How to make HO scale LED gooseneck lights

[Ensign]

Hi everyone, I thought I would do a tutorial on how to make HO scale LED gooseneck lights.
I must state right here at the begining I purchase all of my supplies to make these lights from a company called www.Ngineering.com ,in the U.S.
I have no affiliation with them other than just being a customer with them.
So I thought I would start with how to tin the #38 magnet wires.
These wires are like strands of hair very fine but strong.
They have a thermal coating/insulation protecting them that must be removed by heat
A minimum of 390 deg.C (734 deg.F) for 3 seconds. I find it takes less than a second once they are dipped into the hot solder on my soldering iron.
So first you will need to determine what length of magnet wires you will need for your particular application.
I use the green magnet wire for my negative, and the red one for my positive.


After I have cut the magnet wires to the length I need, I set up my soldering iron with a clamp to hold it so I don't have to.
This allows me to have both of my hands free and not holding onto a hot soldering iron.



I then use this low temerature silver solder to form a blob of hot solder on the tip of my soldering iron.





This blob of hot solder is what I will stick the ends of the magnet wire into to melt the thermal insulation and tin the ends with.
Like I said it only should take a second of insertion to tin the wire.
What comes out should look just like this shown below.





If it does not look like this your soldering iron is probably not hot enough.
When I first started using this magnet wire, and trying to tin the ends like shown.
I wasn't able to do it, very frustrating! It turned out that my old soldering iron just wasn't getting hot enough.
So I went out a bought an adjustable temperature soldeing iron, and it worked like a charm the first time.
Another thing that I do to store my tinned and not tinned yet wires, is lay down a piece of double sided tape to stick the wires down onto to keep them neat a tidy in one place.

to be continued.

[Ensign]

So now that I have my wires tinned and ready it's time to solder them onto some LED's
I really like using these micro super incandescent LED's for my lights.
Since I model the 1930's era it's a perfect temperature/colour of light for my era.
You can get all kinds of colours desired in LED's, these ones work best for me.
On the backside of the LED's the side you will be soldering is a green arrow pointing to the negative side of the LED.
This is where you will connect the green wire to.





These LED's are tiny so I made up this lid so that I don't lose them, with a piece of styrene glued into it that I can rest the LED on top to aid in picking them up with this next tool.
It has to clips, one for holding the LED and the other for holding the magnet wire.



I then flip this tool over and hold it upright with another clamp.



To be continued.

[ReadingBob]

Fun! I've made my fair share of these but I'm still happy to follow along and see how you do it. Not for the feint of heart. 

[Ensign]

So now I am ready to start soldering the magnet wires to the LED.
I always start with the green/negative wire first.
I carefully position the wire so that the tinned portion of the wire is sitting on the soldering pad of the LED.
With the extra tinned wire sticking out past the pad as shown below.
Then also using the other clip to help hold the wire in place.
And then just a speck of hot solder is all that is needed to solder the wire to the pad of the LED.





I then use tweezers to bend up & down the extra wire that is sticking out past the the soldered pad of the LED.
This up & down action breaks off the extra wire neatly.
Then I release the LED from it's clip and turn it around so that now I can solder the red/positive wire to the other pad.
Also bending the green wire out of the way so it does not get in the way of the red wire.



Now soldering that to the positive pad on the LED.



I the release the red wire from it's clip and still leaving the LED in it's clip I use another clip that I made up with some sticking tape between it's grips to grab both the green & red wires to twist the 2 wires together.
While the LED is still being held in it's holder for soldering.



Now it's time to test the LED with my 9 volt battery tester.



Now that the LED is all hooked up and working it's time to start building the gooseneck light.

To be continued.

[Ensign]

To make up the gooseneck light we begin by using this .018 stainless hollow tubing.



I cut the tubing using a single edge razor into 3/4 inch lengths just by rolling the tubing under the razor back & forth, until the tubes stops rolling.
Then you just snap the tube where your cut was.
This method gives you a nice clean cut.



Next I take my 3/4 inch piece of tubing and insert it into a pin vise and tighten it so it does not move.
You want just a tiny bit sticking out of the vise.
I then use a simple push pin to flare the end of the tube out.
Just swirl the push pin around the end of the tube to flare the tube a little.
This flare will help to hold the shade into place once we are ready to add that.


So now that we have the tubing ready we can now insert the LED with it's wires.
It is so much easier to insert the wires while the tube is still stra than straight than after bending it into it's gooseneck shape.
Just make certain that the LED ends up on the flared end of the tube.



We are now ready to bend this tube into the gooseneck shape using this handy little jig made for just this purpose from Ngineering.



I scored a line onto my jig to act as a starting point to slide the tube between the first 2 pins and up to in order of giving me a consistent shape of my goosenecks.



To be continued.

[Ensign]

So now we bend this tube around the second pin so that the end of the tube is pointing down.
We also add in a third pin now to help hold the tube in this shape.



Now we bend the rmaining tube back up straight against the third pin.
This will now give us the gooseneck shape we are after.



You can now remove the third pin from the jig and take out the gooseneck shape.



Now all we have to do is make drill a hole into the shade & escutcheon used on this gooseneck light fixture.
I paint the underside of all of my shades white before I drill the holes into them.
I also add a piece of tape around my finger to aid me in holding these tiny things while I drill the hole into them.
I use a #77 drill bit for both holes in the shade & escutcheon.





Before I slide these onto the gooseneck I use a spare piece of .018 tubing to reem out the holes in both the shade & escutcheon.
This makes them so much easier to slide right on the gooseneck light.
I place the shade on first and add a speck of CA on the flare and then slide the shade down onto the flared end of the light.
I let the shade dry a bit before I pull the LED tight into the shade.
I then add on the escutcheon.
Giving me a gooseneck light to use where I choose.
You can paint the top of the shade any colour you like, but mostly they were green.
Same for the neck you can paint them rust or just leave them silver whatever you like.
So that's how you make a HO scale LED gooseneck light.



Greg

[friscomike]

Howdy Greg,

Thanks for the excellent tutorial on making gooseneck lights.  It does a great job of showing us the materials and how to construct them.

Have fun,
mike

[Zephyrus52246]

Neat tutorial.  Doesn't the pin vise holder and the bending process crush the tubing?

Jeff

[Ensign]

Thanks Mike & Jeff!

Jeff, the pin vise & bending jig do not crush the stainless tubing at all.

Greg

[Bernd]

Nice tutorial. Where was the tubing bought?

Bernd