below aren't trimmed up yet, but gives everyone a visual.

Okay, I use a lot of the 0.0284 brass wire from Clover House - Product No. 249  

That appears to translate to a wire gauge of 21. It's actually a spring brass, but very workable for modeling in O scale!  I use it for end railings and such; some brake "plumbing", too.

Got 3 packs of 10 pieces last week or so.  Order on-line.

If you want phosphorbronze wire - check out Tichy - only issue is that the Tichy wire is a bit shorter than the brass from Clover House.  I think Tichy has 0.025 though which might look better yet. 

Might not be a bad idea to also ream out the stanchions with a drill, too.

I used music wire to make the end railings and coupler cut bars for the MTH Baldwin switcher shown below.  Yes, music wire is very hard; however, I had no difficulties whatsoever forming these shapes using a set of Micro Mark wire-bending pliers.  The music wire comes in several different diameters (or gauges).  I keep a good supply of the various sizes on hand so I can try to match the diameter of whatever prototype I'm attempting to model.

I don't have any particular source .  I did copy part of my notebook regarding wire sizes and grab sizes.

The first column is full size fractional inch, 

The second, what that equals in 1/48 scale in thousandths--I use dashes instead of decimal points.  

Third, fractions 

fourth, nearest wire gauge size.

5- Metric size of that wire gauge

6-that wire gauge in thousandths 

Tichy has phosphor bronze wire in .015, .020, .025. .032 and .040 at least.  You can get them in the standard length (10 inches or so) or in 3-foot lengths.  I use this wire for PRR rooftop antennas.

I cannot make nice models without dial calipers.  Also, I was a cabinetmaker that brought dial calipers into my shops.   That meant teaching guys how to read them , and i developed an easy method to understand measuring in thousandths. 

For  most it would be redundant , but if any of you are having trouble, Personal message me and I will write up what I used to tell my guys--it's a lot easier than most think .  If there is a lot of interest, I will post here . but otherwise PM me ..(I won't tell..) 

Stiff brass wire. 

Similar Turntable deck hand rails. 

Starting out doing wire hand rails , you should also have good cutters of a few different types.  The best cuts are made with sharp cutters,  but only on soft wire - The hard steel music wire will ruin sharp cutters - The little nippers that work great for soft brass , will have chunks broken off the cutting surfaces if cutting hard wire is attempted. 

Take a look at the cutting surfaces --the dull looking obtuse angle ones are for harder materials,  the sharp looking acute angle are for soft.  You may be able to anneal away the hardness in steel wire right at the point of cut.  I always try the furthest back in the cutter's throat when in doubt, so I don't have nicks toward the tip or middle.   Alternatively ,  I have a pair of Starrett hard wire cutters with replaceable blades, but they are very expensive --you might be able to get a pair on Ebay for about a hundred .

On your model. there are many round bends...The round (blades ?) of jewelers pliers are perfect for this sort of thing and come in all sizes--or you could grind a pair of ruined cutters round---we all have them --my last was changing the terminal on a high amp lipo model aircraft battery....What in the world possessed me to grab my good cutters? --they were brand new ---WERE---Pop ! a big spark, a little smoke . and two big notches melted into my new flush cutters !  if somehow, the wires swaged together, it would have lit off on fire--done that...different topic.

These tools would get 90% of the work done.   Blue handle Klein tools were designed to cut small steel bolts, ??? Up to size 10, if you have the arm/hand strength.  Not recommended.   

Additional tools  Click on the link for a slideshow.   The red handled #8 lineman's plier, center of picture, is a Utica tool, Utica New York, that I found above a ceiling 30 or 40 years ago.  Pictured tools, except for the red handled pliers, belong to a young apprentice electrician, that I met, Haiti mission trip.  

Add a few more. 

These tools work well for small wire bending. 

BAMBAMMorris posted:

David and Big Jim, Thanks

I hadn't thought of those. 

David, Do i need to anneal the 3/32 rod like the hard drawn wire at all before bending?

No annealing needed.  It is stiff enough to hold the shape but soft enough to bend with pliers.  It is mild steel with a copper coating.

J J Davies posted:

If there is a lot of interest, I will post here . but otherwise PM me ..(I won't tell..) 

JJ,
There is no address in your profile to PM to. Please send your info to mine.

I use the Tichy Trains product Bob Bartizek mentions above and find it easy to work with. Which size usually depends on the thickness of the railings I’m replacing. 

BamBam, Look in the background. I found this on my Chevelle site. This is a beautiful car by the way.

I also use the bronze wire, and agree with Rich on the different sizes. It’s so easy to use and looks perfect.

I updated my profile to include email.

.025" diameter wire translates to 1.2" diameter prototype dimension.

Wow!  I never figured on this much feedback.  This is great reading all of the different methods and ways of doing this.  I appreciate the feedback and help.  Thank you all!

Wow! You guys do fantastic work!  You have motivated me to start bending wire. Time to open up that MicroMark catalogue and start ordering some tools.