Bending Heavy Landing Gear Wire
Tools | Main Menu U Bend | Zee Bend Bending Hard Brass Tubing Motor Mount Drill Bushing Kit Tap-N-Drill Guide | Wing Bolt Guide Jim’s Film Trimmer | Easy Hinger
Some steel alloys can be heated red hot quenched in oil and reheated to a much lower temperature. The resulting spring tempered material returns to its original shape after a moderate deflection. Modelers often use wire, heat-treated like this, for landing gear. It sells under the name of music wire or piano wire. We market two wire benders – HWB018 and Hwb532 especially designed for these common sizes. The soft black gear in the photo below came in a kit and needs to be replaced. We’ll show to make the first bend. The completed job is from our book Harry’s Notebook – pages 63 through 65.
	Step 1 Use a fine felt marker to mark the 5/32” replacement wire where the first bend starts.
	Step 2 For 5/32” wire make another mark 5/16” further away from the bend. For 1/8” wire the distance should be 1/4”.
	Step 3 Place the second mark centered on one pin.
	Step 4 Wrap the wire around the other pin. You’ll need to go considerably past the bend angle (90degrees in this case.)
	Step 5 You'll notice the short wire segment remains straight, but the strut portion has developed an unwanted arc.
	Step 6 These photos show s how our bender removes that unwanted arc.
	Step 7 This photo compares the new bend to the original. Ours has a greater radius, which eliminates the fatigue point caused by a sharp bend.
	Step 8 The remaining bends are made the same way.
	Step 9 Our 3/32” wire bender makes great freehand wire forms like the tail wheel strut.
Tools | Main Menu U Bend | Zee Bend Bending Hard Brass Tubing Motor Mount Drill Bushing Kit Tap-N-Drill Guide | Wing Bolt Guide Jim’s Film Trimmer | Easy Hinger