With this question I'm only concerned with making your own 1/8" and 5/32" music wire landing gear, which I do often. If your not satisfied with it's rigidity at the bends after forming something up, I'm wondering if it is possible to re-harden, temper, or whatever, to get the durability back? If so, what is the process?

  FWIW, I always use a K&S Mighty Wire Bender with these sizes so it's getting the proper radiused type bend. Maybe it's just me, but even only being bent once in a given spot it seems like it loses something by the time you've formed-up and finalized your piece. I have heard before that there can be inconsistencies in the wire to begin with. If so, how can you tell if you've got a "good" chunk to start out with? I'm sure that could help.

I can say that you shouldn't just heat it red and quench it.  It will be extremely hard and brittle.  I tried this once.

At one time I saw a web site that went into the details of re-tempering music wire. All I remember was it was involved enough I decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Google might be able to help or maybe someone else saved a link.

I've been bending allot of landing gear lately from both 1/8 and 5/32. You only really get one shot.. You can tweak it a little after it's bent to adjust the angles but if you really mess up just chalk it up and use another piece of music wire. With a little practice you soon learn how to mark and adjust the mark in your bender so it comes out right.

 I agree with all of that Bob. I usually get very close with the initial bend to where it just needs a slight nudge one way or another to set it exactly where you want it. What I'm talking about is that even if you get that initial bend perfect, it still seems to be weak and bend easily at that point thereafter. My thought is once you do have a satisfactory setting, possibly being able to "lock" it in by re-hardening. Maybe it just is what it is.

 With this question I'm only concerned with making your own 1/8" and 5/32" music wire landing gear, which I do often. If your not satisfied with it's rigidity at the bends after forming something up, I'm wondering if it is possible to re-harden, temper, or whatever, to get the durability back? If so, what is the process?

  FWIW, I always use a K&S Mighty Wire Bender with these sizes so it's getting the proper radiused type bend. Maybe it's just me, but even only being bent once in a given spot it seems like it loses something by the time you've formed-up and finalized your piece. I have heard before that there can be inconsistencies in the wire to begin with. If so, how can you tell if you've got a "good" chunk to start out with? I'm sure that could help.

Hi,
Usually any steel wire after bending work hardens after bending and so should be more rigid than the non bent sections.

So lessen the amount of work that it goes through and lessen the radius of the bends.

But the main problem will be the quality of the wire used, real high carbon hard drawn 'music' wire has no inclusions in it and is VERY consistent in its structure as opposed to normal hard drawn steel wire.

So source out the real music wire from piano dealers and ditch the K&S stuff.

Cheers.
P.S. Try this link for a good explanation of the differences between piano wire and hard drawn steel wire -

http://books.google.com/books?id=7dODrrDI1kEC&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=piano+wire+carbon+steel&source=bl&ots=5KsZnT9Ipu&sig=6FXb3-ubQoISAzdTw64r_qeX8WU&hl=en&ei=pT0JTcL7HIvtrQfxit3VDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAjge#v=onepage&q=piano%20wire%20carbon%20steel&f=false