Flying and Landing Wires on Spad.

[retread]

After exaimining hundreds of individual photos I give up. Not a single one is close and/or clear enough to tell how the flying and landing wires on either the Spad VII, XII, or XIII were rigged- specifically, were the wires solid or stranded? Were the ends rigged with single, or double loop? Was a thimble used? Was the ferrule a twist of wire or a bent piece of sheet? Were the ferrules soldered to the cables? Lastly did any or all of this depend on manufactuer, or in effect, did any real standard exsist?
Any hints?
Thanks

[RAGIII]

If you havent already try the following: The Memorial Flight web sight and The WW1 modeling site( some excellent closeups of SPAD VII). I am sure someone can post the proper links! Stephen/Ross ?
RAGIII

[WinterHawke]

I can help with links

The Memorial Flight website starts at:

http://memorial.flight.free.fr/indexuk.html

WW1 Modeling Site, SPAD 7:

http://www.wwi-models.org/Photos/Fre/SPAD7/index.html

and SPAD 13:

http://www.wwi-models.org/Photos/Fre/SPAD13/index.html

Hope these help!

Best regards,

Lee

[retread]

Winterhawke & Rag,
Thanks. Was able to answer some but not all questions. Looks like flying wires were normally (not always) doubled up. Landing wires were single. Usually single loop with various ferrules, a couple of double loops, possibly one with a thimble.
Hard to say whether wire was stranded or solid from photos, if I had to guess I would say most looked solid although I suspected the opposite. A good deal of variation. Probably preference of individual rigger and materials available.
Will have to plan another trip to the Air and Space Museum and Washington and get a closeup of their Spad XIII.
Thanks Again.

[baldeagle]

I've seen some examples of original rigging cables, for instance the Nieuport 83 at ORA, and others, and have studied cable ends as I do the old fashioned box and roll splices, and the wrapped-and-soldered splices as part of my restoration business. I believe that most French and German rigging cables were similar to what we call non-flexible cable today, 1x19, meaning 1 strand of 19 wires. They seperated the cable into groups of about 5 strands and did a splice similar to the AN splice shown in many books of the 1930s, which was then soldered (sometimes wrapped with brass or copper wire before being soldered). I suspect that the WW1 cable strands were more flexible than the modern stuff, as the new stuff is impossible to do a woven splice with. Most modern cable is the flexible cable, 7x19, 7 strands of 19 wires each, which is easy to splice. This type of cable would've been used for control cables which had to go around pulleys, and were woven spliced and wrapped with linen cord in England, and brass wire in France and Germany. These are general observations, and I'm sure there were many variations and exceptions.
Single strand hard wire, music wire, or whatever you want to call it, was used mostly for internal fuselage or wing bracing, with wrapped ferrules at the ends. Occasionally it's seen on tail bracing, or maybe lesser wing bracing, stagger wires perhaps.