Making More Realistic 1/24-1/25 Throttle Return Springs

[mustang1989]

I stumbled onto this several years ago when I was building my Revell '56 Ford F-100. I had seen all examples of homemade return springs from wire wound around a small needle so I gave it a shot. I'm a pretty patient guy so I gave it several tries and just couldn't get uniform wraps to get a realistic "spring" look out of it. I needed something small enough that would look more like a spring than a botched attempt by me. That night I changed a turn signal bulb in my truck and "DING".............the light bulb turned on

............literally.

Take a 1:1 scale 3157 Turn Signal Bulb (You've got two different size "springs" to choose from here) and break the glass:

Then just rob the filaments out of it:

a little closer:

And one of these that I installed on my 1971 Dyno Don Ford Maverick 427 SOHC Engine

 

[moon puppy]

Wow!

 

[paddy]

Good idea, i tend to just wind my own using tined wire. When i built my last Helicopter i used this method to make leads for headphone sets.

 

[mustang1989]

Thanks guys!

Paddy that's a great idea for headphone cords. Awesome!!!

 

[Lownslow]

Another source I’ve used is the winding from a guitar string. A coating of WD40 makes stripping the wire inside the winding easier to remove.

 

[Sharkmouth]

Thanks @Lownslow, always great to see more input!

I have used tiny springs which were made from incandescent bulbs but these bulbs are being phased out. Suspension springs were easily made by wrapping the correct solder (or copper wire) around a bolt with a close enough thread and inner diameter of the finished spring. Simply back out the bolt, or screw, and done!

 

[Rhino]

See that? Model supplies ARE everywhere!

 

[chrispisme]

Funny how we, as modellers try our best to mimic the details of real life….I once saw a 1978 dodge “Little red express” truck with a 360 with a 4bbl Thermoquad where the nuts had been lost to mount the carb. To the intake manifold so it had been wired down in place with about 50-60 lashings of wire of some kind (thinner than mechanics wire but thicker than lock wire but single strand steel wire) the throttle return spring was backed up by a length of bicycle inner tube on the other end of the throttle shaft (the choke side) A bunch of tinfoil had been wadded up and hammered into the EGR ports and the EGR valve was hanging by it’s vacuum hose (I guess to eliminate the vacuum leak?) tied to a spark plug wire guide clip…the spark plug wires? they were laying on the exhaust manifold. And thats not even the worst one I’ve seen.
if any of us modelled that, we’d be laughed outa town…freakin hillbillys