Making Custom Pre-bent Rubber hoses

[Daytonatim]

First we need to determine the length of hose we need. We can do this by just fitting up a piece of long cord stock through the route you want it to take and fit it up to the fittings it will have to slip up on and mount to.

Now, this is important. Make sure you add the extra length to the cord stock to account for the amount of hose you want to slip up over the fitting. You need the cord stock to be the total length of the hose that you will need to route and to slip up over the engine/radiator mounting nozzels.

Once you cut the cord stock to the proper length, you now want to figure out just how much you want the heat shrink tubing to slip up over your rad/eng nozzel. Lets say you want it to slip over them by 3/8". You then take your exacto knife and slice through almost all of the cord 3/8" back from the ends. Don't cut them off completely you want them to stay on the cordstock to keep the ends of the heat shrink tubing from shrinking too small to fit over your rad/eng nozzel. We will pluck out these end plugs later. This will leave the ends of the hose hollow to allow it to slip up over the eng/rad nozzels.

Then you cut a piece of heat shrink tubing to the same full length of the cord stock you just made.

Here are some pics to help.

[Daytonatim]

Now we just slip the heat shrink tubing over the cord stock and shrink it down. Make sure and shrink all the tubing down good and tight.

Next we start to make the bends in the hose. All we have to do is bend the hose to the shape we want it and heat the bend over a candle. Once you have it warmed up on both the inside and the outside of the bend you just dunk the bend in some cold water and the hose will hold the bend on its own.

If there is a wrinkle in the heat shrink tubing, just heat the wrinkle over the candle while holding the bend with your fingers and it should disappear. Once again, dunk the warm hose in cold water to hold the bend

The nice thing about using cord stock is that it will not collapse like hollow hose will. So the hose keeps its perfect round shape through out the bends.

As a side note, I did try using rubber tubing with electrical wire inserted to help hold the bends. I found it to be too heavy and too stiff to work with. The cord stock works like a dream.

Here are some more pics to help explain things

[Daytonatim]

Now once you have the hose bent to pretty much the shape you want it, all you have to do now is pluck out the pieces of cord stock in the ends of the hose.

First, be sure and trim away any heatshrink tubing that may have extended beyond the cordstock and shrunk down smaller than the cord stock. This little piece of heat shrink tubing will trap the end piece in the hose and make it real tough to pluck out.

Next you just take a wood screw and screw it into the center of the hose on the end you want to pluck out. Get it in there good and tight and then just pull. Just like pulling a cork out of a wine bottle!

Now the hose has a hollow end on each end and you can then slip this up over the rad/eng nozzel.

Now do the final tweaking of the hose shape. BEWARE though.....do not heat the ends of the hose that are hollow. The heat shrink tubing will shrink and you will not be able to slip it over the eng/rad nozzels like you planned. If you do need to reheat the ends, after plucking out the end plugs, just insert a piece of brass tube, of proper diam, into the end and heat as desired. The brass tube will keep the heat shrink tubing from shrinking any more. Just be sure and cool it down in water before removing the brass tubing. If the heat shrink tubing is still hot .....it will shrink after you pull out the brass tube.

Now you just fit it up to your model, make your final shape tweaks, and glue it to the eng/rad nozzels. Finish it off with a 1/16 inch strip of aluminum tape, to simulate the hose clamp, and you are done.

The hose is light, flexiable, and looks just like a rubber hose too.......because it is rubber. You might even be able to find some heat shrink tubing of different collors to spice things up a little under your hood!!

Well, here are some more pics to show the final step.

[Daytonatim]

This little hose making process is easy to do, quick, and cheap. I don't think I spent 15 min making the hose you see in the pics.

Just remember, the bent tubing is very soft and flexiable so you can tweak it without reheating it. If you need to do a BIG tweak, reheating it no big deal at all. Then you can get the exact shape you need.

By actually slipping the hose over the eng/rad nozzel you will get a scale looking hose at the end, where you will see its thickness. So it actually looks like a radiator hose. You never know that it is actually solid through the majority of the hose.

Well, that is about it. If anybody has any questions please feel free to ask.

Like I said at the start, if this is an old trick that everybody knows about I am sorry for eating up the forum space......

If it is something new that helps another modeler out then it was worth posting it up. If it is new......just consider it another..... TDR Innovation

Thanks....
Tim

[Don Garrett]

Great tutorial Tim.......let me take it one step further for those wanting a hose like the one below:

Simply wrap copper or brass wire around the cord before shrinking the the tubing, the cord should still (twisting slightly) pull out leaving the wire inside the tubing. Haven't tried it yet but it sounds like it would work.

[Daytonatim]

I am actually going to try something like that for the air vent hose on the TDR 427 Roadster.....maybe today

Tim

[Daytonatim]

Here is my first attempt at making a spiral universal type hose.

To make the spiral "spring" I just took some old lock wire I had laying around and wound it around a piece of 1/4" dowle rod. You have to take your time and try and get the spacing of the coils even and at the desired pitch. Once you have that just slip it off the dowle and slip it on 1/4" cord stock.

From this point on I used the exact same procedure as for the smooth hose.

The lock wire is very soft and bends easily. It really has no "springyness" to it. This makes it easier to tweak and adjust to the spacing right.

Now the addition of the wire does make the hose a little stiffer and more difficult to shape. It does make a pretty good looking hose though

Here are some pics

[strevo]

This is a great tutorial Tim! I'll have to get me some of that stuff when I get around to building again.
-Steve

[Andym]

Not only is this an excellent and very helpful tutorial. But it's also a perfect example of what makes this site special and unique.

Thanks Tim and Don for sharing an idea that I am sure to use on my Lola T70.

[hot ford coupe]

I use thick round wound guitar strings for my hoses in the aircraft. If you use heavy round wound bass strings, you can use those in the bigger scales. Either paint them with heavy flat black paint or use the shrinky stuff. They bend well and hold their positions.

[shadetree]

Know this is a little late but if you find a screw of the right size and wrap your wire around it that should take care of your universal fit hoses.
Marc

[Tony]

Now that is just to clever, and certainly thinking outside the box, will be using this
Thanks

[ScaleMotorcars]

This tutorial has been copied to the articles area. http://www.scalemotorcars.com/forum/...ber-hoses.html

[ferrari1]

great idea