crosshair replacement wire

[flounderman]

friend of mine asked me if I knew where he could get some wire for a crosshair. the finest electrical wire is .003 and too thick. I'm sure someone on here knows what to use and where to get it.

[MtGun44]

I thought they used to use spider web. Not a clue on wire.

Bill

[waksupi]

Some friends of mine went through this a few years back. The only thing they could find that was thin enough was a cat hair. Anything else looked huge.

[gzig5]

I redid a Weaver Model 440 and used some really thin tungsten wire I was given. This wire isn't thin enough and the cross hairs look pretty thick. I've heard of using spider web, but don't know how. Now where did that fat cat go???

[lavenatti]

Try copper. You can take some thin copper wire and pull it until it's really thin. It is very ductile (stretches without breaking).

[calaloo]

Use dental floss. Carefully separate it down to a single strand. You will probably have to wear a magnifying visor. The resulting crosshair will be about "medium".

If you will visit the ASSRA forum and do a search you will find a fellow who will sell you the proper tungstun wire.

[smokemjoe]

I see the old record players, I just repaired has very fine wire in the arm and had to use super glue to hold it together, Still the best is nylon women sock. Pull tight and wrap the screw. Joe

[mrbillbus]

Paul Harvey told the story years ago about WW2 bomber sights. The cross hairs were made from the blond locks of a lady out west somewhere. She had the finest hair and apparently a lot of it for the war effort.

Found it:

Mary Babnik Brown
CAHS Honored in 1990

"This lovely and patriotic lady was born in Pueblo on November 22, 1907, and lived all of her life there. She was part of an economically disadvantaged family, which gave her strong feelings about helping others whenever she could. In her younger years, Mary was known in Pueblo as a fine dancer, and was very striking because of her knee-length blonde hair. She was very proud of this hair, which had never been cut, and she washed it twice each day in natural soap.

An advertisement appeared in the Pueblo newspaper, placed there by the government, asked for some human blonde hair that was at least 22 inches long and which had never been chemically treated. Mary made the gift and it is understood that this hair was used as crosshairs in the ultra-secret Nordon bombsight and some other weather instrumentation devices. She was offered payment in the form of U.S. Savings Stamps, but declined it, being anxious to make this donation toward the WWII war effort. At the time, she was not told what was done with the hair, but the end of the story was uncovered many years later.

Mary was honored in Pueblo on February 22, 1990, which was proclaimed as "Mary Babnik Brown Day". Mary charmed the audience at her award ceremony with her gratitude and her patriotic remarks. Her story became the subject of one of Paul Harvey’s "The Rest of the Story" episodes and it was the subject of an NBC television feature.

Mary died at 83 years of age in April 1991."

http://coloradoaviationhistoricalsociety.org/bio_popup.asp?id=95

[220swiftfn]

I thought they used to use spider web. Not a clue on wire.

Bill

Someone just had a write-up about the "Black Widow" Leupolds.......


Dan

[Bret4207]

Someplace in my collection of gun books there is a volume on scope repair from the 30-40's. I seem to recall they used a certain type of spiders web or something related to a silk worm somehow.

The best bet is probably to start a google search for transit repair or lab grade wire. I have some carb tools from an old Chevy dealer that has gauge wires that go down to .005. So there is probably stuff out there today that's finer. Light bulb filaments?

[Reg]

A year or two ago, there was a series of articles in the ASSRA about making your own long tube target type scopes. The dental floss was mentioned and aparently worked well but another fellow chimed in and said he had tungstun wire for sale. I forget what he charged but I got ten feet of .0005 (fine) and the same of .0015 ( medium). Its good stuff and since I have repaired several of the older scopes. Not sure if he is still selling but here is his address

Stangarone
104 Pollywiggle Lane
Pleasantville, NY 10570

It's much easyer to work with than dental floss.
You might also refer to those articles as to how to streach the wires and get them perfectly straight. They also show holding jigs that are simple but holds things correctly


Reg

:drinks:

[kywoodwrkr]

What would be the interest in two pieces of tungsten wire .0005" and .001" in diameter in ten foot lengths?
It would be shipped wrapped around a piece of cardboard, the length of a #9 business envelope. This would result in some loss at end where it is bent around edge.
Price would be $11 delivered for 10' of each of the two types.
Please contact me via e-mail if you are interested.
kywoodwrkr (at) yahoo (dot) com
Don't expect any excess funds from this, but should that occur, those above actual cost will be sent to the castboolits fund.
There will be up to nine(9) available as I will be buying a tenth set.
There was a scope repair manual mentioned here or elsewhere and I think it is extremely informative.
Thanks.
Ref:
Guide to Riflescope Repair
- by J.W. Seyfried
http://www.universityoptics.com/books.html