Has any one used braided silk suture thread (4-0 or 5-0) for rigging and control cables? It's as fine and strong as monofilament, but doesn't kink, and glues and paints easier. I've tried fishing line, nylon suture, and stretched sprue, and even EZ-line, on ship models. Fishing line and nylon suture I find are too slippery and don't glue too well. Stretched sprue is cheap but breaks too easily, and EZ-line has unfortunate tendencies with CA. Suture is available, unsterilized, on a spool, for a lot cheaper than in little ready-use packets. Wondering what others' thoughts are on this.

No, but I Like the idea, French rigging was usually braided steel wire, British streamline wire, which it single piece and made to length, German I'll let someone more qualified reveal all. I use invisible mending thread, which is fine monofilament and cyano but it really needs knotting to secure properly, this is not always possible. I'll keep my eyes open, you might have a good tip there

Coincidentally enough, there's a thread not that far from this one which includes a link to a very detailed reproduction of an Albatros D.II answering the question about German rigging wires.

Braided steel on that one, nice link Jessie. Btw most control wire on British aircraft would be braided steel, only wire hanging out in the breeze were streamline. Braided steel is more resilient and resistant to damage

I'm not really too concerned whether it's braided or not, as 5-0, and 6-0 are really too fine to see the braiding. It just makes it stronger, yet very flexible and easy to tie.

Do you have a source? My google-fu is weak with this one, and all I've been able to find are medical supply outlets which don't sell to non-Doctor type people.

Actually there are many threads on rigging. (Pun intended). Just type in "rigging" in the search at the top of this page. Make sure the aeroscale.co.uk button is marked. Truthfully with invisible thread no knotting is needed. Just drill through the wing.

http://www.finescience.ca/Special-Pages/Products.aspx?ProductId=221&CategoryId=71
They're in your part of the country, and they don't really specify that they don't sell to non-doctor types.
Just that you can't use their goods on humans - so I guess that means models are OK.
Sorry, the link doesn't seem to work but the address is there. Look under 'wound closures'.

http://www.finescience.ca/Special-Pages/Products.aspx?ProductId=221&CategoryId=71
There we go!

I wonder how well it works in the loop and tube style of anchoring?

Have you tried Gas Patch's turnbuckles? They look pretty amazing.

I like soft plastic covered beading wire.I tone down the plastic look by running it through with very fine sandpaper,which lets only the metal show through.Next time I will burn the plastic covering off and see what happens.