Turnbuckles: different types and where to use them?

[Chris Jephcott]

So, I'm wondering if anyone can help me! Please excuse my naivity and lack of knowledge, but this is an area of modelling that I am incredibly keen to get myself into, and a total departure from anything I've previously done!!

I'm relatively new to the world of WW1 model making and have fallen massively in love with the wingnut wings kits (as we all do!) - but - having spent most of my modelling budget before on WW2 stuff, the WW1 kits are presenting me with a challenge.

It's not the rigging that scares me - I managed to rig a model of the Titanic last year and have a fair degree of confidence that I'll be able to do that aspect of the building, it's the turnbuckles.

I've done a decent bit of research onto this, and there are various schools of thought on them on 1/32 kits - many saying that they aren't needed, but many equally saying that they add a decent amount of realism to the kits. I'm very much of the second school of thought, tht actually I want to add them, and believe that there's a chance that they'll make the kit building itself a lot easier.

So, with this in mind, the two options seem to be the following:

Gaspatch - the do they different turnbuckle types for RAF (flat rigging wire) and others - the downside is that they are more expensive, but the massive plus is that I think they look stunning.

The second type is the Bobs Buckles type - which is probably the option that I'm going to go for, more on a basis of cost than anything else.

Now, I've looked through the Bobs Buckles website, and he's listed 4 different types of Turnbuckle join on the "How to use" page... However, this leads to my main question:

How do you know what type to use and where? Take for example, the wings of the Sopwith Pup. I'm assuming that the lower wing would have a turnbuckle fitted there (assuming eyelet and tube), but what about the top wing? Would there have been a turnbuckle there too? Or just an attachment point (eyelet)?

The same can be asked for control wires?

And if I look at an aircraft, like the Albatross D V, the rigging around the undercarriage only appears to have one turnbuckle and be attached directly to the fuselage? Would there have been an eyelet at the fuselage? Or would it have been attached directly to the fuselage?

Obviously, all this is probably incredibly resolvable through reading and looking at photos, but as a total newbie to this world, this is probably the one part of the entire thing that seems an incredibly large job to get my head around!

Any help is greatly appreciated - and pointers, hints, or anything else too!! Maybe even photos of the rigging and turnbuckles in question!? Anything at all will really greatly help me!!!

Very many thanks,

Chris

Edited June 24, 2015 by Chris Jephcott

[JackG]

There's no simple answer that would cover all aircraft types. The buckles, as I understand, are for adjusting the wire tension. You can, and probably should, have three types of attachment points:

- buckle

- solid (ie. eyelet)

- inserted through a hole into the aircraft (such as the fuselage)

Finding museum photos is your best reference for all of this.

regards,

Jack

[Chris Jephcott]

Jack,

Thank you very much for your response - obviously I wasn't expecting a "one size fits all" - I've been looking at the Wingnuts instructions for too long and reckon that probably confused me even more despite the reference photos!!

It's more a question of where to use them, and where not to? Were there any lines (eg Control cables) that didn't have them? And in the case of the RAF Flat rigging wire, I believe that there was only a turnbuckle at one end? If that's the case, then I'm assuming there was an eyelet or some sort of mechanism attached to the upper wing?

I'm sorry for being such a newbie at this, I can't wait to get started on some of the Wingnuts kits, although I still keep on opening the boxes, looking and then walking away scared in case I don't do them any justice!!!

Chris

[Kuro Nezumi]

And in the case of the RAF Flat rigging wire, I believe that there was only a turnbuckle at one end? If that's the case, then I'm assuming there was an eyelet or some sort of mechanism attached to the upper wing?

RAF Flat wires and their turnbuckles are actually one piece with the turnbuckles at both ends. GasPatch's RAF Late type turnbuckles have their anchor points ready printed onto them.

Hope this helps.

[John Aero]

RAF wires had left and right handed threads at opposite ends. These ends were fitted with fork ended tube nuts of appropriate thread plus a small lock nut. The part threaded ends also had a small square 'flat' to facilitate a spanner to turn the whole wire thus drawing in the ends. The fork end nuts each had a transverse hole to accept the bolt/pin through the fitting lugs/brackets.

Two ended turnbuckles would only be used on stranded steel cable with one turnbuckle per wire. The ends of these wires would have the looped ends spliced around a ferrule eye. some times these wires can be swaged rather than spliced. The turnbuckle is put at the most convenient end (usually the lower or control end). Control cables are stranded wire with one turnbuckle per wire.

