Cajunrider
Imperial Masterpiece
6 lbs of copper wire from 1 yard of high voltage cable.
1 yard of high voltage cable yields a lot of wire
- Thread starter Cajunrider
- Start date
pandacular
Masterpiece
I don't know a lot about wire, but I'm curious to know what functional differences this has from bonsai wire. Is it annealed?
Regardless, love the ingenuity and there are lots of opportunities to use wire that would be otherwise in a landfill. Maybe you're onto the next turface/NAPA 8822.
Regardless, love the ingenuity and there are lots of opportunities to use wire that would be otherwise in a landfill. Maybe you're onto the next turface/NAPA 8822.
Shibui
Imperial Masterpiece
Electric cable wires are not annealed. I'm sure that's the next step for @Cajunrider in this project.
No scale in the photo to judge gauge of the individual wires. How thick are they?
Modern cables down here seem to be wound from many thinner wires now so harder and harder to find good thick copper here.
No scale in the photo to judge gauge of the individual wires. How thick are they?
Modern cables down here seem to be wound from many thinner wires now so harder and harder to find good thick copper here.
pandacular
Masterpiece
Yes any time I've worked with electrical wire, it's always been hair thin strands. I assume that's not the case for high voltage cable, and was indeed why it was selected.
Cajunrider
Imperial Masterpiece
The wire needs to be annealed. Cable was 3.5” in diameter. Single strands are 10 gauge approximately.
thatdirtykid
Yamadori
Electrician here. That's some old school stuff with the copper jacketing, I have never run into cable quite like that before. I love seeing people putting scrap to use instead of just making a couple bucks at the scrapper. I have minimal bonsai experience, but I have done plenty of craft with copper wire scraps and have a nice little pile waiting to be stripped and annealed as my trees are ready to be trained. It's a nice perk to have access too, even if its at the cost of my time. This is bonsai though, I am not rushing anything. From what I have seen, annealed craft/bonsai wire really isn't more expensive than building wire but it's hard to compare by length cost and weight cost as well as different gauging conventions. Anyone buy and anneal their own copper out of convenience or cost?
