Music Wire or Coat Hanger Wire? Real MW is HARD to find?

[Rudy Taube]

I am almost embarrassed to ask such a boring question, after all the fun we are having with Shultzie's "Altered States" ideas. 

I have heard a few disparaging words about the wimpy Music Wire that is available here in the USA. Now I know why guys are complaining. The last time I used MW was decades ago. Then it was very stiff, and strong. Now the MW I just bought at the LHS is weaker and softer than the hangers in my closet!

Is there any place we can get strong MW? If Brodack can get pretty good stuff in their ARFs, I would think that we should be able to find some somewhere? Does anyone have a source?

I have read that some people are just going up in size to make up for the soft MW available. Is this the only solution? ....... TIA for your answers.

[Keith Spriggs]

I looked on the McMaster Carr site and they have all kinds including 3 foot lengths 1/16 and up. They are an industrial supplier and everything I have bought from the is first quality. 10 pcs of wire appears to be the min. in the smaller sizes and 5 min in the larger sizes. I copied the page and I will try to include it, but I don't know if it will work or not. Well it worked somewhat. Better to go to their catalog and look at it . Do a Google search and when you get to their home  page do a search for "music". Everything I have bought has been two day delivery and if you order on line they will tell you if it is in stock and when it will ship.

Music Wire > Wire FormView catalog page
Compare products (9) Steel
9 products match your selections
Material Spring-Temper Carbon Steel
Finish/Coating Oil-Coated
Shape Wire
Length 3'
Tolerance Standard
Wire Shape Cut Lengths
Wire Form 3' Cut Lengths
Specifications Met American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)
ASTM Specification ASTM A229
MIL Specification MIL-W-21425B Type 1

Diameter
1/16" | .092" | .105" | .12" | 1/8" | .148" | .162" | .177" | .187" 
 
Gauge
4.5 AWG | 5 AWG | 6 AWG | 7 AWG | 8 AWG | 9 AWG | 10 AWG | 11 AWG | 14 AWG 
 

These 9 products match your selections
Diameter  Gauge     
1/16" 14 AWG 9667K51 $12.50 per Pack of 10
 
.092" 11 AWG 9667K52 12.50 per Pack of 10
 
.105" 10 AWG 9667K53 12.50 per Pack of 10
 
.12" 9 AWG 9667K54 12.86 per Pack of 5
 
1/8" 8 AWG 9667K55 12.86 per Pack of 5
 
.148" 7 AWG 9667K56 12.86 per Pack of 5
 
.162" 6 AWG 9667K57 12.86 per Pack of 5
 
.177" 5 AWG 9667K58 12.86 per Pack of 5
 
.187" 4.5 AWG 9667K59 12.86 per Pack of 5
 

[Paul Taylor]

Man those prices seem a little high. I just picked some 1/8 up at the LHS (should be Local Craft Shop) for .99 per 3ft section.

[James Lee]

Yes, that price seems a bit high...  But if it is good quality it will be worth it, compared to the LHS wire that looks like it was made on an anvil....
MY opinion, FWIW
Jim

[Clancy Arnold]

How to test for "Music Wire".
Cut it with a pair of diagonal cutters.
If you cut the wire it is not "Music Wire" and would qualify for "Coat Hangar Wire".
If you just ruined a good pair of diagonal cutters, it IS "Music Wire".
Clancy

[Bill Gruby]

OK here is my 2 cents.     When I needed music wire I went to the local machine tool outlet.  This produced the best wire I have seen since the LHS closed a few years back.   Just look in the yellow pages under Machine Tool Supply or something similar. I got 1/8 X 3ft. for 0.79 cents.

"Billy G"   

[Paul Taylor]

I wonder if you could find music wire at a music shop. The place were you would find a Baby Grand.

[Rudy Taube]

Man those prices seem a little high. I just picked some 1/8 up at the LHS (should be Local Craft Shop) for .99 per 3ft section.

Hi Paul,

At the risk of sounding trite, the old sayings; "You get what you pay for", and "Penny wise, pound foolish" come to mind. We spend $300 to $1,000+, and countless hours of work on our CL planes. Building the landing gear out of soft, weak, inferior metal just to save $1.57 seems, as Spock would say, "Illogical". ;-)

Keith has done us a favor (Thanks Keith! :-) by giving us a good source for "Quality" material that will do the important job of helping to insulate our planes from the harsh effects of gravity after our motor/engine stops.

