Looking for flexible hose tubing material

[Admiral Benbow]

For an upcoming modelling and sculpting project I'm looking for a flexible tubing material to use for those corrugated hoses you know from gasmasks like here:





The diameter should not exceed 1,5 to 2,0 mm, the stuff must be flexible and cheap, of course. Usually I'm working with guitar strings, but they are so hard to bend around curves and you always have trouble glueing that stuff properly (especially if you can't like me use super glues due to an allergy against it and must always work with epoxy glues ...)

So, any suggestions are most welcome!  

[Zafarelli]

I think Black Cat Bases have short pieces of guitar strings cast in lead for that very reason. You can get them from Nimmys Horrorladen in Germany.

Edit: Yes, here they are.

[Hammers]

Wouldn't 0,5mm copperwire wound tightly arround a 1mm brass rod do the trick? (You would of course pull out the brass rod.) I have seen this done for the metal chin straps for Napoleonic Curassiers.

[WillieB]

Dragon Forge has some white metal 'corrugated hoses' at a very reasonable price. Since they are white metal easier to us than guitar strings.

http://dragonforge.com/Painting%20service/for%20sale/gaming_bases.htm

[Westfalia Chris]

May I suggest "Plombendraht", which is available from crafts stores (for example, the "Idee creativmärkte")? It consists of a central, rather soft wire and a second wrapped around it in a spiralling fashion. You can rather easily push the outer one to look condensed (ie spirals touching each other) to make a convincing ribbed-looking  appearance. And, since it is a rather soft metal, you can easily bend it.

Here´s some examples of what I did with it. Sadly, it only comes in one size, and that´s an overall millimetre in diameter, tops.

[vikotnik]

I used the white-metal-strings just yesterday. That stuff is flexible enough to be bent in any direction, whereas real Guitar strings are hard to bend in a 'convincing' way for 28mm models.
I would just check them out, this is great stuff!

[Admiral Benbow]

Thanks everybody for the interesting suggestions. I will try both the cast metal strings as well as the "Plombendraht"!

Should I find any other materials, I'll let you know.

[Commander Vyper]

Dragonforge stock them as well in case your US based.

[zizi666]

Have you checked out Zinge-Industries
Apparently he has 'em in several diameters.

[Maichus]

There are also these hose/tube tools from Masq-Mini:
http://www.masq-mini.com/artikeldetails.php?aid=240&sprache=1

[Admiral Benbow]

Have you checked out Zinge-Industries
Apparently he has 'em in several diameters.

Thanks for that link, they have exactly what I was looking for (although 5 years ago ...  )

[Commander Vyper]

Have you checked out Zinge-Industries
Apparently he has 'em in several diameters.

Should have mention ed them too, I've got some if their cables. Nice.