I was wondering how to make ribbed hoses for my B-21 Grad and came on to this idea with my dad. The way I make ribbed hoses is to take a piece of styrene rod or tube smaller in diameter than you need, and just glue a string around it with white glue. This is a very easy trick and looks convincing when done.

Tip: paint the hoses with a brush, instead of an air brush, as I didn't have any success with it, the paint didn't stick to the string.

Hope this trick helps you :-)

hey great tip, thanks

Bender

This is also a good place to use wire wound guitar strings.

Have seen a tip simialr to this used a few times before, using rod coiled around with thin wire, then "painted" with a thinned putty. The putty filled in where needed and was brushed out from between the coils. Looked really neat!

I have had success with taking a small wire and wrapping it around another wire, then using thick paint which filled in the cracks, my black paint is always good for this because, and this might just be me, black always dries out faster.

Rob

Great tip! Perhaps, instead of using thinned putty, try using Mr. Surfacer 500, layer upon layer. Then followed by thick or non-thinned paint. Been wondering how to do ribbed hoses... can't wait to try it out! :-)

and dont forget fuse wire comes in many sizes so you can get a better scale effect and lets not forget telephone wire as the copper has insulation round it you will not need as much filler/paint to disguise it

I need ribbed hoses for my aircraft cockpits, and here's how I do it with stretched sprue:
1. Take a 1 inch long bit of sprue, and stretch it to the inner diameter of the hose(approximately should do)
2. Next, take another bit of sprue, and heat and stretch it very fine. Wrap this around the sprue from step 1. Make it a little tight, and the wire will stay wrapped. Be careful not to stretch too much, or it may break.
3. Finally, drag the wrapped bit through a puddle of superglue. This ensures that the finer spiral stays on the center sprue rod.

Voila.. you have an oxygen hose ready!

Cheers,
BP.