British Rafwire threads were usually 1/4 BSF, 4 BA and 2BA. for 'Scout' types with 3/8 ths BSF appearing on larger two seaters.

John

[Folkbox1]

I was surprised to see on the WNW website in their beginners hints and tips not to bother with aftermarket turnbuckles. Just paint the ends of the rigging material in an appropriate colour. The advanced hints and tips also say the same thing but if you do use them be aware of their scale size and that the turnbuckle lines up with the rigging wire. It also says RFC/RAF planes almost never had turnbuckles on their rigging except for control cables

[John Aero]

The RAF wire end fittings on the Vintage Aviator repro's RE.8 appear to me to be slighty bulkier than the RAF originals.

John

[louiex2]

There are several tutorials on-line on how to make your own turnbuckles- here's one from Mike Moore's website http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/608037/22738988/1369163748943/Biplane+rigging+techniques.pdf?token=nfnPeJcbaUtaJgEqFr93HdXXqaw%3DThat may help.

[Viking]

Chris,
For what it's worth I'll contribute my opinion!
I've tried all sorts of ways of doing rigging in all scales and settled on what is for me is the best compromise between 'ease of use' and final result - Maxima Chameleon fishing line and stretched cotton bud 'turnbuckes'. I explained it in my most recent RFI so won't repeat myself here.

I tend towards the view that 'turnbuckles' are not that visible on full size aircraft, and probably should not be on models. However, we all want to make something that looks realistic, even if it is technically out of scale. I plead guilty to this charge!

I'll also get a bit philosophical here. It depends upon your attitude to modelling. Do you;

A. build models for enjoyment.

or

B. build the most accurate model that you possibly can.

I put myself in group (A).

There is nothing wrong with B, I've been there myself. The trouble is that you can end up building nothing, or finishing nothing because of the pursuit of 'accuracy' and driving yourself nuts in the process. I'll only make 1 comment on this - You are not building a historical reference that future generations will be relying on. It's a model to stick on a shelf in your spare room.

So I'd say the best thing to do is get that WNW kit out of the box and build it, with or without turnbuckles, but definitely with some rigging.

Try using invisble mending thread on an Eduard 1/48 ww1 model first if you want, but don't be put off!

Good luck,

John

[rbeach84]

Concise, even-handed statement there , 'Viking' John. I think that is what is called a "reality check" in some circles.

One technique I've seen that is effective for smaller scales (best for 1:72) is applying a drop of PVA to the rigging at the TB locations (similar to depicting insulators on radio wires...) Given that rigging connections are sometimes oil-cloth 'wrapped' to weatherproof, the slight 'bulge' on the rigging can even present an appropriate prototypical appearance. Trick is to have a consistent application.

R/ Robert

[Chris Jephcott]

Thank you so much everybody for your responses! As always, there's a great wealth of experience on here and I really appreciate all the comments.

I have to admit that I only build models for enjoyment and entertainment - I could never be a rivet counter or someone obsessed with getting every single little detail correct on my builds! Although I agree with John, I suspect that what I'm really after is something that adds a bit of realism and a bit of interest - and maybe even makes the task of rigging a little bit easier!!

I'll have a good luck at your RFI build John, I'm interested by the stretched cotton bud technique - mainly because the girlfriend has loads of them sitting around and I should be able to shuffle away a few to do this!

As always, I think it's probably a case of looking at reference photos and making up my own mind on things!

I really can't wait to start building these kits now though... I'll start gently with an Academy Camel or something akin to that, just giving me some practice on it!

All the best,

Chris

Edited June 28, 2015 by Chris Jephcott

[Mark]

Turnbuckles in 1/32? You're mad!! But then what did I do? I only started researching them, and grabbed a set of these:

It sounds like we're on the same road here Chris, your madness is inspirational!

Good to catch up briefly last night, will call again soon.

[Chris Jephcott]

Mark,

Great to speak last night - looking forward to catching up properly and, indeed, Telford this year!! The only trouble with the village we're living in is that it has 3 real ale pubs and one very good curry house! It's a tough job!

Those gaspatch turnbuckles look incredible. And hopefully they won't look out of scale either. Must order a few sets - have you seen the different types that they do?? And how many packs would be needed if you wanted to rig, say, a Felixstowe??

Chris

[Dal]

G'dauy, Chris.

They can look overscale and are too big for some jobs, such as the inter-strut incidence wires. However the 1/48 scale ones are also available and some on http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/prefer those on 1/32 kits. Some of them can look a little rough, due to the way they're printed, but a thin coat of super glue sorts that out.

