Cloth Covered Wire

[stagekraft]

Hey All,

probably a dumb question, but I'll ask anyway........

Is there a purpose to the cloth covered wire used in Fender clone kits,
or is it just to maintain the vintage look of a hand-wired amp?

I'm in the midst of building an amp based on Princeton Reverb (with a couple of mods),but I'm building it into my own chassis to fit into a cabinet to replace a solid state amp I built years ago.

I bought a parts kit from MOJO, and they have backordered some parts on me, some common resistors & caps that I have in my shop, the 1-10 knobs (which I wasn't going to use anyway), and some of the cloth covered wire.

I'm not building it to look like a Fender, just sound like a Fender....

Is the any reason I can't use proper voltage rated wire such as 600V MTW for my project?

Regards,
JohnR

[NickC]

...................

Is the any reason I can't use proper voltage rated wire such as 600V MTW for my project?

Regards,
JohnR

That's what I would use (actually I use 600V rated teflon coated stranded, but some folks don't like it).

There might be some utility to the "push-back feature" (not having to strip the wire), but I never built a new amp with it. The cloth push-back wire, in my opinion, is in modern kits for cosmetic reasons only.

[Gibsonman63]

I completly gutted and rewired my '72 Super Reverb with cloth covered wire. I found it easy to work with and the lead dress was much better than the PVC factory wire. I like it.

[NickC]

I completly gutted and rewired my '72 Super Reverb with cloth covered wire. I found it easy to work with and the lead dress was much better than the PVC factory wire. I like it.

Interesting. Is the cloth-covered wire you use solid-core? I can see there would be benefits to forming it and having it stay in place. The Teflon coated I use doesn't always cooperate that way.

[Gibsonman63]

Yes indeed. solid core. I believe I got it from Hoffman if I am not mistaken.

[Phil_S]

A really good compromise is top coat wire. You can get 600V rated. The benefits are that it is braided wire that retains the bends, strips very easily, and stays where you put it. The negatives (if you think they are negative) is that PVC insulation will burn when hit with the iron, t is often physically fatter than the same size Teflon jacketed, and it can be expensive.

I find that Teflon insulated wire is much thinner (the jacket is very thin) and that can be a real plus at times. You can get Teflon in both solid and braided and I think Steve at Apex Jr. carries both for super reasonable prices.

I first found topcoat wire when I bought a lot of miscellaneous stuff on eBay for next to nothing. Included were some old and very high quality 3' IBM computer interconnect cables (mainframe?) which I promptly stripped for the wire (maybe 20 wires inside the grey jacket). It is 300V rated 22AWG topcoat, which I am still using where operating voltages are below 300V. This wire is not so fat at the 600V stuff I acquired a couple of months ago.

I've used the solid core cloth pushback wire. I believe it is 600V or 500V rated, and it gives a satisfactory result. I think it is a matter of personal taste. It is not my favorite.

[Ken Moon]

I guess some people prefer the pushback cloth wire because you don't need to strip it (as well as for the vintage look).

With solid core wire, no matter what the jacket material is, make sure to only bend it once. If you find you've bent it the wrong way, just throw out that piece and make a new one.

The danger is that a small crack will form where the wire is re-bent, which will cause the wire to break in the future due to vibration.

Wire is cheap, and it's better to be safe than sorry.

[Structo]

I used the cloth wire in my strats and tele's.

But what I don't care for is how the cloth frays at the end of the cut when you push it back.

Not sure if the cloth wire we can buy today is the same as the vintage stuff.

There was a guy here that built an amp with the push back cloth wire and all his cuts were surgical.
No fraying.

I suppose you could put some thin super glue on it but I don't like to spend ten minutes per wire.

I like the Teflon wire because when I'm soldering and my hand gets shaky, it doesn't melt the jacket, which looks bad.

The Teflon shielded wire is also a dream to work with since there is little chance that you are going to short the inner conductor to the shield by getting it too hot.

[Milkmansound]

I use a tiny piece of colored 3/32" heat shrink on the ends of the cloth wire.

I think the mojotone cloth wire sounds great, looks great (not that anyone else should see the inside of the amp) and its quick to work with

for grounds and power supply, I use the CE cloth wire. Its not push back, but its 18ga solid core and very easy to strip and form into place

[IMG1024]http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/ac167/milkmansound/IMG_3392_zps95f010fe.jpg[/img]

[telentubes]

I don't care for cloth covered wire.
I also use heat shrink at the ends, but for PVC wire, both solid and stranded. I also use Teflon stranded, PVC stranded, and really like the top-coat for certain applications. I haven't found a great source for the top-coat yet. Apex Jr. and McMaster Carr are good sources for wire.