steel wire

[J. Tranter]

I am attempting to make Jan Ridders egg cup sterling and he says to use steel wire and standard smooth axis steel wire. Where can I find this kind of steel wire?
John T.

 

[Bogstandard]

Hi John,

The one for going to the displacer piston, I used siver steel (drill rod).

For the crank, it all depends how you are going to make it.

If you are going to bend it as in the plans (not recommended, even by the designer himself), just normal mild steel rod will do, but I think you might have to warm it up a bit to get the tightish bends.

If you go for his modified one, with the cranks, silver steel is what I used.

Hope this helps.

John

 

[J. Tranter]

Thank you for the reply. I had bought some piano wire but it didn't look like it was going to work. I am going to attempt the modified crank.
Thank you again.

John T.

 

[Bogstandard]

John,

Piano wire for the crank should be just fine, I only used silver steel because I have it in stock.

At one time I used to use a lot of parallel bicycle spokes, but nowadays they all seem to be tapered, but still useable and really cheap if you are after a thin push/pull rod, especially as most are stainless.

John