Fabric covered spark plug wires in 1:25th scale

[Impalow]

anyone have any success recreating these in scale?  

I was thinking thread.. but too fuzzy and not clean enough... then I thought about painting some of the small braided material? (protech/rb motion)  

Im going to play around with it... but curious if anyone has has success with this in the past.

[bobthehobbyguy]

Try using beeswax on the thread it should get rid of the fuzzies. 

[gtx6970]

Ive been told a few times to drag the thread of choice over a candle to get rid of the fuzzies and it also helps hold its shape

 

[stitchdup]

Rolling the normal plug wire with the grain under a file (using it to add texture rather than filing, not sure what the correct term is)  and matt coating it might give the effect you want

[STYRENE-SURFER]

You might try braided fly fishing line, just a thought.

[astroracer]

You might try braided fly fishing line, just a thought.

Yup, head to Meijer or gander mountain and check out the fly fishing line.

Mark

[Art Anderson]

I've always used ordinary beading copper wire from Hobby Lobby or Michael's, and simply painted the installed plug leads the appropriate color.  There really wasn't much surface texture to those cloth covered plug leads, as the covering was rather heavily varnished, to prevent oil and gasoline from reaching the natural rubber insulation underneath.

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

Harry Pristovnik (remember him?) did some fine fine fine looking work on this in, I think, 1/12 or 1/16 scale. Try searching his content (and be sure to notice HOW MUCH HE'S CONTRIBUTED OVER THE YEARS).

[Impalow]

Thank you guys!  A bunch of great ideas and info here...  I think I'm going to chicken out and just do black wires... I haven't found anything clean enough, and small enough, yet contrast-y enough to pull this off as nice as I was hoping. 

Harry Pristovnik (remember him?) did some fine fine fine looking work on this in, I think, 1/12 or 1/16 scale. Try searching his content (and be sure to notice HOW MUCH HE'S CONTRIBUTED OVER THE YEARS).

Oh I've looked at all/most of Harry's stuff... and its all amazing.. I didn't find anything this small though.   I wish he was still able to get on here... I know he would get a kick out of my current build, as well as offer some helpful tips.  This car is out of my comfort zone, but right in his wheelhouse.

  

 

[Mike Chernecki]

Why not just take some regular plug wire and dot it with different color sharpies to look like the fabric covered wires. Eg take some yellow wire, then draw some fine lines across it alternating red / black.

[High octane]

Ive been told a few times to drag the thread of choice over a candle to get rid of the fuzzies and it also helps hold its shape

 

We used that method back in the 60's & early 70's, as I still have a couple of builds from back then.

[BigTallDad]

Metallic thread might have the texture you're seeking. Jo Ann Fabric carries it.

[Ace-Garageguy]

At this point, I'm thinking a combination of several suggestions here is going to be the way to go. Thread of the right color and diameter, de-fuzzed with wax or white glue or something else, striped with the Sharpie. 

I'm gonna try it.   

[Impalow]

Perfect!  

I have tried the metallic thread, as well as the white braided beading wire.. I tried dying them..  and it worked okay from a color aspect.. but the texture was pretty large..    Regular old thread looks okay.. but its all one color...   and i havent had a chance to look at or try the fly fishing line..  but that looks promising, but worried I'm not going to be able  to get the .015 size I want.   

To give you guys an idea of the scale cleanliness im looking for...   im using the RB-Motion machined spark plugs...  and instead of boots, im going to use some old detail master photo-etched wheel weights to make the small clips on the ends..   Like this:

cause of all this going on... i'm going just use the nice small boring black wire.

[Art Anderson]

Even in 1/16th scale, the wire would be too small for any fabric "texture" to show, if indeed it ever showed on the real plug leads!   FWiW, those fabric-covered plug leads had a pretty healthy coat of varnish on them, which served as the barrier to stray oil or gasoline which would destroy the natural latex rubber insulation, so no knap or fuzz such as would be the case with using ordinary thread would be at all correct.

Art