Weed Wacker Line

I know this may sound a little off-beat but I was just restringing my weed wacker and looking at the line. It looks to be tremendousely strong and I am wondering what uses it can be put to other than wacking weeds. Has anyone thought of using this stuff for lead out lines maybe? What other odd stuff has been used in our modelling hobby? I used to make tanks out of Keens Mustard tins....right shape and worked well. Even made them uniflow with a hopper tank!

LAST EDITED ON May-25-03 AT 04:37 PM (CDT)
 
>I know this may sound a little off-beat but I was just
>restringing my weed wacker and looking at the line. It
>looks to be tremendousely strong and I am wondering what
>uses it can be put to other than wacking weeds. Has anyone
>thought of using this stuff for lead out lines maybe? What
>other odd stuff has been used in our modelling hobby? I
>used to make tanks out of Keens Mustard tins....right shape
>and worked well. Even made them uniflow with a hopper tank!

Well some guys are using fishing line (Fireline or Spyderwire) for flying lines on the 1/2A stuff. Main problem seems to be getting an end termination that is slip-proof. I'm the first guy in the place to say "try something new and see if it works" as long as all the safety factors are observed. Given the lawsuit happy climate of today's society, you have to be REAL careful about what you try and where.
As an aside, I know the Combat dudes use Kevlar thread a lot as a reinforcement material.
For many years during the "diesel era" in Combat across the pond, the Brits used mustard tins for tanks.

I've heard that glueing this type of line to the trailing edge of a foam wing on combat and trainer planes does a good job of reinforcing and protecting the trailing edge.

>I am wondering what uses it can be put to other than wacking weeds.

I have some weed eater line that is the perfect size to put inside soft brass tubing, that I use for tank vents, to make kink free bends.
Bill Little <><

I've had mixed luck with small tubing benders. I tried weed wacker line once too, but the bend pinched the line and made it impossible to remove.
On my last tank I used some low temperature alloy (http://www.engineeringfindings.com/cat22/cat22pg33.pdf) to prevent the tubing from collapsing. It worked brilliantly. The bends were perfect with absolutely no distortion.
First I annealed the tubing, then filled it by drawing in the melted alloy with a syringe. Once solidified and cooled, I bent the tubing around a steel rod. 1/4 inch inside radius, 90 degree bends came out beautifully. I reheated the tubing in boiling water and the alloy melted and flowed out.
A caution: be sure to thoroughly clean the bore of the tubing. I had some flakes of the alloy stick inside. Any residual alloy is easily removed with a pipe cleaner and compressed air.
Derek Moran

Bobby Mears uses weed whacker line for his control handles. This is for Fast Combat. He says he can clip the handle to a beam in his garage and hang from it, so it's plenty tough enough for a CL handle.

These are some pretty neat ideas...what else is out there that is not meant for the hobby industry, but works for something?

If you hang around Combat fliers, you'll come across a lot of stuff like this. For example:

Braided dacron fishing line (80-120lb test) - trailing edge reinforcement for foamies, control line leadouts
Fishing snaps - CL connectors (where did you think they came from?)
Clear packaging tape - covering material for foamies
Pop rivets - for making bladders
Braided steel fishing line - control line (see above)