Thoughts Silver wire and cable making

 Silver wire for interconnect and internal wiring.

 The silver wire we carry is soft annealed. Soft annealed wire has a more musical tonality but doesn't permit coatings like to teflon to be applied as this process requires some hardening.

 Nice thing about making your own cable is you can do it your way.

 For use in the internal wiring for amplifiers, you can use teflon insulation or you can use latex nail polish. While this sounds a bit unusual, if you clean the wire with alcohol

first to remove any oils  nail polish will adhere nicely and create an air tight seal (this is a real labor saver if you are cutting small lengths of insulation).

 You have a choice  of colors to code the wire as you like and it remains fairly flexible after drying. Solder wire into place, clean then apply a thin layer of polish. Wait 10 minutes and apply a second coat.

 While it has been said the wire inserted into teflon tubing will "rattle", since the wire has multiple contact points with the tubing, this is a dubious  concern (wire rattles regardless of coating). You can further reduce this  by applying a thin coating of mineral oil as you insert the wire into the tubing. Mineral oil is considered an enhancement with some capacitor types, it can enhance wire as well. Use alcohol to

clean the wire at the solder or crimp point. Seal with a little nail polish or use heatshrink.

Sometimes people get a little too obsessive. 

 Application for interconnect suggestion: 

 Use 22 ga for positive signal line, use 20 ga for ground return. Interconnect wiring is usually low voltage in nature so our metric teflon insulation with a 150v rating is more than enough.

 For interconnects, it is best to go up a size for insulation. For example, runs longer than a few feet use 23ga. teflon insulation for 24 ga silver wire. Make sure the end of the wire you are inserting into the tube has been cleanly cut with no burrs to catch the tubing. Pretreating with a silver polish like Gorham or Wright's will help lubricate the wire. You only need to wipe any solder or crimp surface before connection (alcohol would do).

 The millimeter size insulation offers some sizing options not available with awg sized teflon tubing. This insulation seems to be a little more slippery which makes insertion of the silver wire easier.

Our RCAM001 RCA male connectors are of very good quality at a low price. Use these with our silver wire and you can have a high quality interconnects at a low cost.

We have a small selection of woven coverings as well.

RCAM-001  12-PETSWRB-4mm