Topic: cleaning bare wires

[Tim]

I use bare wires on my speaker cables, is there a good way to clean those wires? They are silver-clad milspec and have been exposed to the air for a few years.

I was also thinking of just peeling back the jacket, exposing new wire and snipping off the old ends

thoughts?

[momule]

acetone or denatured alcohol.  Both are mild and fast evaporating and leave no residue.  Stay away from lacquer thinner or mineral spirits(paint thinner)

[mfrench]

what?

acetone and denatured alcohol are both white hot solvents.
denatured alcohol contains, amongst other things - lacquer thinner.
paint thinner will leave an oily residue behind.

[momule]

what?

acetone and denatured alcohol are both white hot solvents.
denatured alcohol contains, amongst other things - lacquer thinner.
paint thinner will leave an oily residue behind.

Denatured alcohol is by no means considered hot.  Not sure where your coming up with its made from lacquer thinner.  Denatured alcohol is basically pure ethanol alcohol and tiny bit of Naptha.  It is what we consider Mildly aggressive.  It is used commonly for cleaning contacts and other electrical components. 

[mfrench]

I've finished millions of dollars worth of high-end faux finishing, wood finishing, enameling (Old world style enamel), in the nations/worlds finest homes (some at nearly a quarter billion dollars in the mid 80's money); and with an emphasis on paint and solvent interactions to create stable finishes. I employed 150 properly trained craftsmen, journey level painters, and laborers.
Couple that with a couple of bouts of selling paint products in high school, and in the early 80's, I've had extensive training in paint chemical interaction and contents.
beyond that are hundreds of faux finishing seminars (far before all the trendy TV shows), and how to get specailized paint reactions - I know a thing or two about what I say.

Yes, they're mild when talking about cleaning a metal, but touch a plastic surface or paint with those, and you get melting, clouding, and blistering, or, forced alligatoring.

[momule]

I've finished millions of dollars worth of high-end faux finishing, wood finishing, enameling (Old world style enamel), in the nations/worlds finest homes (some at nearly a quarter billion dollars in the mid 80's money); and with an emphasis on paint and solvent interactions to create stable finishes. I employed 150 properly trained craftsmen, journey level painters, and laborers.
Couple that with a couple of bouts of selling paint products in high school, and in the early 80's, I've had extensive training in paint chemical interaction and contents.
beyond that are hundreds of faux finishing seminars (far before all the trendy TV shows), and how to get specailized paint reactions - I know a thing or two about what I say.

Yes, they're mild when talking about cleaning a metal, but touch a plastic surface or paint with those, and you get melting, clouding, and blistering, or, forced alligatoring.

Not to be rude Mike but we are not talking about faux finishes. Were talking about cleaning copper wire.  Another option is a TSP (Trisodium Phosphate).  I would suggest the liquid kind made by Savogran.  They also make a product called Crete-Nu that will work for this aswell.  As effective as Muriatic acid without the corrosive properties.

[mfrench]

and I agreed. but still, your mild solvents are as hot as they can be, and as hot as can be accessed by the general public.
And I'm talking far beyond faux finishing. Faux work just happens to have extensive cross meshing of products and chemical reactions.
The solvents you mentioned (and I have as well) should be handled with extreme care, as they will drastically damage things.
I see you mentioned MEK as well,... only the top of the heap for the nastiest and hottest of the solvents. Devastating to the environment and the the renal and nervous system.
The only time I touched that was in applying linear polyurethane (poly-isocyanate), with Tyvek suit, tall rubber gloves, and forced air breathing apparatus on, and with the utmost of caution. Deadly stuff.

[Todd R]

All those fun chemicals aside, I think your idea of just trimming the ends back a bit should work fine.

Also, Caig Industries De-Oxit works great for this, and is what it was made for.  I used it on all the contacts of the cables I built. Certainly not the cheapest place to get it, but for convenience, you can pick it up at any Radioshack, unless they've stopped stocking it as a regular item.  Or for you Tim, you can come swing by my place and borrow mine.  Just let me know, I need to dig it up.

[Tim]

thanks Todd

[rigpimp]

Also, Caig Industries De-Oxit works great for this, and is what it was made for.

[Chilly Brioschi]

Caig's DeOX-It can be corrosive in my experience.
This is the opposite of what is supposed to do, yes.
But under high-voltage stressing, it took the plating off a few bayonet connectors in my lab.

One thing to note well, silver oxides are highly conductive and are nothing to be concerned about.

If it drives you crazy, use Stabilant22; it comes highly recommended by Dan Dugan.

http://www.dandugan.com/

http://www.posthorn.com/Stab_1.html

[sygdwm]

I was also thinking of just peeling back the jacket, exposing new wire and snipping off the old ends

this.

[Chilly Brioschi]

I was also thinking of just peeling back the jacket, exposing new wire and snipping off the old ends

this.

After a few years your speakers are getting close enough to touch each other   

The tarnish has a slightly diminished conductivity, but at audio voltage and current it is negligible.
When under pressure, the tarnish "walks" away from the contact point, as silver is malleable and somewhat fluid.

"Tarn X" type cleaners are not a poor choice in cases like these as well, as they leave most of the silver behind by reversing the tarnish reaction, rather than a mechanical burnish. Rinse in distilled water afterward...

I still like stabilant.  I use it on all my mic connectors and interconnects.
I've never troubled myself to use it on my (4 ga. CU) speaker wire.

[Neilyboy]

  just use a bit of semiconductor grade nitric acid.. problem solved..

Neil