There's about 30 turnbuckles in each 1/32 set. They're wrong for a Felixstowe, but you'll need a couple of sets, at least, for a Gotha or AEG. Usually you'll only need one per line, which helps.

Cheers.

Dal.

Edited July 8, 2015 by Dal

[Nick Belbin]

I can't add anything but would just like to say, Chris, that the same questions have been running through my mind recently as well - thanks for posting.

Nick

[bigbadbadge]

Hi All

Chris I too am glad you asked,thanks. I have purchased a couple of WNW kits to build and was pondering the Turnbuckle conundrum, I guess I was afraid to ask. Seeing the responses and the info from WNW and the excellent cotton bud tubing from Viking, I feel less apprehensive about rigging (although I have built and rigged 1/72 and 1/48 biplanes), such big models, which is great as one of them is a DH2.

All the best

Chris

Edited July 8, 2015 by bigbadbadge

[Billydick]

I can't add anything but would just like to say, Chris, that the same questions have been running through my mind recently as well - thanks for posting.

Nick

Same with me ....

BillyD

[xffw45343tg]

Remember Bob? Famous for avatars and buckles...

[Chris Jephcott]

I've had a brief play about with an Academy Nieuport 17 over the last couple of days while the good lady has been enjoying cocktails and the Ibiza sun and I'm going to pass on a few comments and things that I've noted, as it was my first attempt at doing rigging.

The build itself was cobbled together with limited paint and just designed to be an exercise in all things WW1 before plunging headlong into my stack of WNW kits and making an utter mess up of everything. So this cheap kit gave me the ideal chance to practice skills and techniques that I haven't done before - eg - wood grain effect (in the future, I'll use Uschi decals for certain - I'm not saying my attempt was futile, but the Uschi wood grain decals look so much better than anything I could do myself!)

So... I used some Bobs Buckles for this experiment, generously donated by someone who I made a large ebay purchase off last year and he gave me his reminder of them.

Things I've noted for future reference:

1/ Use two pairs of sharp tweezers - my 2 pairs of tweezers with not exactly effective at this game. One was too sharp (used too many times) and the other was too blunt - the sharp ones resulted in the loss of many eyelets and tubes. The blunt pair was only good for securing things while trying to thread the fishing line through the brass tube.

2/ Rig the top wing first. This is a personal lesson here - I saw all the tutorials, I thought I'd be able to do it. But... I only put the eyelets into the wing. I should have done the first turnbuckle for each of the wires before attaching the top wing to the airframe. Not doing this resulted in a vast amount of swearing and an eventual storm off into the kitchen to find a supply of Belgian liquid calmer (taken twice daily, just before bed to ensure a good night of sleep).

3/ Regarding the eyelets - use your sources to see how far each eyelet comes out of the wing and try to get it at an approximate angle that the wire will follow. The superglue I used seemed to thicken the stalks of the eyelets, making bending nearly impossible. The result being some very strange looking turnbuckles and rigging!! I think this would be much much more critical if you are using the Gaspatch turnbuckles as I have no idea how flexible the metal used is!

4/ Eyelets again - for attaching the eyelets, I dipped the end into thin CA and then into a pre-drilled hole in each approximate location. In the future, I believe that I would use THICK CA for this. Reasons why? Well mainly because it will create a firmer join, and you're less likely to pull away the eyelet as the rigging is tightened. I did that several times and each time resulted in a word or two of a very blue nature (not that I swear a lot when making models of course!)

5/ This might seem really really obvious, but, before attaching the second end of the rigging line, make sure you have a piece of brass tube on it. Don't ask how I know this!!

6/ When pushing the line back through the brass tube to complete the loop, don't use too much force, but do use a pair of tweezers to hold the sleeve in place and the second pair to guide the line through. It requires coordination, but is a lot better than pushing the sleeve back up!

6/ Tightening the line seems to be quite an easy process - the turnbuckle itself when the brass sleeve is pulled in, tightens it up. I went to a decent tightness of the wires before deciding it was ok. Then I used a drop of thin CA to secure the line and trim off the excess length of fishing wire to complete it.

I hope this helps someone like me a bit. I'll probably end up using a mixture of both Bobs Buckles and Gaspatch turnbuckles when I get around to doing the WNW kits. On balance, I don't think it's anything to be afraid off, it's a bit of a skill but practice will make it good.

All the best,

Chris