Albion Alloys Connecto Brass Tubing Connectors (C-08)

[Mike]

Connecto Brass Tubing Connectors (C-08)

Albion Alloys

 

 

Modelling has a root in our creative urges, and we’re always looking for new ways to make things better, quicker and easier.  If you’ve ever tinkered with brass tubing, you’ll know that it can be tricky to form shapes from the material with any reproducible regularity in shape or angle, thanks to the vagaries of our human fallibility and judging angles, lengths etc.   Connecto is a new(ish) system from Albion Alloys that makes it almost as easy as making things from Lego or its rival Kinex.  It is a Photo-Etch (PE) sheet with many shapes etched out of it in the form of crosses, stars with different points, plus other angles my brain can’t convert into words right now.  The arms of each piece is suitable to slot snugly inside brass tubing of the same type.  For example, if you want to join Albion's 0.8mm tubing, choose C-08, as it is patterned to fit precisely.  Continuing to use the 0.8mm as the example, the brass is 0.4mm gauge, and the individual arms are 0.55mm wide (approx.) to slide into the 0.6mm internal diameter of the 0.8mm tubing. Clever, eh?  The product is available in sizes 0.4mm to 1.4mm, which gives plenty of range for your mind to come up with uses for the system.

 

 

Albion kindly provided the correct lengths of tubing for our use, which is a good job as I’ve still not found my stash of brass tubing from the workshop refit earlier this year!  This review focuses mainly on the Connecto system, but I’d certainly recommend their tubing, which arrives in a plastic cylinder with flexible cap and sealed bottom that can be used to store your brass safely as well as being good for damage-free shipping.  The sticker has both the outer and inner dimensions, plus the product code (in this case MBT08) to ease re-ordering when you run out.  The video below shows the best way to cut small diameter tubes, courtesy of Albion’s YouTube channel:

 

 

 

The set arrives in a clear foil pack with a carousel display slot in the top, held closed by a sticker at the bottom, and covered with a card that includes simple pictorial instructions, but you can also watch the video on YouTube, as below.  You will of course have to purchase (or have in stock) the correct tubing for the task in hand, and a sharp blade in your scalpel to both cut the tube and remove the Connecto parts from the fret at their thinned attachment point.  Then you need to apply your imagination, cut your tubing carefully by rolling it under the blade, and apply Super Glue (CA) to the parts to lock them in place when you are satisfied with their positioning and length.  When you are creating shapes that require some tweaking to get the last parts in place, it’s best to leave them loose until you are done, then apply a little CA on an old blade, allowing capillary action to draw the CA into the tube, removing the stresses on any existing CA that has begun to cure.  If you cut the brass tube and damage or squash the ends a little, grab a push-pin (I have one that is like a short hat-pin), and push it carefully into the tube end to reopen it.  You can also use a file on any particularly truculent arms, thinning or rounding them off a little.

 

 

 

 

 

From one piece of tube and less than thirty of the Connecto pieces I made up four example pieces of different types, and found them fairly easy to use, with a small hammer useful to tap the arms home in certain circumstances.  The only real warning is to make sure you don’t push too hard and skewer yourself on a tube or arm, but Albion have sensibly places a small warning on each pack because metal can be very sharp.  Having accidentally stabbed myself with a pair of tweezers yesterday in an unrelated incident, I can’t recommend pain.  To finish off an assembly, you can nip off any unwanted arms, and even bend them to create 3D shapes, such as tubular fuselage frames like in the Martin-Baker MB-5 or Tempest, tent frames, and so on.  Their use is quite literally limited by your imagination.

 

WARNING: Do not watch these videos while tired.  They are really relaxing, and the music is too.

 

Conclusion

A scratch-builder’s dream that should be very useful.  You won't be reaching for them every day of your modelling life, but when you need them, you’ll be so glad you know about Connecto.  You should also check out Albion's other products on their site, because they contain so many cool tools and supplies that you might not otherwise know about.

 

Extremely highly recommended.

 

Available in the UK in most good model shops both online and bricks & mortar.

Review sample courtesy of