I'm sorry if I read too much into your brief, and I'm sure innocent, comment. But your post touched on an important point for our hobby, and maybe more? .... but that is for another forum, NOT Robert's excellent CL forum. :-)

Happy Landings.   

[Paul Taylor]

Hey Rudy,
No offense taken.
But if I was spending $1000 on a C/L plane I would not skimp on cheap wire. Might even go with carbon fiber if the setup allowed it.

The question was about using a coat hanger, or if we still get real music wire at LHS's. I think for sport flying what we get at the LHS will do just fine.


If someone was going to use a coat hanger, I would suggest they re-think it. I was going to try the same thing with a heavy coat hanger just a few weeks ago. It is too soft.

[Alan Hahn]

Maybe I have been lucky, but the music wire I have bought (usually K&S) seems pretty hard to me. Hard to bend and hard to cut--need to use my Dremel cutoff blade. Now haven't bought any in last year or so, so it is possible that it has gone down the tube.

[Wayne Collier]

The music wire I bought at a hobby shop back in November was about the hardest toughest stiffest  I've had for its size.  Only 1/16th but my diagonal wire cutters could barely dent it.  Been using a cutoff wheel on a die grinder to cut it.  Never thought to check the brand name.  Maybe I should stock up on the stuff.

[Warren Leadbeatter]

Has anyone tried bicycle spokes?  They are nice and strong and already have a bend and stopper one end.  Easy to get from an old wheel or new from a bike shop.

Cheers

[Robert W]

The bicycle spokes I have messed with tend to bend pretty easy and are not very hard to cut with diagonal cutters. They are good in tension but under conpresion they do not do so well.

[john e. holliday]

Here I am again promoting my local ACE Hardware Store again.  I now get all of my wire, copper and brass tubing from them.  Yes it is K&S Brand.  DOC Holliday

[minnesotamodeler]

A little off subject, but I've been using actual coat hanger wire for my flap or elevator joiners.  Plenty strong and stiff enough for the purpose, yet easier to tweak if you need to change alignment. Note this is in ref. to 1/2As, albeit large ones (sort of 3/4A? Small A?)

--Ray

[Louis Rankin]

K&S, good wire at a good price at: http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/WTI0095P?FVSEARCH=music+wire&FVPROFIL=++

[Rudy Taube]

Hey Rudy,
No offense taken.
But if I was spending $1000 on a C/L plane I would not skimp on cheap wire. Might even go with carbon fiber if the setup allowed it.

The question was about using a coat hanger, or if we still get real music wire at LHS's. I think for sport flying what we get at the LHS will do just fine.


If someone was going to use a coat hanger, I would suggest they re-think it. I was going to try the same thing with a heavy coat hanger just a few weeks ago. It is too soft.

Hi Paul,

Good points. I agree, for smaller lighter weight planes the LHS  K&S MW is adequate for their LG.

I was trying to find a source for higher quality MW (like we had in "the good old days" ;-) to support larger, heavier planes in the 56-58 oz TOW range that have to fly off of rough grass fields with wing mounted LG. The fact that McMaster calls out the actual metal "specs" helps a lot in evaluating their MW strength and stiffness. This is exactly what I was looking for to fit my needs.

Regards

[L0U CRANE]

Rudy, and all others in this one...

If there is a welding shop nearby, consider copper-clad welding rod. It IS soft iron, NOT hardened steel, but is plenty stiff enough for pushrods for up to .35-.40 models. For larger engines, some other approach -arrow shafts of fibreglas or even aluminum, tipped with adapters to fit control horns- makes sense.

Good dikes can cut this stuff. It is "tweakable." You can buy a pound for under $5.

The softer, unhardened, stuff can be bent tighter without stress fracture. ...and easier.

As with building a model, you can use MORE of a "weaker" material, that is lighter (such as balsa v ply or hardwood), for the same strength. Weight doesn't change much, here, but you can use 3/32 instead of 1/16 for the same effect. Stiffness is helped more by 'fairleads' than material strength, anyway...