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Best way to clean the coating off magnet wire


joessportster

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Joe,

I built 4 kits from Electronic Tonalities (otherwise known as Bottlehead). The kits were wired primarily with 18-20 gauge magnet wire. What was recommended by fellow kit builders at the time was a solder pot. Around the year 2000 you could find one from MCM electronics for around $30.00 a;ways on sale. What it did was removed the laquer coating on the wire and tinned it at the same time. I used this method alot. Kinda handy.

Another method I used was a butane soldering iron. If you removed the soldering tip you would have a jet stream of really hot air being blown out the end of the hot air channel that would normally heat the iron tip. You could watch as the lacquer melted away from the end of the wire towards your fingers!!!!!.

Both methods require alot of care as it would be easy to burn you as you could tip over the solder pot full of molten solder or put the jet stream of really hot air in a direction that you did not want to.

In a quick search I could not find a solder pot that was cheap, but I know someone must still sell the version I have. It just worked too well not to keep producing it. If you grab a solder pot you will also need a bar of solder to melt into it, usually sold by the pound..

Wrinkles

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Joe,

This is the style of solder pot I was talking about.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1-pc-Mini-Soldering-Pot-Solder-Melt-AC110-120V-150W-/140334688617?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20ac996969

If you get one, I'd recommend putting something non-combustable under it.

This would work too.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1-pc-Mini-Soldering-Pot-Solder-Melt-AC110-120V-150W-/140334688617?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20ac996969

Oh, if you try to remove the lacquer from the radio shack 26 or higher gauge magnet wire you will melt the wire as well !

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Larry, I think he wants to remove the coating from the endsto prep them for soldering.

Joe, a solder pot will work best, but if you don't have a bunch of wire to solder and don't want to deal with the pot, the coating scrapes off easily with a razor blade.

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Hot soldering gun and solder paste

http://www.guttersupply.com/p-soldering-paste-flux.gstml

I use some that radio shack sells in a tube and it comes out like gel. I don't like the stuff radio shack sells in a can...its a harder substance and difficult to work with.

when heated to high temps, the soldering gel eats the coating right off the wire, while it tins some solder on it.

you need to use a damp cloth to wire exess off your fingers, tools, and circuts, so that the gel does not continue to eat it's wat into havoc.

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I've used either a razor knife or pliers to get most of the coating off, then coarse sandpaper to get the rest off and smooth the conductor surface. That was only to get bare wire ends to connect to terminal strips though, I never soldered.

For #26 or heavier wire, coarse followed by fine sandpaper does a great job of removing enamel, formvar, and other coatings. If you spend a few minutes doing it, so that there is no residual coating left, it solders beautifully.

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i have 2 different ways. i purchased some Anti-Cables wire and i feel you on "stripping" them. the first method is straight forward, simply exact knife and scrape the coating away.

the second is a dremel tool. if you have one, use the lightest sander and simply sand that coating away. you could also use a corse buffing wheel.

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