Armor tow cables made with bicycle brake cable wire.

Nothing new or cosmic here, I'm sure, but I've progressed from kit supplied plastic tow cables, to twisted lamp cord replacement cables, to a current technique of taking bicycle cable wire for the tow cable and electrical wire insulation for the eyelet connector.

Here is a pair for a 1/35 Leo 2A5:


And some for a 1/35 M-1:


Bicycle cables have more twists per inch and are thicker than picture hanging wire and therefore look more the part. (IMHO anyway)

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Keith

Hi Keith

Me too I've tried to use steel cables to reproduce tow cables. They looked as convincing as yours. After all a tank tow cable is nothing but a larger bicycle brake cable wire. The only huge problem which I had was that it was incredibly hard to bend them. I couldn't adapt their shapes to my models because they were too stiff indeed.

How do you solve this problem?

Personally I've found in a hardware store copper wires which are a far easier to use than steel ones, even though you need to paint them

Thanks for sharing

Cheers

That is a great technique, and lord knows I have about a mile of old bike cable sitting out in my garage. Thanks for sharing

Mauro,
They are difficult to bend. I bent the Leo's by grasping each side of the bend with two small pliers after marking the position where the bend was to go. I haven't tried anealing the cable yet. That is, softening the metal with a flame. It may work and could even darken the color a bit.

Andrew,
Yeah, I have a bunch of bicycle cable too. A good thing about it is that it doesn't unravel very easily. And if it does the misbehaving strands usually pop back in place readily.

Keith