Wire Obstacles

[voltigeur]

I was watching Hamburger Hill (don't ask me how many times I've seen it lost count years ago) Was looking at the A frame wrap wire obstacles and remembering the coiled wire I have seen on this site. As I was looking through my Marine guide book I saw and remembered the basket 5 roll set up and triangle set up.

Now I’m thinking about building some for my Vietnam base camps what is everyone else using for wire? I have some think steel wire that I need to use but not sure how to work it. It will hold up nice but seems a bit stiff to roll as small as it needs to be.

Spring from ink pens is the best but seems waste full to buy a box just to grab the springs.

[Gompel]

Hey voltigeur, I use copper wire from a broken transformer, but it's indeed a bit fragile. If you like the springs from pens; check for a compression spring supplier in your country. In the Netherlands I can buy 1000mm lenght of 0.4mm(or more) thick (stainless) steel for about $6 from Alcomex.
Anther way is: if you have lenghts of steel wire but think it's hard to roll, you could ask somebody who has a lathe to roll some for you. It should be really easy when using such a machine.

[Cav Dog]

Use 32 guage beading wire available on 24 yard rolls at Michaels or Joannes craft stores. Tightly coil it around the end of a narrow paintbrush. A quick rust drybrush and glue it to a painted and flocked base. I used vertical stakes but other support strutures would be easy enough to scratch build.

[Xveers]

Another source for the wires is to go hit up a model railroad hobby shop. Something that ideally sells a G scale and so on (big stuff, like for garden railroads). Ask then for some replacement coupler springs. The knuckle couplers at that scale are large enough to look real and be spring loaded. They sell spare springs for em. Once you have em, just bite each end in a pair of needlenose pliers and twist the spring tighter, bending it so it'll be a bit more to scale for ya. Then just cut and glue and use.

Best thing is, they're springs. So the can take impressive amounts of abuse.

[chrisswim]

I use a small gauge wire from craft/hobby store such as Michaels. I have seen colors such as black, green and metal (silver). I buy on a spool, 10 yards is the length?

I roll it on an ink cartridge to a pall point pen, (do not use the spring) and roll it tight on the cartridge. After it wire is wrapped around the cartridge, cut wire. Pull/slide wire off cartridge. Then I spread it out so it looks 'about right'. Recently I have glue to the popcycle stick one buys at the crafts/hobby shop. I have left some free standing.

Two sizes to the sticks that I have seen. When using the small stick, I use 1 or 2 wires side by side. Using the large stick, used 2 side by side or 3 usually, in trianglar arrangement. I also used all 3 on the stick directly. If there is overlap or a coil rises some, that seems to work for asthetics.

Hope this helps.