Plain enamel wire on ebay

[JGundry]

I talked to AWC today. They said they made wire for Elektrisola for one month and one month only. Elektrisola now makes their own 42 AWG PE.AWC does still make 42 AWG PE wire and they said they will probably continue doing so. They also said if they stop making it they have a place that will make it the exact same way they make it and that place is not Elektrisola. they would not tell me who it was though.

I'm pretty sure they are only interested in orders of 100lbs. or more. I believe Wirenetics and All Star Magnetics sell the AWC wire in smaller quantities. I think the Wirenetics stuff may be bottom of the barrel partial spools from what they ordered long ago from AWC. Not sure though.

[David Schwab]

Oddly enough, Elektrisola doesn't even list PE on their website. They list Polysol155, Polysol-N 155, Polysol 180, Estersol 180, Amidester 200, Amidester 210, and Solabond I220. But that's not Elektrisola USA, which doesn't have much of anything on their web site!

[Possum]

...

This sale must have happened pretty quickly maybe, often big industrial websites are bad about updating their websites. Anyway you can't buy it from Elektrisola, only MWS will be selling it. I wouldn't take a chance with Wirenetics, they will tell you anything to get rid of that wire. I asked them to mic the wire 3 times on 3 spools and they sent me shit that had nothing to do with what I asked for. Its probably big fat diameter partials priced way too high.

MWS still has REA wire in other sizes that aren't popular. If AWC made wire for a month maybe this wire MWS is selling now is that stuff, its definitely black, maybe when they run out it will go back to the old REA formula. I wonder if the REA guys who ran that division and made the wire stayed onboard, it would make sense to do that instead of firing them. I think I know who AWC is talking about, I bought some black single formvar from them, they mentioned they had tried to make PE before and had bought equipment from AWC but failed every time and gave it up.

[kevinT]

I probably bought the last stock of actual Elektrisola-produced PE that Bae carried. This was about 4 years ago. The Elektrisola was blackish purple. I bought quite a bit at the time but I used it up except for a small stash.

The AWS that BAE carries is more dark brown than anything else. The OD varied when they first started carriing the AWS but i think it's pretty consistant now. The shades of brown are still different from batch to batch.

ooopps....I meant AWC.....not AWS...

I also thought that Elektrisola stopped making PE for a while because of the Benzine ban. There was talk that they were going to start making it again with a new formula. The Elektrisola that I bought about 4 or 5 years ago from Bae, didn't smell like benzine. ...The current AWC does smell like benzine...go figure.

[Possum]

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What "current" AWC wire? From Mojo?

[Electricdaveyboy]

Elektrisola

I called Elektrisola / Dr Gerd Schildbach KG some time ago and they could not help
me with the traditional american wire here in germany.They had no PE or Formvar here.
I think it is only available for the us market-got my Elektrisola PS from BAE.

[kevinT]

What "current" AWC wire? From Mojo?

The wire that BAE has been carrying lately is AWC PE 42 AWG.

Someone said that they don't have any up currently but they usually have it.

[Possum]

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Is it the old stock from 2003?

[kevinT]

Is it the old stock from 2003?

BAE had AWC old stock when they first started selling PE again after they ran out of the Elektrisola. The AWC 42 PE that I first acquired from them wasn't as old as 2003...I think it was around 2004 and the OD was smaller than what they're selling now. Threw off all of my formulas. It's pretty consistant now. I don't have a micrometer but it seems as if it is the same diameter as the Elektrisola was 4 or 5 years ago.

[Possum]

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Man don't you love it when wire changes and suddenly all your pickups sound like somebody else made them? Honestly the last of the REA 42 PE was great except in humbuckers. It did the weirdest shit, the high E pole would just have this shrill edge, that no winding pattern or magnet type would get rid of, all the other strings would sound great then by the B string something starting breaking glass. I spent about 9 months trying everything under the sun trying to fight it, but thats all there was, you couldn't get anything else similar, or the whole pickup changed character again.

Kevin if you could mic the stuff you have that BAE is currently carrying, I'd like to know what it is now....thanks.

[David Schwab]

Man don't you love it when wire changes and suddenly all your pickups sound like somebody else made them?

That's why I avoid that PE stuff! I don't want to get something I like, and then I can't get it anymore.

[voodoochild]

That's why I avoid that PE stuff! I don't want to get something I like, and then I can't get it anymore.

Same here. I liked the old Elekrisola PE and once it was gone I figured it wasn't worth dealing with anymore. I can't keep messing around with my designs with each batch of wire. Waste of my time after I spend so much time getting it right to begin with. I found that I can get the same tone out of single poly or even formvar after I change my tension and turns per layer to accomidate. And that stuff doesn't change. Set it and forget it for the most part.

[Possum]

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Well even the poly wire isn't consistent from batch to batch. At least from Wirenetics. I got stuff all over the map, diameters seldom the same. Elektrisola the same deal, insulations not exactly the same thickness and varying diameters. When you think about it we're dealing with incredibly tiny diameters and insulation thicknesses, small changes in that make noticeable differences in coil size and tones.

With PE the problem is too few sources and insulation formulas are different for each manufacturer. The REA insulation is different from the Elektrisola insulation etc. But you can't beat a good batch of PE with anything else, when you dial in a design with the right PE its tone Nirvana unmatched by the other insulation types.

[David Schwab]

I found that I can get the same tone out of single poly or even formvar after I change my tension and turns per layer to accomidate. And that stuff doesn't change. Set it and forget it for the most part.

That's been my experience as well. I use a few different wire gauges and insulation builds, and for each design the pickups stay consistent in tone from roll to roll, even though I know they vary slightly (they have the specs written right on the roll. If they sound different, you wouldn't know if unless you A/B them, and even then it's small. But I often record them for comparison, and they sound the same, which is a good thing!

[Possum]

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Well I can tell you as one specializing in the PAF thing for going on 8 years now, nothing replaces plain enamel. When you specialize in something like that you hear alot more than others do, and everyone here who really has done research into PAFs and uses alot of different versions of PE wouldn't use any other kind of wire. The difference is worth the price and pain of trying to get some thats good. To my ears the difference is really blatantly obvious, going from PE to poly or formvar in a PAF neck bucker brings in alot of mud factor. I'lll buy PE as long as its available and probably sock some away for the future, since its availability and versions are so unstable....

Maybe for those who are handwinding humbuckers you can't hear a difference, that thought just occured to me. When you're machine winding the way PAFs were done you get way more clarity and the differences there between poly and PE become more obvious I think. Handwound pickups have way less sharp a resonant frequency curve than machine wound, which is good for single coils but not for humbucker PAF replicas...